On communication devices
Just a thought
From our Law Discussion earlier this week, a reader spoke about communication from the stand to the field.
The reader speaks:
I went to watch the pre-season friendly between Leinster & Northampton at Donnybrook in Dublin. I was lucky enough to be given tickets for the stand.
Now, I've always known that the coaching staff communicate with the docs and physios and other less important back-up team along the touch-line and they in turn pass on the information to the players. It just drove the fact home, though, on Friday night as I was lucky enough to be seated right in front of Paul Grayson and Budge Pountney and they were continuously talking with the staff along the touch-line – and I mean continuously, the way a commentator does over the air. It was interesting to hear all the tactics and planned moves, etc. before they happened on the field. It was a friendly so the laws governing the "runners" may have been relaxed, but they were continuously on and off the field. Sometimes they would be almost off the field after attending to an injured player and they would receive orders from above and then run all the way back onto the field to pass it on to a certain player.
The irony after all of that was that I don't think any of the 'commands' were carried out because as was shown, rugby can be planned only so much and then it's the "bounce of the ball" and what the other team allows you to do.
It brings another favourite subject of mine to the fore and that is in many teams players are being treated like robots or puppets on string and players aren't thinking for themselves anymore. Some of the commands being sent to the Saints players were so obvious and simple that one would think they would have tried them on the field without having to receive an order to do so.
The only time I think the radio comms are a great help is when a player is injured so that the medical staff can communicate the extent of the injury back to the head coach and also for the head coach to communicate his tactical subs to the touchline.
By the way, I assume that each team is allocated a frequency to use on their radios for a match, but what stops a team from tuning into the other teams frequency?
Comment: The reader's experience is not unique – not at all. Sit near the coaching staff and you will hear orders barked to the players as if there were direct communication with them, as if they could hear what was being said.
There has been talk of direct communication – via a bottle with a device or a device in a mouth guard or a device in headgear.
The coaches will tell you that their speaking is to medical staff and water-carriers. They will be able to make the communication only at breaks in play – and then it will be direct. The messenger will take the message to a specific player and tell him what to do next.
In 1996 when South Africa played France, Marcel Martin of Biarritz, an IRB committee member, complained that the Springbok coaching staff had been in touch with their team near the field – in those days just the doctor and the fitness trainer – in order to relay instructions to the team.
Nothing could be done about it because it was not against the Laws of the Game and by the second Test in the series the French management were also electronically equipped!
There was talk at the 2003 Rugby World Cup that Clive Woodward and Martin Johnson were able to converse during a break in play.
There was a rumour that a Welsh player had a device in his mouth guard.
There was talk that the Wallabies broke the Springbok line-out code by listening in – in this case to the referee's mike.
In a mouth guard? Peter Schnetler, an electronics expert, says that such a device is entirely feasible, if expensive, being in the region of £5,000.
Legal?
Law 4.4 (j): A player must not wear communications devices within that player's clothing or attached to the body.
That's clear enough. The scrum cap device and the mouth guard device are illegal. The talking bottle and listening to the referee's mike are not illegal.
The reader also asks about frequencies. Yes, the teams will have their own frequency but it would be possible to get a scanner, relatively inexpensively, which will be able to pick up anything between 82.9 and 1187 Megahertz. That would be ample to pick up a coach's instructions.
But what about the messengers?
Law 6.C.2 THOSE WHO MAY ENTER THE PLAYING AREA
The match doctor and the non-playing members of the team may enter the playing area as authorised by the referee.
Playing area?
Law 1: The Playing Area is the field of play and the in-goal areas (as shown on the plan). The touch-lines, touch-in-goal lines and dead ball lines are not part of the playing area.
At present that allows them to get up and close and even on. They can stand right next to the hooker at a line-out and relay instructions if the referee does not intervene. They can come onto the field and issue specific instructions at a in injury (or feigned injury).
It also allows them to relay abuse to opponents and officials – and it happens. (Remember England's burly interloper between kicker and the ball near the touch-line and his unpleasant row with the fourth official at the World Cup?)
Some time ago the IRB had designated areas for medical and coaching staff and replacements. that went by the board, apparently because of the delay in getting the medics to pints of concern. But it must be possible at grounds to have allotted areas dotted strategically around the ground where medics can be lodged, close enough to administer to the injured but far enough from play to let the players get on with it.
