Controversy

Bored this morning and thought i'd share a beer fuelled discussion from last night.
Yes this will be bashed, but screw it, i don't care.
So, my feeling is that rugby is not nearly tactical enough. Yes it is more of a flowing game than the NFL, so obviously tactics are more of an on the fly procedure, and thus less specific. I get that. 
Consider this. How many times have you been watching or playing rugby, and noticed that there are massive gaps/holes in the defensive line of an opposing team, and yet the attacking team totally fails to capitulate? The reasons they fail to turn these opportunities into points are numerous. But, rugby is simply not a game where, up to now, teams have trained specific set moves to hit holes that develop during play on a regular basis. And i feel that this is probably the main reason that chances more often than not do not get cashed in upon.
Yes, set pieces are different. But i'd say that 90% of the set moves i see come from set pieces, or as in the Argentian game last night, really early on in the game if happening from rucks. It seems rare, if not totally non-existent for a team, after 5+ phases to suddenly execute a set move that directly hits a gap that has opened up. And it is strange because the attacking team will often have all their players line up and if you look down the field you will notice that there are normally two or three gaps.
So, for the sake of ease. Lets only deal with back line play, while assuming that the attacking team is managing to secure ball through phases.
Right, so under normal circumstances, in front of each player in the back line is an opposing defender.
Lets assume that after some phases, one of the following situations arise, that involve the defending outside centre. He is slow returning to his spot after a hard knock or out of position due to a plethora of reasons and this results in him being too close to his winger, too far from his winger, too shallow or too deep. His opposite number, or any other player in the back line spots this. 
What usually happens in this situation? Well the ball would come down the line, UNLESS MEYER IS THE COACH, and the attacking line may attempt to exploit this gap...if they are all on the same page that is. But for the most part, the attacking effort would be largely intuition based. 
So, this is where i think rugby is lacking, but will probably head towards in the future. You'll probably all disagree though. 
Similar to the quarterback in the NFL, someone in the back line should be nominated as a play maker. He will survey the back line spot the weakness, indicate via gesture or call what play to carry out, and the line is hit. Yes, different players will find themselves at the bottom of rucks at different times and thus make the synergy of different plays hard to accomplish. I get that too. But, what if all the forwards were able to carry out all the requisite parts in the set plays at any time. Meaning that even though three of them might be involved in the ruck situation, any of the remaining five could be called upon to get in position for an carry out their part of the play. The same would apply to the back line players. 
Yes, probably ridiculous to imagine. But it would be very hard to beat a team that, under the guidance of a play maker, punches time and time again directly at your weakness, wherever it maybe on the field at a given time. Also, playing this way would mean that it could be possible to manipulate the opposition into leaving gaps, and then exploiting them. Exploding off the ball, drawing attention and altering the direction of attack does not happen nearly enough and it could greatly benefit teams that use it. Here is an example...
An attacking team's back line, even though they don't have the ball can influence the opposition into a desirable situation. How? Just by how they line up. Remember the prerogative is all with the attacker. If the attacker suddenly sets up in a certain way, of which there are millions, then the defending team have to line up as best they can based on what they might expect from what they see the attacking team doing. This means, that while the ball is still in the ruck, the attacking team is able to create gaps before they even have the ball. So, if a ruck is near the right hand touch line and the and the play maker wants to hit a gap between second centre and wing then he makes a call, the back line position themselves, the defenders respond by marking attacking players and hopefully for the attacking team the defenders are now positioned and ready to be hit via the set up play. Yes it won't work every single time. But, what if it works 4 times in a game? 
I never see this kind of stuff happen, either at the level i played or at the highest levels but the one thing i am certain of is that it is possible.
Anyway, in our drunken state last night we thought this was an excellent idea. 
PS. The above is pure speculation

 Plum, I was under the impression that in the ABs backline Carter and Smith primarily identify weaknesses in the defence but that other player can also make this call. 
I thought the sort of cat & mouse stuff on how the attacking team lines up, etc. was going on already. Maybe I miss your point - your piece is a bit long for me, I usually can manage about four lines before I start scanning for key words

 Most NFL plays gain a few yards if any for an inordinate amount of time and effort .Plus its a massive task teaching some of those lumpen NFL boys to do one simple task at a time let alone making decisions on the fly .And our rules unlike NFL allow contest for the ball at any stage so trying to march up and down the pitch for too long can be counter productive .

 Plum
The problem with the WC usage of the SA backline was there were two many forwards standing between the scrummie and the flyhalf - so they became the crashballing flyhalf and the rest of the backline players have to live of scraps.
Your ideas are fine - but the unfortunate part is that the centers are coached to run straight at the first defender and crashball while off-loading as mentioned by you elsewhere is a cardinal sin and forbidden.   There is no clever running allowed.  
Unless we get rid of the scrummies who believe that forwards are backline players and their main function is to kick the Sh!t out of balls, while backline players are regarded as tackling dummies, there is no chance of any improvement in the performance of the Springbok backline.  
We can play the ebst centers and wings ever and the result would still be a largely ineffective backline.   The beer is spoiled and spilled at the scrummie and occasionally by the flyhalf so the whole re-organisation will have to start with the halfbacks and in essence Meyer's idea about a game plan he used in the RWC this year,         

Wardad & Win, i hear yas and yes i agree that some teams do a part of this already. It's just that Rugby seems way too intuitive heavy for me. 
As an example...how many times is a blatant overlap completely unexploited, even by the ABs? A lot. 
Most often, an overlap try occurs by the ball simply moving down the back line and possibly involves a skip pass or two. Generally completely unplanned and occurs because the attacking team spots the overlap and then works the ball in that direction for someone to dot down. As far as i can tell, it's mostly intuitive. And i think that if this happened in a predetermined way, where the most could be made of every aspect of the gap advantage, the conversion rate would be much higher. Surely these are simple calls to make. And if i'm not mistaken i read somewhere that the Boks have in the region of a few hundred calls that need to be learnt. 
So if A) they are already learning very specific attacking calls and B) defensive errors exist are already exploited naturally then surely if these errors could be correctly identified early and more efficiently exploited then more points would be scored.
Is it just that humans simply aren't capable of mental acuity and physical exersion on such high levels?

 Plum that overlap or gap is often illusory with defences these days being tighter and more sophistocated .Rugby League is more the go for your NFL type plays I would think .Interesting though .