Lousy law changes are killing the game

WORLD Rugby‘s strategy to attract a new, younger, bigger audience to rugby union rests on a totally bankrupt plan currently being implemented through a raft of lousy, ill-conceived laws. If the game wants to grow it must be stopped in its tracks.

World Rugby‘s rewriting of the laws over the last two years is based on the false premise of turning rugby union into a rugby league clone, mainly by undermining the set-piece as a contest for the ball. This is being done by turning scrums and lineouts into restarts which work on the same premise as a rugby league play-the-ball.

In World Rugby’s latest meddling the team putting the ball into a scrum, or throwing-in to a lineout, is virtually guaranteed possession through new laws permitting a crooked feed, or a not-straight throw.

The destruction of the 15-a-side code based on imitating the less successful 13-a-side code is a travesty, and it has been influenced heavily by Australia. This is one of the few countries where rugby league is bigger than rugby union, which has been in sharp decline Down Under for a decade – much of it due to dire administration.

It has also been aided and abetted by a shortage of front five forwards – and front row forwards in particular – in the key World Rugby law-making committees. This has led to destructive new laws being passed which are rapidly pushing core areas of the forward battle for possession towards being contest-free zones.

The upshot is that the specialist skills required among forwards, particularly in the front five, are becoming redundant, and are being replaced instead by super-sized players whose main attributes are tonnage and brute force.

This attack on the set-piece has removed the crucial element of jeopardy of possession, inherent in challenging for the ball at lineout and scrum, through misguided rule changes which have led to a dumbing-down of front five skills.

World Rugby’s assault on the scrum has been relentless. The legitimising of the crooked put-in has undermined hooking skills to the extent that they have become an optional extra for hookers, and a strike against-the-head – and the gold-plated attacking ball, or five metre scrum great escapes, that it offered – have all but disappeared.

■ AUSTRALIA’S ability to field Angus Bell and Allan Alaalatoa against Argentina last weekend after the two props had been declared unfit to continue at half-time against South Africa in Perth a fortnight earlier – forcing second-half uncontested scrums – merits investigation. Alaalatoa came off for an HIA, which we must presume he passed as he not only made an intercontinental flight to South America, but also trained and came off the bench against the Pumas. Bell’s cut eye also proved no impediment as he played most of the match. World Rugby must get answers from the Wallabies. 

The replacement of five metre scrums by the rugby league ‘get out of jail’ card of goal-line drop-outs, denying the attacking team the right to build pressure when the ball is held up over the line, has added to the undermining of the scrum.

The same applies to the removal of the right of a team to call a scrum from a mark, or any other free-kick. It allows for a weaker scrum to avoid a set-piece contest, at for example a five metre scrum, through conceding a free-kick with a deliberate brake-foot or engagement infringement. These force the attacking side to either take a tap penalty, kick to touch, or put up a high ball.

The tinkering has diminished the scrum as a lethal attacking weapon. Nothing unsettles a defence more than the platinum-quality scrum ball provided by a shunt and quick strike, while at the same time they are deprived of stacking their tackle line with their eight bound-in forwards.

How does World Rugby justify its downgrading of the scrum when it can open up more attacking space on the field than any other facet of the game?

Now, to make matters worse, the world governing body has approved another contest-killer this season with the law change prohibiting defensive scrum-halves from challenging or hustling their opposite number by following them around the scrum.

Under the new regulation they cannot go any further than the tunnel, which in practice means that the attacking scrum-half and No.8 are under no pressure, and the slick 8-9 linking and handling skills that were such an important component in clearing the ball are on the scrapheap.

The same applies to the tenacity and expert timing required of a defensive scrum-half, as demonstrated so brilliantly by England‘s Kyran Bracken when he sacked or dispossessed Springbok legend Joost van der Westhuizen five times to inspire England’s victory over South Africa in their crucial 2003 World Cup pool clash.

The consequence of these multiple anti-scrum laws is that there are much fewer scrums, and the fall in numbers has been accompanied by a massive loss in the attacking space available in rugby union.

It would be laughable if it was not so destructive, because all that was required was for the lawmakers to insist on scrums being set much more quickly, with front rows packing square and high enough to avoid collapses, and no pushing before a put-in down the middle of the tunnel.

The lineout is moving in a similar direction thanks to the latest World Rugby laws absurdity, which rules that play-on advantage is allowed from a crooked throw if it is uncontested by the defending side.

It is another instance of core skills becoming debased, with potentially ludicrous consequences. Not only are referees and their assistants turning a blind eye to hookers frequently throwing-in from two foot inside the pitch, rather than from behind the sideline, they now no longer have to throw-in straight.

This means that if the attacking hooker takes a crooked fast throw to the front player in his lineout, and the defending No.1 does not have the reflex speed or giant squid tentacles to contest, it is free ball all day – or licensed cheating.