Fuller copy from the Times :
orld Rugby’s three-day symposium to analyse the state of the game and debate the safest direction for its future opened in Paris on Monday with a moment of silence to remember the four French players who had died in the past year and an address from Roxana Maracineanu, the minister for sport.
Her message to the high-powered delegates who had gathered in Marcoussis reinforced what Bernard Laporte, president of the French Rugby Federation (FFR), had said in December after the death of Nicolas Chauvin, the 18-year-old Stade Francais flanker.
“Our game has to fundamentally evolve so that rugby becomes a game of movement and avoiding collisions,” Laporte had said. “With that it’s important to change the mentality of players and change the laws, most notably to do with tackling.”
For three days at the headquarters of French rugby, that issue was debated by some of the leading coaches, referees, recently retired players, club representatives, doctors and sports scientists. Those present included Ian Foster, the All Blacks assistant coach, Jean de Villiers, the former South Africa captain, and Dr Simon Kemp, the RFU’s head of medicine.
The game was broken down as analysts outlined its present shape: how there are five times more rucks and mauls than in 1987, when New Zealand won the first World Cup, how the number of tackles had doubled in a decade. “We have to change the philosophy of the game,” one delegate said.
By the end of a wide-ranging debate, a package of eight law proposals, designed to reduce the number of collisions and persuade players to tackle lower, had been submitted for further investigation by World Rugby’s law review group.
The proposal that gained the most traction was an idea borrowed from rugby league. The 13-man code has had a huge influence on rugby union over the past two decades, chiefly in the organisation and structure of defences. Many of the best specialist defence coaches in the world, from Phil Larder with England in 2003 to Andy Farrell, now with Ireland, and Shaun Edwards with Wales, came from rugby league.
It is perhaps no surprise, then, that rugby union has turned to league for a solution to fix the issue of defences suffocating the pitch for space, with 14 players often strung out in a line.
In 1997, the NRL in Australia introduced the 40-20 kick; the rugby union proposal tabled in Paris is for a 50-22. The theory behind it is that if Team A kick from their own half and the ball bounces into touch inside Team B’s 22, Team A would get the lineout throw.
Consequently, Team B would have to populate the back field by dropping their wings to guard the touchlines. If the scrum half then had to sweep in behind the front line of defence, to prevent the dink over the top, then three players have been removed from the defensive line.
If there was a separate measure designed to draw defenders towards the breakdown, the field could be opened up more, creating more space in which to attack. As Laporte said, a contact sport but also a game of movement that would reduce the number of head-on collisions.
It has the potential to alter the way that teams attack and defend. The power game will always be a key element, of course, but it may tilt the balance a little bit back towards skill over size.
That is the theory anyway. This process is at an embryonic stage. All the ideas will go forward to World Rugby’s law reviews group, which will meet in May for a deep analysis, to try to work out the unintended consequences. If approved for trial from January 1, World Rugby would then need to find a competition willing to adopt them.
One of the other trial proposals centred on the need to be strict with sanctions to change player behaviour by reviewing all yellow cards during the ten-minute period of the sin-bin and upgrading them to a red if necessary.
World Rugby wants to roll out its trial of a high-tackle warning system, which was credited with halving concussion at last year’s World Rugby Under-20 Championship, into an elite competition. The system gives a post-match warning to a defender who has made an upright tackle resulting in head contact. Two of those in a tournament result in a ban, unless there was evidence that work had been done to improve tackle technique.
Stricter sanctions and improved tackle technique go hand-in-hand, given that 72 per cent of head injuries sustained in a tackle occur to the defender.
There were some delegates in Paris who believed that more focus was required on implementing existing law too. The crackdown on high tackles, which have never been legal, will continue into the World Cup.
Brett Gosper, World Rugby chief executive, is aware what impact that could have on the narrative of the tournament. Sam Warburton, the Wales captain, was sent off in the 2011 semi-final in a clampdown on tip tackles, but they have been virtually removed from the game.
“We know cards change behaviour so you have to be willing to do that,” Gosper said. “Player welfare is the officials’ number one priority, not the spectacle.”
Spectacle, though, was a consideration of the symposium. The laws review group, chaired by John Jeffrey, the former Scotland flanker, will also consider the introduction of a countdown clock on scrums, which could have the double benefit of speeding up the game and introducing fatigue into forwards. Scrums at present take an average of 62 seconds for a restart. “It is dead time,” Jeffrey said.
Rugby may be at a crossroads politically, with different stakeholders at loggerheads over the Nations Championship, but the club competitions were invited to Marcoussis and there was consensus on delivering a safer game. “We’re hoping what we did here is going to create a more safe environment for every player at the community and elite level,” Gosper said.
Topic: World Rugby proposing some new laws after RWC. (Read 5154 times)
Always a Wasp