Memo to the IRB: this is how to fix rugby

 
Spiro Zavos Columnist

By , 6 May 2010 Spiro Zavos is a Roar Expert

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Matt Giteau of Australia, right, is tackled during the rugby union international match between England and Australia. AP Photo/Matt Dunham

Matt Giteau of Australia, right, is tackled during the rugby union international match between England and Australia. AP Photo/Matt Dunham

On May 13-14, the IRB community – coaches, referees and administrators (but no journalists, unfortunately) – will meet in Dublin to discuss “the playing of Rugby.” 117 of the IRB’s member unions have given an opportunity to present individual and collective insights which have been collated into a survey to help the in-depth discussion of five key areas.

* the tackle/ruck
* the scrum (collapses and resets)
* excess kicking
* physicality of the Game
* the law-making process

Before making some specific proposals, both short term and long term, I would make the point that the rugby this year, except for the dismal Waratahs, has been forthright and entertaining.

In a wider context, though, we have to accept that we do not have the ‘correct’ laws of rugby yet, and the clever and complex nature of the game suggests that the laws of rugby, like the taxation laws, will always need to be revised from time to time.

Danie Craven, arguably the most knowledgeable man on the laws of the game who ever lived, once told me that the laws of rugby are wrong. “How do we know this?”, he asked. And he answered his own question this way: “Until we can write the laws down on a single sheet of paper, like soccer, we know what we have aren’t the correct laws.”

Since the laws of rugby were first drawn up in 1860s, there have been about seven major revisions. These revisions have involved such fundamental aspects like the number of players on the field and the points allocation for tries, penalties, conversions and field goals, to lesser matters, such as whether the corner post is part of the field of play or not.

The last attempt to redraw the laws of rugby resulted in the controversial ELVs, which attempted to do what Craven suggested and simplify the codification of the game.

The 30 or so infringements at the tackle breakdown area, for instance, were reduced to three. But the diehard British unions, which have resisted every change put forward since the 1890s, virtually killed the ELVs off.

Most of the ELVs, sooner or later, will be incorporated into the game.

But what the IRB learned, or should learn, from this episode is that a philosophic change involving an acknowledgment by the British unions that rugby is a running, passing game played as far as possible on the feet, must be achieved before the correct laws of rugby are found.

Now to the issues of the moment:

1. The tackle/ruck.
The tweak that SANZAR introduced this year of insisting that the tackled player be allowed to play the ball before any other player, defender or attacker, can play it has worked well.

We need referees, though, to be consistent on this, especially near the try line where the defence tends to hold on for dear life.

And we need referees to be as vigilant of attacking players coming in from the side to control the tackled ball area as they are on the defenders.

2. The scrum (collapses and resets).
I have advocated for some time that there should only be three calls from the referees: “Crouch – Pause – Pack.”

I had originally suggested Scrum rather than Engage to avoid a double-syllable hit-word. But a writer to The Roar made the valid point that the three consonants in SCRum worked to make it a double-syllable word. Hence Pack.

The referee should also have his hands on the back of the props and propel them forward with the call of the word ‘Pack!’

Halfbacks who delay their feed should be penalised.

Long term, I believe that consideration will have to be given to rugby being a 14-man game. The NZRU proposed this to the IRB in 1939, but other matters intervened and the proposal was dropped.

The logic for a 14-man game is that the players are much bigger than they were in the past and, therefore, the field is much smaller. One man less would provide more space for the running game to be played.

You would have 7 forwards and 7 backs in the 14-man game. The scrum would pack down in a 2-3-3 formation, the formation that New Zealand rugby used very successfully from 1900s to 1929 with the famous 2-3-2 diamond scrum.

3. Excess kicking.
Graham Henry has put forward the idea that marks should be allowed on any part of the field, and not just inside the 22. I am ancient, admittedly, but I played under this law and watched many Tests with its application and it certainly reduced the amount of kicking aimlessly down field.

So bring the mark anywhere on the field back into the law book.

I believe, too, that greater protection is needed for the catcher. The South African teams, especially, have perfected the dark art of taking out the catcher while the jumper appears to be trying to catch the ball.

4. Physicality of the game.
The way to address over-physicality is to encourage running rugby. Nothing tires the Bulls more than having to chase after slick-passing, clever-stepping speedy backs and forwards.

So there should be time-out for kicks at goal.

The one minute allowance for kicks at goal gives teams with big forwards a rest and reduces the actual playing time of a match too drastically. Also, the clock should be stopped from the time a scrum is called until the ball is played from a scrum.

I reckon these changes would result in about 15 minutes more, at least, of actual playing time. With this extra time, the big thugs would become tired and the little geniuses would come into their own.

5. There should be serious consideration given, too, to making conversions and penalty kicks worth 2 points. And drop goals 1 point.

The logic here is that drop goals should really be used to break a tie. They shouldn’t be encouraged, as they are now, as a way of piling up points.

There will come a time in rugby, too, when place kicks will be given away. I believe that in the early days of Australian Rules Football the place kick was used to score points.

Rugby needs to follow the AFL on this.

If all kicks at goal were drop kicks, as they are in Sevens Rugby, time would be saved, but a skill – drop kicking rather than place kicking – retained.

Remember, it wasn’t so long ago when teams used to place kick kick-offs.

6. Extend the use-it or lose-it principle to balls lying at the back of a ruck. The use-it or lose-it rule was one of the great philosophic advances in rugby. Having the ball sit at the feet of the forwards for what seems to be an eternity is hostile to the entertainment value of rugby and to the game as a passing and running artifact.

The recent Six Nations had the second lowest try-count (44 in 15 matches) in its history. The aim of the IRB conference, hopefully, is to get the British union to understand that this is not good enough for a sport that wants to have a mass appeal.

Hopefully, then, at least the decision will be made to embrace the Southern Hemisphere way of refereeing at the breakdown and, just as importantly, the Southern Hemisphere concept that there should be more rugby and less football in the rugby football code.

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