Cut the bench to reduce the risk of injuries

AS the broken body count in the Premiership rises, with a growing consensus that the greater ball-in-play time under the new laws is contributing to the rise in damaging collisions, there is one area where I agree with Rob Andrew.

In a Radio 4 interview this week, Andrew said that the physicality of the current pro game was light years away from the form of Rugby Union he played in the amateur era.

The decorated former England and Lions flyhalf observed that the dial had been turned too far in favour of sheer power and bulk, and that the super-sizing of the game had to be redressed by turning the dial back towards a sport in which a wider range of physical types can play at elite level.

He might have added that smaller men do still play, but that the physical mismatches with Mastodon-sized forwards, and a growing number of Lomu-sized backs, are increasingly an injury waiting to happen.

Andrew was notable as a gritty tackling flyhalf in an era when some still considered it an optional extra, so his observations are not those of someone who shirked.

Turning the dial back is straightforward. Revert to the more aerobic less muscle-bound sport pre-professionalism, and the starting point is the principle of 15 players playing the full 80 – rather than bringing meatballs off the bench who can only run for 20.

Reduce the bench’s influence. Cut it to five, who can only be used in the event of injury. If it means a prop who can play both sides, a hooker, a back five forward, a scrum-half who can cover 10 and 15, and centre who can cover wing, so be it.