Macdonald: Leave the laws as they are

Blues coach Leon Macdonald wants rugby’s laws left as they are ahead of the looming Super Rugby Aotearoa season kickoff.

World Rugby is reportedly considering some major law tweaks in the wake of the Covid19 pandemic that has shut down the sporting world for the last couple of months.

Among changes being mooted by the global body’s medical group is a proposal to do away with reset scrums. Upright tackling, team huddles and spitting would also be scrapped under recommendations, with playing kit and headgear required to be changed at halftime to reduce the transmission risk of Covid-19.

Macdonald, whose Blues are into their second week of preparations ahead of their June 14 season opener against the Hurricanes in Auckland, was in the dark over any potential law tweaks ahead of the revamped Kiwi-only competition.

The Super Rugby season was halted mid-march with the onset of the coronavirus pandemic and the rejigged New Zealand-only Aotearoa league will be the first major professional rugby competition to resume after the global sporting shutdown.

‘‘You’ve got to play the game, and if you’re going to play, you’ve got to do it properly,’’ Macdonald said when asked about the proposal to drop scrum resets ahead of yesterday’s training session at the Blues’ Alexandra Park headquarters.

Macdonald, whose Blues were flying when the original Super Rugby season was halted, confirmed there had been no messages from on top around prospective law tweaks.

‘‘It’s business as usual for us,’’ he added. ‘‘I think we would have had a directive by now if there were going to be no scrums, so we’re expecting everything to look like rugby when we resume.’’

Macdonald confirmed the only indications he had received around laws involved area of emphasis set to be taken by referees around the offside line and breakdown area.

The Blues coach and former All Black was also asked about a potential rethink on Super Rugby’s competition structure around a time when all sports were being forced to take a hard look at themselves.

Initially he was somewhat non-committal, but eventually conceded that a rationalisation of the multi-nation Super Rugby competition was a likely upshot of the global pandemic.

‘‘Those decisions are probably above my pay-scale,’’ he said. ‘‘But probably everyone is rethinking everything at the moment . . . we’ve had a rethink even how we train around here.

It’s probably a chance for everybody to chuck out the old set of rules and start looking at what the future looks like.

‘‘I’m sure New Zealand Rugby will be doing that. It might be forced through restrictions around borders etc. What the next 12 months looks like, who knows. It depends if we’re stuck in our little bubble for a while.

‘‘We’re trying not to dwell on what-ifs and maybes. We’ve been doing that for eight weeks in lockdown, now we’ve got some certainty which is a start-date, we know we’re training today and we’re taking it step by step.’’

Then he conceded that Super Rugby as we knew it might well be a thing of the past.

‘‘Around the future the obvious and simple solution is probably something pretty local with Australia potentially and maybe someone else pretty close by. But who knows.’’

Macdonald has a fully fit squad to choose from as he works through preparations for the June 14 clash against the Canes.