New season, new laws – how will the changes work out?
Those involved at the sharp end of the latest modifications to the rules give their opinion
Poacher Matt Kvesic, Exeter Chiefs back-rower
We won’t have a job next year! In truth, it will have an effect on fetching sevens, but it’s nothing massive. The biggest change is not getting up on the other side. There had been a lot of opportunity to slow ball down or turn it over with your back to the opposition (see figure 1). You can’t do that now at all. You just can’t be in that area.
You just have to buy into it pretty early. Opportunities for turnovers will still present themselves, they just might be few and far between. You’ll have to be hot on the ball with a good body shape, stick in there and hope for the best.
We’ll have to listen to the ref as well. You know what they’re like. Early on they will focus on all the new laws. They might not focus on other things as much, so you have to see where they’re at as well.
Gamekeeper
JP Doyle, RFU referee
Global law trials happen between most World Cups – 18 months out from the tournament, there can be no new ones. The theory is that they try something new and see if it works. World Rugby will keep the good ones and get rid of those that don’t work. We’ve done two things in pre-season. One, we’ll go into clubs to do their training games and speak at team meetings.
I’ve been into Harlequins and Newcastle, spending time going through the detail of what the law is. We’ll also referee pre-season games – I did Northampton against the Dragons. A lot of these law changes surround small, unique events that have been taken out. The idea of someone running around the “tackle only” situation as in the England-italy game has been removed. Players get that quickly. Sometimes it might affect the game in other ways, though. If you have a really quick line-break and the attacking team form a ruck, there will be consequences for the defending team should they give away a penalty. With a quicker offside line, it might be easier to give away a more cynical foul. On a certain occasion, there might be a card for something you wouldn’t have thought of last year.
Two things will always happen. Firstly, referees will concentrate just slightly more on the new laws. Secondly, the players change their behaviour. They will improve in the area they know you are concentrating on, but something else might crop up.
Coach
Dai Young, Wasps director of rugby
The bit about coming back through the gate had become a bit of an issue for us – one or two of our players kept getting penalised for it,
Edoardo Gori
so that’s probably easier now. We’ve talked a lot to referees and we’ve been assured that it does not stop counter-rucks from defending teams.
That had been a concern, because if you read the law – “you can’t do this, you can’t do that” – you might think if the opposition has the ball, you’ll never get it back. Kicking the ball through a ruck came up in our pre-season game against Ulster (see figure 2).
That’s an important one because it should tidy up attacking ball.
Innovator
Luke Mclean, London Irish and Italy
Straight away, on the Sunday before we played England at Twickenham, we were told that we were going to hit them with a surprise. All week we were told: “Stick to it, stick to it. We’re going to do this for 80 minutes. Believe in it.” Only if things went badly or the referee started officiating in a way we weren’t expecting, were we going to get a call on and scrap it.
Conor O’shea and Brendan Venter were saying: “If we do this properly, we aren’t talking about sticking with them for 60 minutes, we’re talking about winning.” They were convinced and I think that rubbed off on us. It evolved. At first, we had one person running around and then we went: “We need two. OK, the nine and eight can do that and the rest can defend normally (see figure 3).” And we spent a lot of time running repetitions until everyone felt comfortable. That law, or that loophole, no longer exists. Some people say it wasn’t a great spectacle. I thought it was amazing. If you’re playing chess, you make moves to see how your opponent responds. England figured it out in the end, but they didn’t anticipate it.