New law changes confirmed by World Rugby and new law trials announced.
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The online rugby audience (YouTubers, Redditors etc) are fairly against some of this stuff, but i’d wager if World Rugby got a majority of the Northern Hemisphere unions to agree to this stuff then its probably built on a foundation of study suggesting the casual fan, and fans in growing markets are likely to react positively to it.
- Onside kicks in open play: Super Rugby rapidly enacted this a few weeks out from the start of the season this year - and it has been making a difference. This is removing the so called “Dupont law” which is something he was noticeably early to exploit but many other teams were doing as well. There was a weird quirk of the laws where if you kick the ball down field, all of the players from your own team didn’t need to move and would be put on side if the receiving player ran 5 metres. This was one of the major reasons why kick tennis has been so prevalent of late and why it feels like so much of the game is played 10m either side of halfway - because probably 20 or so players were literally just staying there waiting to be put onside not by their kickers & chasers, but the opposition. In Super Rugby this has been noticeably good - there’s been more broken play counter attack; although Australasian teams prefer to do that anyway so will be more interesting to see how the north approaches it.
- scrums from free-kicks: Law 20.3 is being adjusted so you can only choose a scrum from a penalty, not also from free-kicks. The Saffa fans are fairly unanimous in their conspiracy thinking that its designed to combat their choosing to scrum in their own 22m for penalties - but its really just to stop 3 scrums happening from a knock-on and wasting 5-6 minutes of game time standing around. In combination with the change above it actually removes the reason SA were opting for a scrum anyway so I don’t see this being a major negative (especially as apparently Rassie is such a rugby Genius that he should be able to find a new tactic).
- Crocodile Roll banned: This one seems obvious in terms of safety but is the one I worry will have the worst unintended side effects. This strengthens the jackal and I suspect may lead to even more teams kicking the ball away rather than playing. The easiest way to make the ruck safer is to nerf the jackal so its only attempted when the attacking player is well clear of their support - but so far WR is ignoring the tools at their disposal to get the jackal and all its danger & negative play implications out of the game. (15.2 & 15.3).
The law trials all seem to be fairly positive steps based on the ones that have been used in SR.
- revised on & off field sanctions: look like they will hopefully make things a lot more consistent, and the 20 minute card where the player is gone but eventually gets replaced has worked really well for us.
- 30s (to form) scrum & lineouts: this has been really good, way less pissing about and should help to fatigue teams more which opens things towards the end of the halves.
- shot clock for goal kicks & reduced time for conversions: I would want to reduce this even further to 30s for both, but at least conversions are down to 60s now from 90s. This is such an easy win I don’t know why it has to be trialled.
- protection of the 9: I haven’t seen this one in action so no opinion.
- playing the ball after the maul stops once: This hasn’t been used in SR yet but the refs are a lot stricter on how mauling has been applied and we have seen a slight reduction in maul tries in favour of other forms of scoring so this could be positive.
Nerfing the maul I think a good action, it is a big weapon for lots of teams now, and always favours weight over skill. Agreed on the shot clock, no brainer to reducd. Croc roll is a total safety item, seen too many knee injuries on artificial turf with these. Scrum free kick I think is a bit anti-SA, but given they are world number 1 for a reason, I’m OK to see how it goes.
All in all, I’m pretty excited to see next set of internationals
I think the problem with the maul as it is now is that all the responsibility for keeping it up is on the defensive team, and the offensive team is very rarely policed when setting it up from a lineout to see how much they obstructed, left the lineout early to form the wedge, passed the ball back rather than swimming the ball carrier etc.
the prevalence of kick tennis, lack of space, slow ball from the caterpillar ruck, use of technology, and set-piece dead time.
Well at least I’m in agreement with them about the problems to be solved. Let’s hope it works!
Removing the option to select a scrum from a free kick is the one I find strange.
Yeah I thought they were initially only going to do it on claimed free-kicks - ie catching the ball on the full in your 22m; but I suspect limiting it to that might have required more complicated and potentially ambiguous wording.
At the end of the day I don’t think there’s much to fear here, teams with bad scrums will still get penalised & you can still opt for a re-scrum from a penalty.
Thanks for your analysis. I generally only watch US Major League, but greatly enjoyed watching the World Cup last year.
You should try watching the NZ NPC - it comes after the end of the MLR season, a bunch of the kiwi players come back & play for their provinces and the style of rugby is fairly similar, with plenty of afternoon games on. Its not the tippy top of skill but that’s kinda what makes the games more fun - defenses aren’t impermeable, players try stuff and sometimes don’t get away with it, sometimes do, its great fun!
Its by far my favourite comp. For me Super Rugby is pre-season for the NPC when I have a team within 20 minutes drive, rather than 5 hours.
Tightening up mauls and back-and-forth kicking bouts? Sounds good to me. Those things take the wind right out of games.
The “Dupont” law change has been in place this SR season and its seemed pretty easy for the referees to enforce and has just opened up enough space for the teams that want to use it. I suspect its one of the reasons Ruben Love has looked so good this year is just that little extra bit of time to choose whether to have a crack to play it safe.
SR hasn’t had 1 stop and use, but our refs have been way stricter on what counts as a stop and how quickly it has to be used on the 2nd and that has seen a big change in the top try scorer stats. Seasons past you’d have hookers in the top 5, but this year they’re nowhere to be seen. Teams are still kicking to the lineout off penalties - as why wouldn’t you take the 30-40m territory, but there’s more variety in the moves off the lineout they’re choosing, not just the same rumble every time.
I wish they’d stop tinkering. Their idea of what makes the game entertaining is obviously not the same as mine.
I think the thing to remember is that what makes the game exciting for fans that’ll watch comps outside of the world cup, and watch games involving neutrals is quite probably different to the casual fan and fans outside of the traditional rugby playing nations. And also consider that most club based competitions are struggling for significant fan engagement and thus funding - outside of Japan, some URC games and France, the professional game is struggling to grow.
