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@deleted
well there's a lot of duplicity in scrums, and further, the ruck. clearing someone out, is just an excuse to stamp the living fuck out of someone.
It might be possible to link this to the european cup. before the game opened up to them "continentals" english football was quite physical. (hunter, souness, mark dennis i'm looking at you). meanwhile, them italians were perfecting catenaccio. stronger defences, less chances at goals, more important flash events like fouls, therefore becomes merit worthy to "cheat" (play) the referee.
obviously, exposure to this (see derby vs juve in the 70s) meant we called teams "cheats". however, as the defences tighten up (see lack of space now compared tothe rampaging acres of space then) there's more merit on cheating the ref. also, the continual spotlight on the ref as making the mistake (sky, sun i'm looking at you) means the pressure is on the ref to get stronger rather than the players to change.
of course, this is all back of the fag packet conjecture. there may be elements of truth in there, but this is probably not the right conclusion to draw.