Rugger

So, inexplicably, one of the sports channels over here has started showing some Premiership Rugby games live.  I'm not complaining - though I'd wish they'd show internationals rather than domestic games.  And why there are domestic games on during the same weekend as Six Nation games is beyond me.  But as long as they keep on showing games when all the best players are available then I'll be happy.  But what I've noticed is that the game of rugby union has evolved.  Now, it is a lot closer to rugby league with the various phases of play.  A ball carrier gets tackled, the ball gets recycled, gets passed away, and the next ball carrier gets tackled, and so on - sometimes ground is made and sometimes ground is lost.  There seems to be a lot more of this in the various recent games I've seen than I ever remember - more brute force, more rucks, less kicking and less mauls.  It's almost exactly like rugby league, apart from no limit to the number of phases and without the explicit stop-start nature of rugby league (though not far away).  I miss the messiness and scrappiness of how the game (in my memory) used to be.