Hopefully I don’t regret this, but I’m assuming the q is genuine...
Breakdowns have been more free-for-all in the past but what often happened was:
- defending teams would just throw a tangle of bodies at the breakdown to pin the ball and wait for a scrum to blow up; or
- attacking teams would do the same thing to seal the ball off, stop defences from contesting, and hog possession for 25-30 phases while waiting for someone to make a mistake.
It might sound counterintuitive, but breakdown rules are actually meant to improve flow by allowing attacking teams to recycle ball cleanly, while also still allowing defenders a fair contest for possession. And that’s the crux of union - always contestable possession at all times... breakdowns, set pieces, kicks.
When it’s played
and officiated well, you get free flowing unpredictability and its brilliant to watch.
Good attacking teams can still build phases (much like a set of 6), but good defenders could still effect a turnover
at any stage and launch a counterattacks. For another RL analogy, think of the scramble when someone unexpectedly strips the ball and teams suddenly need to transition from attack to defence, or vice versa.
The challenge is the subjective nature of many rugby rules means ref and player behaviour play a massive role in how a game flows. An overly pedantic ref or particularly cynical (or shit) players, and the whole thing descends into a stop-start eye sore. And unfortunately that still happens far too often.
