Should Italy and Conor O'Shea be applauded for their 'no ruck' tactics? – your responses to The Rugby Debate

This week, David Campese and Andy Robinson debated Italy's breakdown ploy during their Six Nations defeat to England at Twickenham.

We invited you to have your say, too. Here's what you had to say:

Henry Harding

Maybe all top flight players should, like  most referees, take a referee's training course, pass an exam and actually referee a few games. That would sharpen their minds.

Paul McDevitt

At the end of the day Italy were woeful. Italy are being applauded for tactics that allowed them to avoid a real hammering and 'only' lose by a large score (which would have been larger had Farrell kicked better.) In the cold light of day, while England (Danny Care, in particular) had worked out what to do in the second quarter and the team as a whole worked out the plan for the second half, Italy eventually yielded a lot of tries. They couldn't compete, couldn't keep up with the offloading and mauling and simply ran out of steam.

The no ruck debate | What is it all about?

Robert Booth

Apart from being possibly the worst first-half performance by an English team that I have ever seen (within my memory at least), I applaud Italy for catching us out, but I think it will lead to too much of a free for all; the poetry-in-motion of the game will be lost.  Yes, I know: adapt, adapt . . .

Stephen Whiteley

I thought it made the game more interesting. I loved the referee's response. In the end, England won convincingly so to complain is to be a spoilsport.

Jonathan Ward

England did look a bit daft and to have the response from the Referee 'I am a referee, not a coach' is pretty crushing.  I wonder how many spectators realised exactly what was going on - 1 per cent at most I bet.  It worked for Italy.

Pink Fish

Eddie and England should have seen this tactic as an opportunity - and reacted on the field - by driving into the space - which would have forced Italy to engage. Put another way bad leadership and off the field.

Paul Lancefield

I have some sympathy for Italy. When I played school and Sunday rugby, we used to play a trick on our opponents, where when we were awarded a penalty, we would pick our moment where the man with the ball would walk forwards confidently holding the ball under one arm, point at the opposition whilst exclaiming "back ten yards! back ten yards!" Our opponents would walk backwards and we would be walking forward saying the same thing over and over. It would only work if the Ref understood, or decided to follow the rule that refs can advise if asked, but should not volunteer to "coach" either side. Some refs would intercede regardless, but when they didn't it was great fun. Then as the opposition cottoned on (which would always take surprisingly longer than you might expect I guess they thought they had misunderstood where mark was for where the penalty was incurred), we would break into a run. 

Ivan Veall

The consensus seems to be that Italy were completely within what is right (lawful) and also ethical (spirit), so there can be no real complaints. Equally, England did not adapt to what was happening so have to be at fault in not doing so. To my mind, that is more important than a team interpreting the laws in an innovative manner. If Italy had won however, what would the reaction have been then?

Chris Holmes

Campese is so holier than thou. If England had tried this against Australia you can just imagine the outrage that would have come spouting from his mouth.

Charlie Woodall

It's England's fault for not being smart enough to adapt to it in the first half. So many opportunities to burst through the middle around the fringes of the breakdown, yet Care and Farrell kept fannying around trying to force passes that weren't on. If they had done that we'd have scored 12 tries, or forced the Italians to defend differently.

It's great to have this tactic front of mind though. Could be used like a bouncer in cricket, keep teams honest with the threat of not creating rucks every now and again.

William Beesley

Although I'm an England supporter, I say 'bravo' to the Italians. At least for the first half of the match game plans went out of the window and one of the world's better teams had to think on their feet, and frankly didn't seem to make a great job of it. After the first 10 minutes of the second half, the 'experiment' was over and we were back to normal, England won as expected and the world carried on spinning of its axis. It was fun while it lasted though.

Jon Haley

Back in 2003, England were criticized for their interpretation of the maul rules, resulting in the "rolling maul". Clive Jones was happy to say "according to the rules, it's legal".  If I recall, they did ok in that World Cup. In fairness to him, a certain E. Jones complained about that at the time too.

Justin Kelsey

Firstly a huge congratulations to Conor O'Shea and his Italy side for bringing something new, innovative and different to our TV screens.   When you are fighting for your honour and credibility AND playing to the actual rules of a game then you are to be applauded for trying every damn cunning, disrupting tactic to achieve those aims.