COMMENT BY MIKE GREENAWAY
Years ago, I read an article in the Sydney Morning Herald about why most Australians prefer rugby league to union.
The biggest complaint about union was that set-pieces, especially set scrums, took forever. In league, when there is a stoppage, the game resumes almost immediately.
I could not have agreed more about the scrums.
For me, there is nothing more tedious in sport than watching a scrum collapse and watching two packs of forwards wearily climb to their feet, only for the scrum to go down again and the tiresome sequence is repeated, each collapse and reset eating up two minutes of game-time.
So, World Rugby’s announcement this week that they are to implement a global trial of the law changes from January 1 next year to speed up the set-pieces is a significant step in the right direction.
I agree with the governing body’s statement that a 30-second limit on scrum and lineout put-ins will “enhance both fan and player experience”.
The rolling maul is also in the spotlight, and once more I think World Rugby are spot-on in wanting to do something about boring, endless mauls that cannot be legally stopped.
For officials, it is almost impossible to identify whether the team with the ball are obstructing defenders or defenders have deliberately pulled down the maul.
The new law says that the maul can only stop once before the team with the ball have to move it away. This gives the defending team a fighting chance to successfully defend.
If these changes are sounding familiar to you, it is because they have been trialled in various competitions, including the recently-ended Rugby Championship and Pacific Cup.
Also trialled was the 30-second shot clock for goal-kickers.
World Rugby said that in the competitions, “playing time was up by more than two minutes and 30 seconds, reaching more than 33 minutes per match, while matches took up to five minutes less to finish”.
And the ball-in-play time will increase as players and referees get better used to it – it was notable in the Rugby Championship that the referees often forgot about the 30-second rule.
They will improve their enforcement of the rule and the players will have to get quicker.
Perhaps the most controversial change is the 20-minute red card. When a team lose a player to a red card, they can now replace the culprit after 20 minutes.
This is an attempt to ensure the game mostly is 15 against 15.
Fans want to see fair contests, and a red card early in a game can ruin the match.
Penalising the whole team for one player’s folly is not fair, and as we know, the majority of red cards these days stem from unintended infringements, such as head-to-head contact in a tackle.
If the defender has gone in too high, and head contact is the result, punish him by all means because players have to learn to get their tackle heights correct. But is it necessary to undermine the game as a contest?
Fan-focused rugby laws move closer to global implementation after positive trials
— World Rugby Media (@worldrugbymedia) October 8, 2024
▶️Increased ball-in-play time by 2 mins
▶️Shorter total match time by up to 5 mins
▶️Quicker lineouts, scrums and kicks
▶️More contestable restarts https://t.co/Fgm6ywXnzN
World Rugby doesn’t think so after consultations with leading players and coaches. I think this is a positive move because it is not uncommon for teams to be reduced to 13, 12, or even 11 players by card-happy officials and the game is over as a contest.
Neutral observers of the Rugby World Cup final think it was harsh that Sam Cane’s head-high tackle on Jesse Kriel in the 29th minute meant the All Blacks played 50 minutes with 14 men.
Other changes include scrumhalves receiving “enhanced protection at scrums, rucks and mauls; and play is allowed to continue if a lineout throw is not straight but the opposition does not contest the throw.
World Rugby will ratify the changes in a meeting next month for the global trial to start on January 1 next year.