Vesty: We need all aspects of the game
NORTHAMPTON head coach Sam Vesty believes there are simpler ways of the RFU speeding up the game without introducing any of the off-the-wall reforms outlined in a recent report.
The RFU are hoping to launch a cross Premiership-Championship Cup during next year’s World Cup and would use the competition to trial some experimental changes, in a bid to increase spectator appeal, subject to RFU Council and World Rugby approval.
A sin-bin power play, where the opposition chooses which players takes a 10-minute breather, is one of the ideas allegedly mooted by the RFU working party, led by director of performance, Conor O’Shea.
Another is to incentivise an attack-minded approach by awarding more points to tries scored outside of the opposition 22.
“I encourage anyone trying to make our game even more exciting to watch but I think there are some pretty simple things you can do before you, say, substitute Danny Care because he is having a good game,” said Vesty.
“Enforce the five-second ‘use it’ rule and suddenly you get rid of a load of caterpillars (rucks).”
Saints would be one of the teams to benefit from a change to the value of scoring a try outside of the opposition 22, because relative to other teams they score a higher percentage of their tries from ‘deep’.
But, again, Vesty, believes tries should carry five points, and that’s it, regardless of where they come from.
“What we need to be able to do is keep all aspects of the game,” he said. “If you depower the scrum, you get 15 people who can all run around really fast and the game looks very different, with no space anywhere.
“If you depower the maul, again you don’t need those big blokes and suddenly the nippy lads, who normally run around those blokes, you don’t have a game for them either.
“So I wouldn’t change how many points you get for where you score. I think a maul try is worth just as much as a lengthof-the-field try and that should be the case.
“You want the different styles of play, we don’t want the game being boring and predictable, and teams having different styles of play gives us that.”
Meanwhile, Vesty confirmed that Courtney Lawes (head injury), left, is back in contact training and should be back in “the next couple of weeks”, while fly-half James Grayson (foot) is a few weeks away.