3 Law Changes that will Improve Rugby | The Big Jim Show with David Flatman 

From an Aussie who only vaguely remembers Flats as a capped English player but fondly remembers his Lions Landrover ads, Congrats on interviewing another of a pretty small group (Tindall, O’Driscoll, O’Connell etc) of genuinely knowledgeable ex-players that can speak with authority on the state of the game. Fascinating interview and train of thought from a telly pundit that we should hear more from!

Flats was fantastic and Jim, another master class of an interview. You steer the conversation very well and don’t interrupt the flow. Very watchable. And for what it’s worth, if Joe watches a few of your pods, Jim I reckon he’ll like you just fine 😍 Those sort of conversations about the game and all it stands for is why I’m hoping my son takes up rugby this year. Keep ‘em coming Big Jim 👏🏻

Fascinating interview - great insights and common sense from Flats. I hope some of the the game’s authorities pick up some of the solutions raised.

This maybe the best and most sensible discussion around the current state of rugby I’ve heard so far. Love flats. Great pod!

Excellent show!!! Major League Rugby has 2 reset scrums then penalties. I watch a lot of Rugby Union and League for that matter. The skills aren’t there yet MLR seems to have sped up the game. I love the jackal. Yet, know it’s very dangerous. Flats and Jimbo are legends.

"Needs a LeBron James.." "We tried that with Maro.." Exactly. What did that consist of? All these media types bashing us over the head with "Maro.. Maro.. Maro.. Lions Captain. he's gotta be Lions captain" and all the rest of the BS we had shovelled at us. When people didnt like Maro any more or less than the next guy. Media have got to start letting go of all this viewer manipulation. It backfires.

We need to look at the rolling maul . Because it stifles creativity in favour of pure muscle and beef. Also aren't rugby players in front of the ball offside, irrespective if they are bound or not.

Jim, Goodie, Flats, Shanks pod needs to happen.

Great show. Love how Flats wants to ban subs to nullify the Springboks bomb squad and outlaw jackaling to spoil the All Black's game.

Great craic,great blokes.

:- 1 Reduce players to 13 a team. :- 2 rid one's soul of the contested scrums. :- 3 Bring in a tackle count #LEAGUE ❤😂😢🎉

That was fascinating! Thank you.

Well, you've earned yourself another sub. Great stuff

great interview!!!

Free kicks should be able to be kicked into touch and you get the lineout throw in but no reset scrums allowed and no kicks at goal from scrum penalty/free kicks. Kicks at goal only for deliberate dangerous play. With the less emphasis on scrums it will speed up the game.

Surely its back to basics regarding the sustainability issues, its bums on seat, TV subscriptions, the advertising that comes with the TV subs, then sponsorship that comes with decent TV subs So get the premiership to use its own TV rights via its own RFU streaming app ( for Smart TV's, XBOX, Play Station, Fire sticks etc) The tech is and has been available for years now. So use it, charge the rugby fan £10 a month and keep all the commercial revenue in the sport itself. Or at lest use a big, low cost high subscription service like Amazon prime, the paywall cost for the viewer goes down, the number of potential viewers will go up, when compared to BT Sky etc Make sure you can get a handful of potentially good games on free tv too Get the clubs to reduce ticket prices, to get bums on seats, they will make there money back via refreshments, merchandise etc and help grow the clubs own fan base, it will add to the atmosphere,which in turn would add to a better viewing experience hence better viewing numbers and revenue from adds Scrap the salary cap and let the rich guys spend money, yes some clubs wont be able to compete ( for a little while) but eventually the sport will grow and more rich owners will buy clubs and it can go from there. for starters there are not that many professional Rugby clubs that will be available ( unlike football where there is a hundred or so) Also 2 or 3 really big clubs would create genuine superstars, that again create revenue and become inspirations to the next generation , again until the others caught up Its a gamble for sure, but one that must be taken Yes there will be casualties of course but it surely has to happen, because it cannot carry on. basically If you stick you go bust, so Twist becomes your only real option!

No tactical subs at the club and provincial level but allow them for internationals? Especially in the World Cup the matches are a lot closer together, and the intensity of competition is likely to be higher regardless of who is matched up with who.

IMO drop the number of games each year. If Worcs and Wapss get relegated, keep the league with fewer teams and fewer games. Helps the concussion and safety issue a lot.

Flats is bang on .

I've been advocating for a return to no subs unless a doctor considers a player unable to continue. I believe Roger Baird was the first to suggest this as a way forward.

The RFU set out various measures to address player welfare. One of the important measures was a limitonthe number of games played by individual players. Another was that every player involved in a tour would still have a number of weeks rest after the tour. At the start of this season permission was given for a number of tourists to turn out for their Premiership clubs without the full break or whenthey had played the maximum number of games. The attitude to player welfare is lip service and will surely be referred to in the coming court cases.

If you look at the numbers - in many ways collision sports is more dangerous than being in the forces. Sure, if you want to compare with special ops then - yes - that is an extremely hazardous occupation. But guys involved in direct action represent only a tiny element of the military. And even those guys aren't suffering the equivalent of car crash collisions a dozen times maybe twice per week and who knows how many times in training. Someone mentioned a few weeks back that the average lifespan of an NFL player has now dropped into the FIFTIES. On the issue of brain injuries - it doesn't take a genius to figure where this is all going. Players are getting bigger and more explosive every year. But the thickness of the skull and the brain's defences against traumatic collisions are not improving accordingly. Same goes for the tensile strength of tendons, ligaments etc. I remember years ago when Gazza suffered that cruciate ligament injury which almost finished his career. At the time a ruptured cruciate was (thankfully) a relatively rare injury. Now they're happening all the time. I think there were something like over a hundred torn/ruptured cruciates and Achilles in the NFL last season. That represents a colossal sum of money sunk into players who are ruled out for the best part of twelve months - or finished completely. With respect to the steps introduced to mitigate the effects of head trauma. People forget that CTE is NOT caused primarily by high or reckless tackles. It's caused by playing collision sports full stop. We know this because when they conducted a study into the healthiness of kids playing gridiron around the age of twelve (who were protected far better than professional players for obvious reasons) they saw the same scarring within brain tissue. As for standing players down after a concussion. That's all well and good - but concussion is - by every medical definition - brain damage. You might prevent further damage by standing the player down. But the truth is it's a bit like shutting the gate after the horse has bolted.

Flatty should bring his girls to Lambridge on a Thursday evening, our girls rugby is well managed and we focus completely of safety and enjoyment.

Free Market economics, the numbers will always prevail.

Raise the cap to match the French league, remove the marquee player allowance, max salary for a player cannot exceed minimum by more than 15x 50k to 750k. Raises base salaries and controls the max. Hopefully bigger squads for wealthy teams. Like the time to take a penalty or conversion there should be a clock on being set for the scrum or line out. Limit the number of subs that can be used to 6 but allow a bench of 8 for flexibility

Love your chat Jim BUT you're missing yer wing-man...Goode !!!.

Flats is a genius

sound is too low....

I know we're all supposed to line up and sympathise with those bringing court cases and I do sympathise but are we sure rugby is solely to blame? Has anyone looked into the connection between the heavy alcohol intake of rugby players generally and early onset alzeimers? What about the effect of ahem...... dietary supplements, both legal and illegal? Many of them carry a heightened risk of neurological damage?

Compulsory scrum caps?

Uncontested scrums, whoever puts in wins 99% of them anyway, waste of time resetting them time & time again, then for someone to be sin binned for 10 minutes.

Increase a try score from 5 to 6.

Flats is right bottom line a lot of Premiership players wouldn't be good enough to be professionals in New Zealand South Africa or Ireland it's only by having 13 teams that someone needs a 3rd choice hooker or back up fly half out of all them teams. I know a few guys who didn't make it as pros in Ireland but get a few years with Premiership teams. I think relative to the rest of the rugby world a lot of them are lucky they can play and get paid something for it with their level of ability.

David has such small hands for a big bloke

Jackle needs a step over.

Only one way to improve rugby - protect players health (current format seems to be mostly about physicality). Dementia is a real issue for players having sustained repeated head knocks. Still getting too many concussions and violent reckless tackles designed to injure the player. IMO game isn’t sustainable and as is I would deter my children from playing.

Lads you have to be a bit naive if you think a law suit and massive payout and the media covering this will not hugely affect parents pulling out their children from the game at a young age. Parents are far more protective now than what we had and you will see the game slowly die.

1. Stop all the subs make players play 80 mins, 2. Stop the jackal , bring back rucking , the jackal is making the game so stop start, ref can blow up every tackle. 3. And get rid of the 3rd ref, 3rd T-Mobile only gets over try line