It only takes a rewatching of the first Rugby World Cup final of the previous decade to understand why so many supporters are frustrated with the modern game.
Although the New Zealand-France final in 2011 wasn’t regarded as a classic by any means at the time, there was more rugby played in the opening 10 minutes than the entire 2023 final between South Africa and New Zealand.
That’s a subjective view of course, but there is also an objective truth about both games.
Remarkably, the 2023 final took 17 minutes longer to complete. This masthead this week timed both games, with the half-time breaks stripped out, and the 2023 final ran for a touch more than 106 minutes, while the 2011 decider lasted just longer than 89 minutes.
The second half of the 2023 final took 56 minutes to complete, 40 per cent longer than the scheduled running time. The game is battling for eyeballs in an attention economy, but in just more than a decade it has added 17 minutes of nothing to its showpiece event.
Hence, the urgency of the recent World Rugby “Shape of the Game” meetings in London that this week produced a suite of recommendations designed to speed up the game.
Wayne Barnes in charge of the 2023 Rugby World Cup final in Paris.Credit: Getty
There will be debate about each recommendation – positions seem to be entrenched already – but the overall desire to make the game faster hasn’t occurred in a vacuum. World Rugby will be well aware that those extra 17 minutes of TMO checks, slow set-piece set-ups, substitutions, “injuries” and so forth have profoundly changed the game – and likely for the worse.
An increase of five minutes would be understandable – even seven or eight minutes. But 17 minutes is an extraordinary figure, particularly in a game that didn’t have any lengthy stops for injuries (All Blacks No.10 Aaron Cruden’s knee injury in the 2011 final actually added a few minutes to the first half of 45 minutes and 10 seconds).
Seventeen dead minutes: Why World Rugby had to act after Cup final
12
7
23.03.2024
It only takes a rewatching of the first Rugby World Cup final of the previous decade to understand why so many supporters are frustrated with the modern game.
Although the New Zealand-France final in 2011 wasn’t regarded as a classic by any means at the time, there was more rugby played in the opening 10 minutes than the entire 2023 final between South Africa and New Zealand.
That’s a subjective view of course, but there is also an objective truth about both games.
Remarkably,........
© The Sydney Morning Herald
visit website
login
who are we?
contact us
qosheapp
Toi Staff
Gideon Levy
Belen Fernandez
Andrew Mitrovica
Mort Laitner
Nikkei Editorial
Ali Fathollah-Nejad
Rami G Khouri
