TALKING POINT: Reaction to Bok innovation shows Dolores was right

It was never surprising, and it never gets old.

The narrative is the same. The Springboks innovate and the rugby world loses its mind.

We’ve all heard it before. It isn’t in the “spirit of the game” - it isn’t what the status quo is, and therefore how dare you?

But rugby has a problem. It is a game that needs to innovate, a game that needs to grow and a game that isn’t doing either of these things right now.

We can look at how World Rugby has messed up the World Sevens Series, taken over by marketing people who believe calling it SVNS makes it more palatable, and who cut tournaments and cut pathways for teams to make it to the top.

We can look at how the game is designed to protect the elite teams and not give the up and coming teams more exposure - and how revenue drives every single part of the game.

But those are all conversations that need to be had. How a global season never comes into focus, and how teams - especially South Africa - are expected to play all year round.

Yet, as another writer so perfectly put it this week - if the lineout move that has caused such debate over the past few days was performed by a French team - we’d only hear O’lala or by the All Blacks.

They would be hailed as innovative geniuses and the world would move on.

RUGBY NEEDS INNOVATION

Rugby needs innovation, and at the same time it needs to stay true to its core values.

That may sound in opposition, but it isn’t. It means that the core points of the game that set it apart from other codes needs to be upheld.

We need the lineout and the scrum, and we need to stop attempts to take it away. There are parts of the rugby world (and here our eyes are gazing down under) where they would love Union and Rugby League to merge.

Where they would love the scrum to be a restart and to have players simply running at each other at every turn.

But while that may work in some parts of the world, rugby’s truest calling has always been that it has been a game for all shapes and sizes.

We’re seeing more hybrid players develop, and being able to swap positions is an asset in the modern professional game.

But we are also seeing both players and referees having to navigate an increasingly difficult and complex law book that sees over 200 decisions needing to be made every 80 minutes of rugby.

So when a team takes a law and has an idea that pushes it a bit, why are we condemning it at all?

Innovation needs to be praised, to be celebrated and is likely to be copied in any case.

WILL WORLD RUGBY ACT?

The cynic in me says that World Rugby will ban both the lineout and kickoff moves in the next few months because they will come under pressure from some very influential countries that have a lot of money invested in the game.

But it shouldn’t and the challenge now is for a defending team to work out a counter - which will come sooner than later and the moves won’t work as well.

Unfortunately there will always be those who condemn any innovation by the Springboks not because it is unique but rather because who the coach is. The 2021 British and Irish Lions tour scars still run very deep - just ask a former Lions and Wales coach who pops up in the media every few months with a new story.

But despite that, rugby needs innovation. The game needs something to inspire the next generation. The global season needs to come and player welfare can exist side by side with the international modern game.

OPPOSITION COACHES WON’T WORRY ABOUT LINEOUT MOVE

What opposition coaches are concentrating on is not the distractions - like the lineout move that was used this past weekend - but rather the other moves that Rassie and Tony Brown have been cooking up.

The lineout move is a distraction - a bright shiny thing to keep some people busy - while the real work is being done behind the scenes.

Some will always cry foul when they see something new, something that shakes their comfort zones, and not take it for what it is.

But then again, perhaps there is something in those famous lines from Dolores O’Riordan when she penned the mass hit Zombie.

Perhaps all this does is underline the fact that for a lot of the rugby world, he is literally “in your head”.

And that may be the genius part of it all.