![Italy catch a line-out throw](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/rugby-union/2024/03/24/TELEMMGLPICT000370827739_17112899866330_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqLf6XVudQ0d-fF3pHUPFzEFHmPOpeFd0SyQx9dn7kM_w.jpeg?imwidth=680)
![Italy catch a line-out throw](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/rugby-union/2024/03/24/TELEMMGLPICT000370827739_17112899866330_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqLf6XVudQ0d-fF3pHUPFzEFHmPOpeFd0SyQx9dn7kM_w.jpeg?imwidth=680)
World Rugby’s recent press release announced measures which it grandly described as a “package of enhancements aimed at advancing the on-and off-field experience”. Even accounting for the usual marketing nonsense that accompanies such missives, this grandiose blandishment is difficult to square with the specific changes that have been dictated.
Some of the most severe problems that rugby faces are either not mentioned or are left to another date, to be reported upon by specialist working groups. While you have to give World Rugby credit for the moves actually made, to declare “We have moved quickly” in a show of “special unity and commitment” stretches credulity.
The newly announced closed trials to extend the use of the stop clock for scrums, line-outs and to reduce kicking time are welcome but hardly bold. I, and others, wrote recommending this four years ago. It was obvious and yet we are just now approaching a recommendation that it be trialled. It could be another four years before it gets passed.
We need to bear in mind points that come from the broadcasters whose rights fees are the most important source of revenue for rugby, all of which have been set out in my previous columns. Rugby’s laws are confusing to many who watch, there is too much kicking and too many delays.
I could, but don’t have the space, to comment on most of the proposals, but you have to question the logic behind proposals prefaced by “there will be an expectation of strict application of current law by referees globally” and those requiring referees to not apply current laws. This is intellectually inconsistent and bewildering to those not familiar with rugby.
As just one example of this disconnected thinking, take the following two directives. Referees are now directed to strictly apply the ‘use it’ call which directs the player at the back of a breakdown to play the ball. They are now directed to make this call earlier and to start the five-second countdown within which the ball must be played. This is already in the law book, but I cannot recall when it has been regularly applied in a televised game before this clampdown. Why do referees now need to be told this?
The answer is important because it shows how officials favour certain laws and not others. Referees hide behind the ‘materiality’ clauses in the law guidelines. They ask, does it really matter, but this too often leads to bad habits that are not picked up and which disproportionately annoy spectators, and for good reason.
What is to stop officials again resiling from this direction in the name of keeping the game flowing? Furthermore, the directive does not deal with the issue of ‘caterpillar’ players who artificially extend rucks and slow down the game even further. They banned that at one point, only to allow it to resurface.
Juxtapose this strict application with the proposal to allow “play on for line-out not straight if the throw in is uncontested”. This proposed trial has all the hallmarks of the disastrous decision, made without any authority at all, by referees to collectively ignore the straight put-in law at the scrum on the grounds of materiality. It didn’t matter because the non-put-in side hadn’t contested by striking for the ball. This, ineluctably, led to many of the current problems with the scrum. Anybody who played in the front row knows this, but you will not get anybody in authority to admit it.
Let’s start with the general principle of contest. If you have a two-on-one overlap and the defender tries to tackle neither the ball-carrier nor intended recipient, that pass is uncontested. Therefore, if it is just a few inches forward, why does it matter? Are we all happy with that?
Then there are more specific points. What is uncontested? You cannot, and teams do not, throw up defending jumpers at every position in a line-out. If they guess, wrongly, that the ball will be thrown to the front jumper, does that mean they have not contested a ball thrown to the back? How far is not straight? A few inches – and how will you measure this? Why not allow it to be thrown straight to the scrum-half – after all, it wasn’t contested, so why does it matter?
The reason teams sometimes do not contest line-outs is that it is one of few ways to stop the resultant driving maul. If you make this more difficult, you make line-outs close to the line even more valuable attacking platforms. Any penalty given away in your own half has the potential to be kicked to the corner and to avoid this, the most obvious tactic is not play with ball in hand but to kick for territory. Nearly everyone who watches agrees that more kicking is not what rugby needs.
World Rugby’s proposed laws stretch credulity by welcoming not-straight line-outs
Proposals are essentially contradictory – an order to apply current laws strictly tempered by referees using discretion to speed up the game