One of the coolest ploys in the always cunning sport of rugby has its genesis when the rugger carrying the ball motions as if to pass to the teammate running behind him in support. (Since rugby is gender neutral, for the ease of pronoun usage we will stipulate that it is the man’s game we are discussing here.)
This scenario becomes most classic if the intended receiver is “overlapped,” meaning that the opposing side has no defender in place to make the play on him once he has received the ball. All it then takes is for the ball carrier to maintain possession and continue on down the pitch until his opposite has no choice but to “commit” to tackling him.
At this point, once there is no turning back for the defender, the ball is deftly conveyed to the teammate in question and, from there, it’s often clear sailing to cross the try line and touch the ball down in the end zone.
Now this is nothing new. Although it probably doesn’t go all the way back to the legend (some say myth) of William Web Ellis’ inventing the sport in 1823 while playing for Rugby School, where he demonstrated “a fine disregard for the rules of football (soccer) as played at his time” by picking up the ball and running with it.
The defender in question knows what the options are. Only moments before, he had been in a very similar situation carrying the ball while his team was on offense. But time is running out and he knows he must soon force the issue.
But just prior to him committing to tackle the ball carrier, he finds himself in no man’s land. He is laying back and attempting to cover both opposing players, the one with the ball and the one in support. This is where he can be “had.” This is where the “hoodwink” comes into play. There is deception in the offing. The game is afoot!
If the ball carrier has arrived at the conclusion that he can continue to gain yardage by keeping the ball, he will force the defender’s hand by faking the pass, then, at the last minute pulling it back. By using the defender’s highly-honed sense of anticipation against him, he has caused him to make a play on the overlapped runner and thereby, put himself out of position.
In the vernacular of rugby, the ball carrier has “sold the dummy.” He has convinced the defender, during the hurried flow of the match, when real time decisions must be made in an instant, to “bite” on the fake, to believe that the pass will be made and to leave his man for the other. The defender has “bought the dummy.”
It is a most lovely play. Although thunderous in the moment, in its essence it is pure ballet. A situation has been created by one side to completely beguile the other. If the offensive spacing is correct, there is absolutely nothing a single defender can do. To paraphrase that old closet rugger T. S. Eliot, in an instant there is time for decisions and revisions which an instant will reverse.
All of this is prelude, admittedly a rather long one, to a recent sequence of events whereby I entered the Park City Haggis rugby website (haggisrugby.com) to check on how they were faring in the current Division-1 Club Championship playoffs. A news item tagged “Utah Rugger Named Eagles Head Coach” immediately caught my attention.
The Eagles, of course, are the U. S. Men’s National Team and to have a local named its head coach was astounding. “After long deliberation,” the news bulletin began, “USA Rugby President Nigel Melville has chosen UVSC Professor Jon Moore to succeed Peter Thorburn as head coach of the Eagles. Moore’s selection was based on his thorough understanding of the rules of rugby.”
It went on to note that one of the deciding factors, “according to a source close to the decision” was that “Jon has a copy of the IRB rule book on the back of his toilet.” His Ph.D. in Geography from Ohio State was also noted as an influencing factor, as was the fact that his main rival for the position, Scott Johnson of Australia, “thought that Canada was one of the United States.”
The final factor bearing upon the decision hit close to home. “Proud of his Irish heritage, it was also believed that Jon would be able to unite the pasty-skinned Atlantic islander population in the United States, and help USA Rugby hold on to the Guinness sponsorship.”
Although I saw the article as a “roast” of Moore by his friends in the local rugby community, I never once doubted that its main thrust, that he had been named Eagles head coach, was factually accurate. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. I never said I was the loftiest wedge in the bag.
Things began to unravel, however, at my next stop, the USA Rugby website. It was there that I learned that Scott Johnson, not Jon Moore, had signed a four-year contract as Eagles coach. I returned to the Haggis site and checked the date on the post.
April 3! Hmmmm? Close enough to April Fools day for your average rugger. It seemed that the Haggis had sold the dummy and I had bought it. I just hope they have a few left to sell during their match in Las Vegas this coming Sunday.