The great rugby writer Evan Whitton likes to tell this joke about the defensive qualities of most wingers.

“Question: Why do wingers score so many tries?

Answer: Because they are marked by other wingers!”

In past years, the defensive lapses of wingers were often overlooked on the grounds that their main job was to score tries. There was, perhaps, something in this. Tries were hard to come by because of the negative implications of the laws of rugby, as they were written then.

A winger who could create attacking magic out of nothing, like David Campese and Ron Jarden (the greatest of the Australian and New Zealand wingers), was more than worth his weight in gold, even if his defence was suspect at times.

The point here is that up to about 20 years ago, it was much easier to win matches with penalties than with tries.

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I was thinking about these matters during the second round of the 2018 Super Rugby tournament over the weekend and how recent changes and tweaks in the laws have forced the situation where everyone from props to wingers has to be an effective tackler.

And this applies especially to wingers. A poor defensive winger is now a total liability to his side. Henry Speight’s weakness in reading the attacking play out wide of the Sunwolves, for example, almost cost the Brumbies a win.

On the other hand, Dane Haylett-Petty’s ability to read the play and make a crucial intercept thwarted a Reds attack and led to a crucial try for the Rebels.

The defence out wide by the Highlanders and the Crusaders, too, was the crucial factor in their wins against the dangerous Blues and Chiefs wide attacking games.

And there is another aspect to this out wide system of attack, what I’d like to call the ‘all-field’ strategy, that most teams play. Not only wingers now are placed near the sidelines. On the short side near touch teams now use, as the Stormers did with great effect against the Waratahs, the explosive running of hookers to create havoc.

Most teams use the tactic of playing a mobile loose forward as a third winger. The Waratahs scored their final try to win a match that seemed lost ten minutes earlier when flanker Ned Hanigan crossed the try line out wide to score a ‘winger’s try’.

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The ball is now in play for much longer periods of time than in the amateur era. Even on wet days, the fields are not muddy as they invariably were. The lighter ball, greater fitness and more expansive laws mean that running out wide and forcing wingers and centres to be crucial links in the defence chain are now essential for successful sides.

Typically, it was Rod Macqueen, Australia’s greatest coach and a rugby prophet without much honour here, who has seen the significance of the new law adjustments at the ruck/tackled ball area for 2018 and the massive impact they are going to have on attacking and defensive play.

In essence, the new law adjustments can be called ‘Richie McCaw Gag Laws.’

First, the tackler has to come back behind the ball before he can try for a turnover.

Second, only the first defending player to the ruck can play at the ball.

Third, none of the players at the ruck can kick the ball through it.

According to Macqueen, these adjustments alter the balance between defence and attack overwhelmingly in favour of the attacking side. This is because it is now quite difficult to get a turnover by using the hands but much easier to recycle the ball.

Macqueen instanced the 41 phases that Ireland put together with time up against Scotland some weeks ago that resulted in a winning drop-goal.

Ireland did not make a mistake during this massive onslaught and Scotland could no force a turnover or an error. Because of this, Ireland marched relentlessly on from inside their own 22 to score their famous drop-goal.

The issue Macqueen raised was whether these adjustments, in the light of Ireland’s 41-phases, took too much of the competition for possession out of rugby.

In the Super Rugby matches over the weekend, we saw instances of 15 phases, 14 phases, 12 phases and ten phases. Few matches featured more than a couple of ruck turnovers. There is definitely a continuity pattern here. But is it a good or bad thing?

My feeling is that it is a good thing to have the balance between continuity and competition for possession titled slightly in favour of continuity.

The reasoning behind this is that a dominant continuity game produces tries. A dominant competition game produces penalties. This round, for instance, featured a number of high-scoring games.

With the dominant continuity game, we get the basketball/rugby we witnessed in the opening game of the round, a thriller between the Highlanders and the Blues.

The opening sequence of play from the kick-off went on for four minutes and 31 seconds. There was only one ruck turnover in the match. The half-time scoreline was Highlanders 17 – Blues 24 and the full-time scoreline was 41-34.

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Under the dominant continuity regime, winning teams have to be as creative on defence by making decisions when to load up the rucks and when to back off, when to rush and when to drift and so on, as they have to be on attack.

The trade-off on defence is that if a side pours players into the rucks, it can be caught out on defensive numbers if the attacking side can recycle the ball quickly.

This equation forces sides to be as creative on defence as they need to be on attack. And, in turn, sides that are smart are able to be effective on attack and defence.

The Highlanders, for instance, got their defensive-attacking balance right on most occasions. They also revealed a killer set play (I love these plays!) involving a halfback dummy run-around and an inside pass to centre Rob Thompson on the burst that split the Blues defence and created a crucial try.

On the strength of this game, I would say that the Highlanders are a better team than they were last season, with Ben Smith showing just why he is a Hall of Fame player.

The Rebels–Reds match provided more basketball/rugby points-scoring but the play was slower than the New Zealand derby. In general, all the Australian sides revealed glimpses of exciting, ensemble play. But there was not the same pace and energy in their play as the two best New Zealand teams (the Highlanders and Crusaders) revealed.

For example, there was far more kicking in the Rebels–Reds match, especially from the Rebels.  Although there were ten tries scored in the match (seven by the Rebels and three by the Reds), only a couple of the tries were from break-outs and/or ensemble play.

Admittedly, the Rebels recorded their largest ever Super Rugby score.

But the Reds were playing five new players. And in the ninth minute of play, they lost their captain Scott Higginbotham when he slammed his shoulder into the head of the impressive Matt Phillip and then for good measure smashed him to the ground with a dangerous head roll.

A friend sent me a cynical response to this brain-dead play by Higginbotham: “The Reds don’t need Quade Cooper, they can lose comfortably without him.”

Under the current laws of rugby and their interpretation, the officials did not have many alternatives other than handing out a red card to Higginbotham. Rod Kafer dissented. But the incident looked very much like the one where Sonny Bill Williams was red-carded against the British and Irish Lions last year in the second Test of their series.

My issue with the red card regime is not that it exists. For all sorts of reasons, including the health of the players and, therefore the long-term viability of a collision game, some sort of red card regime is needed.

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But not the current regime.

Games are now being decided on the rulings of the referee on matters where the standard varies from game to game, and sometimes within a game.

Against this, there is the absolute necessity for the rugby game to protect the heads of players. The health of the players is paramount. The game has to show through its laws and their application that players are protected, as far as it is possible, from knocks and injuries to the head.

However, and this is an important consideration, there is no doubt that requiring a team to play with 14 men for about 70 minutes, as the Reds had to, creates a virtual mission impossible to win the match for the penalised side.

The reform that is needed to the regime is that a red card should result in a 20-minute sin-bin, double the punishment for a yellow card.

The balance about protecting the players and protecting the outcome of the game is nicely balanced with the red 20 and the yellow ten-minute punishments.

The fact was that the Reds actually took the lead with 14 players on the field and then lost it when Sefu Naivalu scored for the Rebels.

Then they lost a second player, Lukhan Tui, with a yellow card. Again the Reds, this time with only 13 players on the field, scored again to level things up.

After this, the floodgates opened with two more Rebel tries before half-time and three more, including a runaway intercept by the impressive Dane Haylett-Petty (playing at fullback, where he should for the Wallabies).

The Rebels are sitting on top of the Australian Conference but for how long? They made relatively hard work of finishing off the Reds, even though the visitors played with 13 men for some minutes and with 14 men for 70 minutes.

A more realistic test will come when they play the Sunwolves in Tokyo.

The Brumbies had to fight back from behind and with momentum slipping away against them to beat the Sunwolves at Prince Chichibu Memorial Stadium, Tokyo, in front of a largish crowd. They gave away 19 points in the first half and were fortunate that more points were not leaked.

(Photo by Matt Roberts/Getty Images for Sunwolves)

However, there was some of the old Brumbies resilience about the team’s comeback. My main query about them is that there is not much sparkle or adventure in their play. Under the new ruck laws, it is going to be hard for any side to bore their way to a sequence of victories against teams from New Zealand, especially playing an all-field, high-energy game.

There is a similar query about the Waratahs, although it can only be a matter of time before their three million dollar backline explodes into a catherine wheel of devastating attacks.

Israel Folau’s chase, leap, catch and sprint to the line around about the 20th minute of the match against the Stormers really turned the outcome. The Stormers were all over the Waratahs and then like a bolt from the blue came Folau’s magical intervention.

The worst part of the Waratahs’ performance was the team’s dreadful scrummaging. The Stormers coaching staff essentially lost the match for their side by pulling off their devastating front row with minutes remaining in the match.

Against this, there were some positives for the Waratahs. They blooded eight new players. And they had the fortitude to score a try in extra time by stealing a lineout and then mounting a series of attacks that resulted in Ned Hanigan cantering across for a try out wide.

Last year, the Waratahs won only two of their home matches. They needed to win on Saturday night to win back the respect of their fans. It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t vintage Waratahs. But it was a win and winning, according to Vince Lombardi, is a habit.

Summing up, the three winning Australian sides – the Rebels, the Brumbies and the Waratahs – did enough to win their matches. But not much more.

They will all have to improve substantially in all areas of their play to be considered title threats. Do they have this sort of improvement in them?