Booing rugby kickers
 

WTF. I just saw a big segment on Sky Sports News about England being embarrassed that fans were booing Australia's kicker last week and issued an apology and have a note in the program not to boo the kicker this week.

WTF is that? Are rugby crowds really that tame?

:lol: What a bunch of homos.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/rug....html#comments

Some of the comments here are hilarious. Now I could never envision myself going to Welford Road.

I see what they mean though. I was at the Wales v Canada game on Friday night and the whole stadium was doing it. I know you should have the right to as it's your homefield advantage and everything but it's pretty disrespectful, and not a part of the true morals of the game. Personally I don't believe in booing a kicker and I stay quiet and give him the fair play. The Irish are very respectful on this front. Their stadiums are dead silent when the opposition is taking a kick.

How do you mean "tame?" They are more civil, yes, but the atmosphere at big rugby matches is better than anything else.

And part of it is because the crowds have no segregation. Home and away fans are mixed together in all parts of the ground, they generally get along fine. Also I've heard kickers say that silence is worse than booing anyway because it builds tension more.

The thing that annoys me about Irish fans is the almost constant booing of refereeing decisions that go against the home team.

ECG hit it on the head.
Most crowds boo, the Irish are very quiet at kicking time, and as said above, not so quiet when the ref makes a call against them :D

I guess that's Americas yearly rugby story. Back to NFL!

There's no segregation in the NFL...

The only sport that really has segregation is football, to be fair. That's also the only real sport with terrible fan problems, though they aren't what they once were in most places.

I'd known that rugby tended to be a lot more civil, and I've heard the fans referred to as more "white collar", where as football was more the working man. Still, it just came as a surprise that during a team sport with thousands in the stands there is still something like this, especially in a violent sport like rugby.

The closest thing I can think of is free throws in a basketball game, but it is a lot more rational. When your player is shooting free throws everybody gets quiet so he can concentrate, but when the other player is shooting free throws everybody goes crazy and tries to distract them.

This would make a lot of sense if that was the case. It's not in this situation though, as there probably wouldn't be public apologies from one side if the silence wasn't a sign of respect.

All in all it's just one of those weird cultural things that's probably been around for ages but doesn't really make rational sense when you compare it with other sport and fan culture, but that's what makes these interesting.

Well, Stephen Donald kicked like shit last night, and the crowd was so silent you could hear a pin drop.