Team sports where it's easiest to cheat

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Football has its deliberate handballs, shirt-pulling, diving and nasty tackles, which cause endless debate when they're spotted (or not spotted) by officials or (more often) TV commentators.

Even Cricket has had its moments with deliberate slow over rates, ball-tampering, and dark mutterings about 'illegal' delivery actions.

Seems to me though that Rugby is so much a wild-west bar-room brawl to begin with, half the time, it's a wonder the officials have got a clue what's really going on. England have conceded 25 penalties in the Rugby World Cup so far (in two matches) and depending which commentator you believe, this is either as a result of 'poor discipline' or 'deliberate cheating' - and if it's the latter, one can only wonder if the penalties that have been spotted and awarded are a 'tip of the iceberg' job at what's going on in every scrum, ruck and maul when they break down.

[Toby Gymshorts]

Team sports where it's easiest to cheat

It has to be deliberate to be handball

*runs from thread at incredible speed*

[ooh aah]

Team sports where it's easiest to cheat

"it's a wonder the officials have got a clue what's really going on"

At the scrum it's generally assumed they don't.

[Wyatt Earp]

Team sports where it's easiest to cheat

I think RU refs have got better at reffing the scrum fairly, compared to a few years ago when it was basically random: the thing collapsed, and the ref awarded a penalty to whichever team had the front row he found less personally annoying. In particular, they seem to have been trained to look for illegal binding by props, which is the best clue as to where the fault lies for a collapse.

But the downside has been that often fault can't be ascribed, so the fucking thing has to be reset over and over and over again. Wants sorting.

In rucks, the main cheating manoeuvre is the use of the hand, and the top refs are hot on that these days too, as England have found to their cost. I think reffing has got a bit less arbitrary in RU in recent years.

[Gawpus]

Team sports where it's easiest to cheat

I've always had a feeling that part of the reason rugby has (or claims) a culture of respect for the referee is because whenever a foul is called in a scrum/ruck/maul, pretty much everyone in there is guilty of something, so they aren't inclined to argue.

Anybody more rugby-savvy able to tell me if there's any truth to that idea?

[ooh aah]

Team sports where it's easiest to cheat

Why at Last! wrote:

But the downside has been that often fault can't be ascribed, so the fucking thing has to be reset over and over and over again. Wants sorting.

Yeah, it's particularly annoying when the ball is at the back of the scrum. If there's no penalty, and the ball is about to be released, then they should just play on.

[Wyatt Earp]

Team sports where it's easiest to cheat

Gawpus wrote:

I've always had a feeling that part of the reason rugby has (or claims) a culture of respect for the referee is because whenever a foul is called in a scrum/ruck/maul, pretty much everyone in there is guilty of something, so they aren't inclined to argue.

Anybody more rugby-savvy able to tell me if there's any truth to that idea?

I don't think so. I think the main reason players don't argue is that you immediately lose ten metres if you do.

[Janik]

Team sports where it's easiest to cheat

And that territory is very important in Rugby. The 'up-ten' rule didn't work in football as it didn't always help the team getting the extra yards.

[Janik]

Team sports where it's easiest to cheat

Actually, cricket is like Rugby in that any debating a decision with the ref is really not done. Handball, Volleyball likewise don't suffer from serious dissent, neither as far as I can tell does Ice Hockey. Any others?
Maybe we've got this the wrong way around, and shouldn't be looking for reasons why Rugby players are polite, because in fact they are not, they are just behaving normally. It could be that footballers are the sportsman whose behaviour needs an explanation here.

[Gawpus]

Team sports where it's easiest to cheat

Janik wrote:

Maybe we've got this the wrong way around, and shouldn't be looking for reasons why Rugby players are polite, because in fact they are not, they are just behaving normally.

Good point. Now that you've mentioned it, I can't think of any sport apart from football where the refs/umpires are questioned/abused so frequently. It does happen in tennis, on occasion, but it tends to be more of a big deal when it happens there.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Team sports where it's easiest to cheat

By reputation isn't water-polo the sport were cheating is so much of a given it's almost expected?