Rugby World Cup 2023: May the ball in play time reach its best level this RWC?
You turn up, you pay for a ticket. How much rugby do you suppose to watch? If you said 80 minutes, I have some unsatisfactory news. In the Premiership last year, the average game had 38 minutes of ball in play time. That is, in the 80 minutes of the game, just 38 of those had rugby played. The other 42 minutes were spent waiting for lineouts to form, kicks at the goal to ensue, and Rugby World Cup teams to decide what they were going to do when presented with a penalty.
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That might sound shocking. Are we being short-changed as RWC fans? Certainly, the modern trend has been towards wanting more and more balls in playtime. It’s logical, the more ball in play, the better, surely? I don’t think it’s that modest. Ball in play stocks, but it’s not a case of making games improved. Let’s look at why that is. To begin, let’s put the ball in play time into the framework.
38 minutes might not sound like a lot, but it’s a huge total more than we had in the past. The 1995 world cup averaged just under 26 minutes of ball in play time. The 2019 world cup had the most ever at 34 minutes. If present club trends continue into the global game, the France Rugby World Cup 2023 should cover that by at least 10%. In the eight years between 1995 and 2003, six minutes were added to the world cup ball in playtime.
RWC 2023 could quite smoothly get to the 55 minutes of ball-in-play time
In the eight years after that, just 14 seconds were added. The pace has rushed since then but it does look like rugby is nearing its ceiling unless drastic changes are made. Those are drastic changes which often get aired. Why not stop the clock until the scrum is complete, the ball is kicked, or the lineout is taken? Rugby could quite effortlessly get to the 55 minutes of ball-in-play time that football enjoys if it did that.
There are several reasons why rugby shouldn’t go down that route. Take American Football. The ball in play there is shockingly low, just 11 minutes, however, it is flourishing. It’s thriving because the action per minute of the ball in play is very high. The first is real. The Premiership final continued for 1 hour 58 minutes, 1 hour 43 minutes if you remove the half-time break.
Adding at least another 20 minutes by ending the clock would turn long games into marathon tests of stamina for the admirers at home and in the stadium. It also makes game lengths harder to forecast Presently games last coarsely the same amount of time as one another, the ball in play time just changes. However, if the clock was to stop more often then games in poor weather with plenty of scrum stoppages could take vastly longer
RWC: Cutting down on teams wasting time walking to lineouts over and over again
That’s not to say that RWC can’t increase the ball in play time nor that they should avoid doing that. However, many of the choices I see, stopping the clock at the scrum for example, are too drastic and risk producing a huge change in the way the game works. Instead, the care should be on differing the stuff which, to use a motorized term, veers into time-wasting. Kick clocks for consequences and conversions provide a clear limit for kickers and make the job of the referee easy.
Cutting down on teams wasting time walking to lineouts over and over again will also help as will forcing captains to make decisions quicker after they are awarded a penalty. This isn’t about adding on minutes of the ball in play time but rather making the game flow better. We can perhaps recall that second Lions test in South Africa in 2021. From start to finish that lasted 2hrs 11minutes. Rugby fans can book RWC Tickets on our website at exclusively discounted prices.
The final test was just under 2hrs 6 minutes. There was anxiety at how long these matches were taking. Finally, the fact that ball in play time can be gamed makes it strategically vital. If you’ve played you will be aware of the feeling of trying to up the pace of the game when you feel you have the other team on the ropes. Maybe taking quick taps or lineouts or starting up at the RWC 2023 scrum mainly quickly.
Rugby World Cup admirers will love attractive Nantes
Ireland admirers travelling to the French city for the France Rugby World Cup are in for a treat, writes Ronan O’Flaherty The step-counter app was working tirelessly as we spent hours travelling through Nantes. It was 5 pm, and the smart ones in our sight-seeing group had their shades on. Mine were back at the hotel, so I was sight-squinting. A spray sprang to life in a green space, providing much-needed hydration for the thirsty earth.
We were parched to it was 26 C in mid-April and due to a pit stop. The close kiosk provided chilled bottles of water and handfuls of napkins to mop our glistening brows. My phone pinged I had clocked up 20,000 steps. On a normal day back home, my mark is half that. The north-western French city is formulating to host four games at the Rugby World Cup Finals later this year.
Hopes are high that the Ireland Rugby World Cup team will go far. On Saturday, September 16, thousands of green-clad fans will descend on Stade de la Beaujoire, the home of FC Nantes, to back Andy Farrell’s men in their Group B game against Tonga. The 35,000-capacity stadium is seven kilometres from the city’s heart and well served by buses and trams, with one-way fares estimated at €1.70.
France RWC: The festival rejoices artists from across the globe
The Tonga match kicks off at 9 pm (8 pm Irish time), allowing followers the bulk of the day to see the sights. The commands are simple: pick up a free traveller map and follow the routes marked with a green strip in the roadway from any starting point in the city centre. If rugby isn’t your thing, Le Voyage a Nantes festival, from July 1 to September 3, is a chance to see the city at its most vibrant.
Bouffay is a quirky area of narrow cobblestoned lanes. The pedestrian square is full of trendy bars and eateries and is an ideal spot to enjoy a drink while admiring the beautiful buildings that have reserved features from medieval times. The hum of chatter fills the air and the vibe is warm, but that wasn’t always the case. This was once a place of ghastly death and gloom during the French Revolt
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