“There is so little innovative coaching now”
DO YOU ever have the feeling at a live rugby match that you’ve seen the game before? Well, you probably have, scores of times, and most likely it will be the same match next week too.
Rugby always used to be played in different styles by different teams; now it is a homogeneous, samey repeat. The shape and the patterns and the styles are so similar as to make no difference. Rugby can be exciting still, but the infinite variety with which it was played is disappearing rapidly.
When former Test No 8 Nick Easter, one of the wisest of the English rugby brains trust, appeared on The Ruck podcast this year, he was fascinating.
“My big concern is that everyone plays the same way these days,” said Easter, who is now coaching at the Sharks in Natal. “Everyone has the same systems in attack, the same systems in defence, everyone mauls in the same position on the field, and everyone peels
