- Moderator
- #476
I should have written "RU 15's type & frequency of" - after my "no" in "no... scrums, lineouts etc". RU 7's has been designed as a much more free flowing, ball in hand game, with less emphasis on scrums & lineouts. RU 7's have much fewer players, also, involved in their scrum & lineout.
Scrums and lineouts are still important set pieces in sevens. Tactics for them in sevens are more and more finding their way over to the 15 a side game. So the idea that their is less emphasis on scrums and lineouts in sevens is just a wrong idea to have and shows a lack of knowledge for the code in general. As for the game having being designed as a more free flowing, ball in hand game thats just not true. It was designed to develop the the defensive skills of local Melrose players in the Borders region of Scotland, the game as we know it was a byproduct of that as more nations took up Sevens and Rugby, but it was not what they set out to develop.
I never said RU 7's was a new sport -I was aware RU 7's has been played for a very long time. In recent times, however, it has been given more emphasis by RU orgs. & become more popular (now an Olympic sport) -to attract people to a more free flowing game who might not like the inscrutability of the Rules, & incessant stoppages/scrums/lineouts/mauls etc of RU 15's.
The 1970's aren't recent times, thats when the wider International push outside Rugby's traditional areas started, with the Hong Kong Sevens considered the unofficial World Cup before the Rugby World Cup came into being in 1987. Also Rugby was an Olympic Sport before 2016, with it being seen as a return not an entry of a new sport, but hey pesky facts.
The force applied in a RU 15 scrum is much greater than a RU 7 scrum, & the strength required for lifting a player in the RU 15 lineout is greater cf RU 7's.
The typical RU 7 player is a "lightweight" cf his RU 15 counterpart. RU 7's is a much greater running game, requiring greater fitness ie much less requirement for brute strength.
Sure less players in a scrum means less force, but more lightweight players doesn't mean lifting is any easy thats just poor logic and shows a lacks of knowledge of how lineouts work in the 15 a side game, before we even get to Sevens. But the fitness point is the one that makes me laugh. Sure there are differences but the way you think the 15 a side game works is so out of place in todays game, that it was left behind in the 1980's. Brute Strength gets you no where.