The radical new laws that could change the shape of rugby forever
WORLD Rugby are considering a radical package of new law proposals to be trialled after this autumn’s World Cup.
The governing body and French Federation have been holding a three-day player welfare and law symposium in Paris.
Eight proposals were thrashed out among a forensic analysis into the state of the game and generating ways to make it safer.
Four players have died in France between May 2018 and January this year and research shows the severity of injuries in the professional game is on the rise.
World Rugby’s law review group, which has former Scotland flanker John Jeffrey as its chariman, will meet in May to consider all the ideas that have been submitted.
Those approved can be introduced in selected competitions as a trial from January 1 while some are set to be given the green light in France in their amateur competitions. We take a look at the main proposals....
RUGBY UNION’S “50-22”
THIS is the most radical of them all and is an adaptation of the “40-20” law employed in Rugby League.
Essentially, it allows an attacking team the chance to get the throw-in at a lineout if the ball was kicked from within their own half and bounced into touch inside their opponent’s 22-metre line.
The current laws sees the defending team given the lineout.
The thinking behind the change
IT’S a way to try and cut down the number of head-on collisions and the concussion issues blighting the professional game.
The notion would be a defending team would drop players into the back field to cover a “50-22” kick rather than having 14 spread across the pitch.
It would create more space in the defensive line, reduce the number of high-impact collisions and allow for a more attacking game.
This, in turn ,would fatigue the players more, lessening the impact further of collisions.
REVIEW YELLOW CARDS WHILE THE PLAYER IS IN THE SIN-BIN
World Rugby are set to discuss the idea of using television footage to review all yellow cards while the player is spending his 10 minutes in the sin-bin.
If the footage shows the incident warrants an upgrade to a red card then the player will then be sent off.
The thinking behind the change
World Rugby have championed for some time now the issuing of more red cards if it gets players to drive down height of the tackle.
They believe a TMO reviewing yellow cards immediately could well lead to the more reds being dished out and thus delivering a strong message to the players on discipline.
LOWERING THE HEIGHT OF THE TACKLE TO THE WAISTLINE
This is set to be trialled in French amateur competitions next season and then could be rolled out in their academy tournaments soon after.
The thinking behind the change
The French Rugby Federation’s (FFR) technical director Didier Retiere said, he believes the trials may well result in a better standard of play.
“Tackling around the shorts allows the ball carrier to off-load and allows them to break the line,” Retiere said.
“Defensive lines will have to put two or three players in the back field so we could have less players in the front line of defence.”
OUTLAWING TWO-MAN TACKLES ON A BALL CARRIER
This too is being rolled out in the French amateur game next season.
The thinking behind the change
Again it is an attempt to lessen high impact collisions, especially the Rugby League-style hits where one player goes high and the other low on the ball carrier.
It could also lead to more attacking play with the carrier able to off-load in the tackle.
What are World Rugby saying?
Chief executive Brett Gosper told the Times: “Rather than just look at the laws and whether it has a player welfare impact, we have tried to devise laws that have a direct player welfare impact. That’s the first time we’ve looked at it in that sense.
“Some of the experiments we are seeing here about opening up the game and creating more space can limit the number of collision events and therefore drive some of the statistics down.”
He added on AFP: “Relatively quickly in the first half of next year we can already get some results, hopefully positive on some of these changes.
“Those law trials will go through the Laws Review group and the Rugby Committee before being discussed and maybe even improved in some aspects of it.”