Another season, another competition, and another set of law changes for the newly formed Rainbow Cup involving teams from England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and (hopefully) South Africa.
The only constant change in the game of rugby union seems to be the various and differing set of laws being introduced with each new season, all in the name of making the game more attractive.
However, these continuous law changes haven’t done much good, except for making the game even more complicated to follow as a spectator and participate in as a player and referee.
World Rugby’s infatuation with constant law changes season after season is becoming a continual burden on the game. With each season that passes, there is constant tinkering and meddling of rugby’s laws by the officials running the game. Some have had the desired impact of making the game more free-flowing.
What is being touted is the red-card replacement after 20 minutes for the Rainbow Cup, which I fully agree with. It makes for an overall fairer contest, not leaving teams and fans shortchanged by watching an unequal contest. Laws such as creating space by back lines being five metres from a scrum, as an example, have benefited the game overall, allowing for more space for players to attack with the ball.
The new laws of late have left much to be desired, as has been voiced by various players, in particular Crusaders captain Scott Barrett and Blues forwards coach Tom Coventry during Super Rugby Aotearoa in New Zealand.
(Photo by Kai Schwoerer/Getty Images)
“I like to see teams rewarded for constant attacking pressure, and getting held up over try line and getting a scrum off the back of that is good for the game,” Coventry said regarding the goal-line drop out instead of five-metre scrums for the attacking team being held up over the try line.
He makes a salient point about rewarding the attacking team. Rugby has become so defence-orientated that this law change again favours the team without the ball as if rugby needs the deck stacked more against teams on attack.
The captain’s call, which allows the captain of a team to query a passage of foul play or knock-on leading up to a scoring opportunity, only confuses the refs and fans alike. Barrett said: “It just slows up play. There’s TMOs for a reason, the game is already becoming stop-start enough. The refs, as well as the assistants, they’ve got good eyes for the game. You don’t want the game slowing down and the refs second-guessing their own decisions.”
This came after a captain’s call that benefitted the Crusaders in their clash against the Hurricanes a few weeks back.
One of the main reasons football has been and remains such a globally popular sport is because their laws haven’t changed dramatically over a long period of time.
Yes, VAR has certainly created animosity and frustration of late. However, overall, football has remained popular because of the simplicity of the game’s laws.
(Albert Perez/Getty Images)
Rugby is of course a far more complicated game with many more moving parts during its contest and thus all the more reason for trying to simplify the game, as opposed to adding more rules or changing the existing laws under the guise of creating a more attractive game without any real benefit to the game in its applications.
These laws only serve to make the game more of a stop-start affair and more defence-orientated, with a lack of reward for the team with the ball and further confounding referees and TMOs in their decision-making whereby they are doubting themselves further.
This alludes to constant criticism of referees by the pundits and fans alike. Instead of celebrating the skills of players, inevitably the newspaper scribes will be writing about the ref’s performance and what they got wrong over the weekend.
While hindsight is 20/20, the rules and laws of the game need serious introspection and that introspection should be one of simplifying a complicated game.
World Rugby need to look at the rule book and draw from past experiences and experimentations of laws and decide once and for all what rules and laws will stay and what needs to be consigned to scrap heap for good.
With that said, the implementation of laws giving favour to the team with the ball in hand at the time should always be favoured. Rugby has become a game where it’s easier to play without the ball, which goes against the very reasons we enjoy and watch the sport.
I just hope those changes will be for the benefit of the game as a whole for one final time and not be changed for the sake of change.
Tony Hodges
Roar Rookie
I like them both.
Micko
Roar Rookie
Out of all foreigners that come here Piru, us aussies find you kiwis are amongst the worst. You're entitled and arrogant, you have giant anti-aussie chips dug out of BOTH shoulders BEFORE you even move here! And you suffer from a gigantic in feriority complex: you think you need to prove something to yourselves and others all the time. Imagine if I migrated to NZ with that attitude? Start getting hostile every time rugby union got mentioned...it would just be weird!
Micko
Roar Rookie
These dopey comments don’t help you Piru. I’m NOT going to bed because I’m watching the F1. So you have a good night mate. :thumbup:
piru
Roar Rookie
Bloody foreigners! Coming over and…. supporting our local teams! Jeez you’re a sad little fella. Can only assume your gf left you for a scaffolder to make you so. Go to bed mate
Micko
Roar Rookie
It’s literally what you deluded yourself about last time Piru. I mentioned the WAFL and you immediately started getting hostile about it. Nothing original there Piru: we’ve had kiwis like you for the last few decades. You can’t deal with the fact that rugby union has little cultural relevance here…sad!
piru
Roar Rookie
Now making things up mate? Sad Go to bed
Micko
Roar Rookie
You're the same delusional kiwi that tried telling a native Perthian & West Australian about how huge rugby union was here. You lost all credibility there buddy! :silly: :laughing:
piru
Roar Rookie
Thanks for your input as always micko. Don't let being wrong stop you from carrying on
Micko
Roar Rookie
Stop deluding yourself Piru: the overwhelming majority of europeans & yanks won't ever carefor this sport. Selling out in Argentina,SA, NZ...pffft right! :laughing: You've got to stop punishing yourself like this!
Jamie
Guest
The code of Rugby in Australia is dying a slow death. With continual dwindling crowds and a dramatic drop in viewer audiences it as a spectacle has lost its viewers. The lack of viwer interest isn't purely based around the subject of rule changes but more around the speed of the game. As a code it's too stop start with the referees allowing for stoppages that the other codes don't allow. The NRL and AFL as a spectacle flows and doesn't allow a player with cramp or minor injury stop or halt the game for upwards of 2 minutes while everyone catches their breath. Rugby players can't go for more than 8minutes before there is a stoppage. The ball in play is 38% comparatively to the NRL which now has (with their new rule changes) ball in play at 72+% and they play with 2 less players on the field and less interchanges. Union has killed itself in this country by its own traditions and not paying attention to its supporter base. Without a supporter base you don't have a sport so it's not about the coaches the players and the code its altering a spectacle that has viewer interest and in its current format Rugby in Australia is on life support ready to have its plugged pulled.
liquorbox_
Roar Rookie
So you like checkers and I like chess?
Monorchid
Roar Rookie
G'day BF. Thanks for the reply. Very much appreciated. I think you're completely right with your explanation of the world wide spread. Have a look at "Tom Brown's School Days" which has apparently an authentic description of what rugby used to be like. The author and his brother are supposed to have attended Rugby school. The forwards were called "The Heavy Brigade" and some of the rest of the groups of players (combatants) had similar military names. Apparently the intent was, as you say, to produce leaders and decision makers to further the interests of the Empire. They didn't do too bad a job of it in my opinion.
PeterK
Roar Guru
really, crooked scrum feeds? Also I am talking about at professional level, do you ref super rugby or above? So do you see clear infringements by law as written at rucks which the ref ignores at professional level? Besides the players are not as cynical at subbies.
Busted Fullback
Roar Rookie
G'day Andy. I don't know... it looks to me like poorly (illegally) executed mauls (from 5m out) are their own second chances. :shocked: :angry:
Busted Fullback
Roar Rookie
"The powers that be" presiding in the North and those Teir 2 and lower who need the money will have the over-riding say about a South sponsored trial. I think we all know how that's going to go.
Red Rob
Roar Rookie
jcm I’ll confess I don’t have the answer. . But I’m not pretending that simplification is an answer, it’s a frame of reference for finding an answer. . (Spoken like a lifelong lawyer and public servant, I know …)
jcmasher
Roar Rookie
I’m not sure we’re told to ignore them. I’ve certainly never been told that in 14 years of refereeing
jcmasher
Roar Rookie
Ok and that’s fair but what’s the solution? A bland “simplify the laws” isn’t an answer. Which laws should be simplified without changing the focus of the game, how would you change them and what are the consequences of the change?
AndyS
Guest
That is actually what I like about it. I like pick and drive, but too many teams have been getting away with bad technique because they get a rinse and repeat if they just brainlessly dunt away until there is a dubious penalty or mysterious knock-on. The trial means they have to do it well, be sure, and a defending side has a mechanism to deny them if they don't. There are no second chances for poorly executed passes, kicks, mauls, etc, so I don't see why the attacking team should get a do-over when they fail to achieve the single thing the pick and drive (or any try attempt) is supposed to do.
Busted Fullback
Roar Rookie
At a time gone by, if the ball was in front of the last foot in a ruck and someone, anyone, touched it, there was a penalty for “hands in the ruck”. Simple. But with tinkering, we’ve now got players laying the ball back, even once the ruck has formed and 9’s with their hands all over the ball before it comes out, waiting for their forward obstructors to get into place so that, with far less skill they can put in their little box kick (that some off-side blind side winger can chase). Defending backs can’t come forward because the ball isn’t “out” yet. And the players can’t make a decision, they’re told by the ref when they should “use the ball”. Gareth Edwards, Syd Going and John Hipwell were skillful enough to be able to play to the Laws of the game. What’s wrong with today’s players? Our’s is a complex game,built around some fairly simple laws that have become confusing because of the tinkering with mainly, but not exclusively, guidelines and interpretations. The fact that these two sections take up more than the Laws in the printed form, should tell us that we have been making adjustments with less care than we should. Certainly there is a case for making the game safe by reducing the possible incidence of head injury, but a body being rucked out legally did no-one any harm. Perhaps the need for tinkering has come about due to the fact that English is not as well taught as it was back in the pre-90’s (a discussion for another forum perhaps), or the law making has been over run by legal types, but the game has to be enjoyable for the players, coaches and referees, with laws easily understood and easily enforced. If the coaches, players and referees are enjoying the game, so also will the spectators.