From today's Times :
World Rugby is to consider law changes that will reduce contact time between players to lessen the risk of coronavirus transmission.
Scrums and mauls are in the spotlight of World Rugby’s Law Review Group as high-risk areas of the game that could be changed optionally by individual unions to help the sport return at professional and community levels as quickly as possible.
Rugby union is viewed as one of the sports with the greatest obstacles to a resumption, given the nature of close contact, and the review group is set to produce a set of proposals around optional law changes to reduce contact time. This will be given to World Rugby to consider after it commissioned a detailed study of contact incidents in the game.
Not unexpectedly, scrums and mauls have been identified as the areas of the game where there is the highest risk of coronavirus transmission due to the close proximity of the players.
“The face-to-face contact in the scrums and rucks is unique and that is what is being looked at closely,” a source with knowledge of the study told The Times.
World Rugby’s executive committee will be presented with data detailing the number of contact incidents per match, the average time involved per contact and ideas around how that can be reduced.
Although the proposals for lessening contact time have yet to be finalised, they are likely to include options such as having a free kick instead of a scrum for the team who would normally get the put-in, uncontested lineouts and no mauls. In rugby union, a free kick is distinct from a penalty and you cannot score points from it directly.
World Rugby will however be anxious to ensure any optional law changes do not have any unintended consequences that would adversely affect player welfare. “The idea is to provide some options for the professional and the community game below that, particularly if they do not have access to testing,” the source said.
The research will break down the data to show how it varies for different positions, with a prop forward being much more exposed to close contact than a full back. It will also weigh up the factors that decrease transmission risk — rugby is an outdoor sport rather than a predominantly indoor sport such as basketball, and players have to be behind an offside line so are naturally kept apart for periods of the game.
World Rugby’s game analysis of World Cup matches has found an average of 14 scrums take place per match. A clean scrum can take as little as 15 seconds but if it collapses and has to be re-set it can be a minute or more of close contact time.
There are ten to 12 mauls in an average match, the other part of the game where there is potentially lengthy close contact. There is likely to be less focus on rucks and tackling — although there are 180 rucks per match, contact time is usually a few seconds. There are about 200 tackles and attempted tackles per game, with about four seconds of contact.
World Rugby’s existing guidance is for tackling to be done on the lower part of the body, which reduces transmission risk if done correctly.
The world governing body is not planning to impose any law changes, but it is looking at ways of giving different countries flexibility around the rules depending on how they have been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.
In New Zealand for example, the infection rate is very low and so it would probably not need to adopt any temporary changes. A competition involving its five Super Rugby teams is due to resume on June 13.
In Ireland however, the government has stated that rugby cannot return at any level until stage five of its roadmap, which is likely to be several months away. That also applies to rugby in Northern Ireland.
In England, Premiership Rugby has targeted early July for a return but the clubs still need to agree a safety protocol for return to play.
The World Rugby researchers will also try to address the difference in infection risk from playing outside where the viral load is usually much less than indoors. Previous studies show that indoor, close contact over a prolonged period leads to the highest risk of catching the virus, but it is accepted that no one knows how that affects sports where the contact may be closer, but is often much shorter.
Always a Wasp
Topic: World Rugby considering new laws to cut contact and speed up return (Read 1960 times)