Officials must act to halt the slow game's death as a spectacle

Rugby's southern hemisphere invasion begins today, as forbidding as the first Christmas shopping list. Australia, New Zealand and South Africa are here for the next few weeks and will dominate the rest of the autumn.

But will these be visits worthy of the great Wallabies, Springboks and All Blacks? Or are we to see the kind of cynicism that littered so much of this year's Tri-Nations when, without putting too fine a point on it, players came as near as dammit to cheating.

The Sydney Test in August between Australia and New Zealand was one example of what is now a serious challenge to the laws of the game. The blitz defence, employed by the All Blacks in Sydney and South Africa in Christchurch a few weeks earlier, had its roots in illegality. I'm perfectly aware that contemporary players are bigger, faster, stronger and fitter than ever before. But if a player is standing fully behind the rear feet when possession is released on the opposing team, there is no way in the world a human being can reach the recipient of that pass at the same time as the ball. Rugby might have changed but the laws of physics haven't. No, what we witnessed was a calculated challenge to referees on the illegality of creeping offside.

Or, more often in the case of the Australians, clever and equally cynical slowing down of the loose ball, thereby ruining any proper chance of the attacking side spreading loose ball sufficiently quickly to outflank the defence and score tries.

Coaches know full well that a referee who blows his whistle for 80 minutes to penalise every such transgression is a man with a death wish. He risks not getting another Test match, such would be the chorus of disapproval. Too often, we have this crass scenario of referees shouting at players in a ruck, "Hands off white" by which time the damage has been done. Release of the ball has been sufficiently delayed to enable the defence to realign.

But the point is, coaches who send their teams out to play this game risk more than just winning or losing a Test match. Senior officials within the game's hierarchy are concerned. As one leading administrator told me: "If you remove the contest for the ball there is no game. But despite the IRB's efforts to create uncertainty over possession and attempts to create space - such as ensuring players join the ruck and maul only through the rear gate and flankers stay down in the scrum - cynical coaches and players seem bent on by-passing this intent. They will eventually destroy the game as a spectacle."

The former Queensland coach John Connolly, now with English club Bath, agrees. "No one slows the ball down at the breakdown like the Australians. They practise the second man in, slowing possession. And the All Blacks in Sydney this year were constantly offside. Players should have been sent to the sin-bin a lot earlier."

Teams such as England and Scotland have been equally culpable. Some of their players have spent much of their careers on the floor, killing ball.

Remedying this flagrant breach of the rules is not easy. But men like Connolly believe there should be no warnings to players holding on to the ball, just penalties and sin-bins. IRB officials suspect law changes will have to be considered.

Cynicism of this kind calls for a draconian response, and in cases where a try seemed possible but for the illegal act, the awarding of a penalty try would force errant teams to reconsider. The wording of the law should be changed from "probability" to "possibility".

The law makers cannot ignore this worrying trend. For if the game does not defend itself with sufficient vigour, rugby football will simply die as a spectacle, and who on earth wants that?