If you could change the laws of rugby, what would you change?

[Scoey]

I have seen Craig Joubert not award penalties at all in situations like I was describing but it is rare and he is the only one I've seen do it. At the next breakdown the player or captain will ask him why there was no penalty and he says, "the ball was there, you just didn't pick it up." Which I think is great.

You're spot on about intent though and it is even more unclear at the bottom of a ruck. I think though by changing the apparent reward, the question of intent could be removed altogether. It might not change anything but if it even removed 2 or 3 stoppages from a game that would be positive.


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[Quick Hands]

If I was going to change a law it would be to remove the scrum option at penalties and free kicks.

Referees need to give the side receiving a penalty or free kick more latitude in where they can take it. How many times do we see a free kick or penalty taken quickly and the referee calls it back for "not being on the mark" and the ensuing scrum or kick for touch is taken in exactly the same spot. If the kick is taken anywhere within a metre of the blade of grass which is "the mark" - play on.

 

[cyclopath]

@Quick Hands - agree again. Unnecessary pedantry, when often it is a matter of a few feet. We should encourage teams to take the quick options - keep the bloody game going!! And when you look at the laxity of where penalties are given sometimes - often 10m away from the offence (esp with offsides etc after a phase or two advantage) it seems even more silly.

 

[Quick Hands]

And when you think about it, pedantry about the mark and slowing down the non-offending team, merely gives the team which conceded the penalty the time to regroup and thwart their opposition for a second time.

 

[boyo]

And when you think about it, pedantry about the mark and slowing down the non-offending team, merely gives the team which conceded the penalty the time to regroup and thwart their opposition for a second time.

Some non-offending teams deliberately take liberties with the location of the mark e.g. kicks at goal.

 

[WorkingClassRugger]

@Quick Hands - agree again. Unnecessary pedantry, when often it is a matter of a few feet. We should encourage teams to take the quick options - keep the bloody game going!! And when you look at the laxity of where penalties are given sometimes - often 10m away from the offence (esp with offsides etc after a phase or two advantage) it seems even more silly.

What drives me crazy is when a team takes a quick tap a few feet behind the mark and the ref pulls them up. It should be where the ref is standing then that's considered the mark. Tap and go. Keep the game going.

 

[boyo]

What drives me crazy is when a team takes a quick tap a few feet behind the mark and the ref pulls them up. It should be where the ref is standing then that's considered the mark. Tap and go. Keep the game going.

What drives me crazy is when a player doesn't know that the mark for an infringement isn't where the ref' is standing e.g. an infringement at a scrum, lineout, etc.

 

[Muttonbird]

I'd like a clear distinction between the roles of the referee and the TMO. Once the referee has decided he cannot make the correct decision he must divest himself of all responsibility and hand it to the TMO. The referee must not interfere from that point on.

 

[TOCC]

I'd like to see a rule introduced as follows; at scrum time, if the ball is available to the halfback or number 8 that it must be played, teams can't hold the ball in..


People might argue that this will see the death if pushover tries, well I can't remember the last pushover try i watched at super rugby or test level anyway.

The scrum should be a means to restart play, not to milk penalties.

 

[terry j]

or maybe still allow the team to keep it at the back 'for as long as they want' BUT if later, for any reason, the scrum collapses or an infringement occurs you lose the ball. Ie you take that risk on in full knowledge.

 

[Bullrush]

I'd like a clear distinction between the roles of the referee and the TMO. Once the referee has decided he cannot make the correct decision he must divest himself of all responsibility and hand it to the TMO. The referee must not interfere from that point on.

Ridiculous. A good example was in the Blues game where the ref (Walsh I think) wanted an opinion on the Piutau try. TMO came back and said there hadn't been any issue re: double movement but he was trying to find footage of if the ball was grounded over the line. Walsh came back and said he was pretty happy that the grounding was fine and awarded the try. Worked perfectly.




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[Bullrush]

People might argue that this will see the death if pushover tries, well I can't remember the last pushover try i watched at super rugby or test level anyway.

You must not have seen the Brumbies/Rebels game on Fri then?



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[TOCC]

You must not have seen the Brumbies/Rebels game on Fri then?



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Which player was awarded the try?
As I said, haven't seen a pushover try for years, teams would sooner lose their entire front row to yellow cards before that would occur...

 

[Bullrush]

Which player was awarded the try?
As I said, haven't seen a pushover try for years, teams would sooner lose their entire front row to yellow cards before that would occur.

It doesn't matter if an individual player wasn't awarded a try. All that matters is that as a direct result of their scrum, they were awarded a try.

I honestly wonder why you guys even follow rugby when you don't seem to like the rules or how it's played.

 

[TOCC]

It doesn't matter if an individual player wasn't awarded a try. All that matters is that as a direct result of their scrum, they were awarded a try.

I honestly wonder why you guys even follow rugby when you don't seem to like the rules or how it's played.

The point remains that a pushover scrum wasn't scored and are rare as hens teeth in the modern game.

Below is the definition of a scrum directly from the IRB:

It's a means to restart play following a minor infringement or stoppage, yet somewhere along the years in the transition from the amateur to professional it has morphed into a time wasting means of using the scrum as a means to dourly progress the ball downfield, to milk for a penalty, yellow card or worse yet, penalty try.


By making the halfback or number 8 play the ball when it comes available you still maintain the scrum as a competition, if one team has a superior scrum on defence they can still compete for the ball, disrupt the ball or push the scrum backwards and thus destabilising any set piece play. On their own ball they are still afforded a stable at form and means to launch a set piece play. The scrum is by no means devalued but brought back to its initial intended purpose.


As for those of us who dare to challenge the sacred IRB Rule Book, well let's put it this way, players have evolved, the average test player is now bigger, stronger and faster then their predecessors, coaching techniques have evolved, playing styles have evolved... Rules need to evolve to adapt to the changing style and pressure of the modern game.

 

[Bullrush]

The point remains that a pushover scrum wasn't scored and are rare as hens teeth in the modern game.

Below is the definition of a scrum directly from the IRB:

It's a means to restart play following a minor infringement or stoppage, yet somewhere along the years in the transition from the amateur to professional it has morphed into a time wasting means of using the scrum as a means to dourly progress the ball downfield, to milk for a penalty, yellow card or worse yet, penalty try.


By making the halfback or number 8 play the ball when it comes available you still maintain the scrum as a competition, if one team has a superior scrum on defence they can still compete for the ball, disrupt the ball or push the scrum backwards and thus destabilising any set piece play. On their own ball they are still afforded a stable at form and means to launch a set piece play. The scrum is by no means devalued but brought back to its initial intended purpose.


As for those of us who dare to challenge the sacred IRB Rule Book, well let's put it this way, players have evolved, the average test player is now bigger, stronger and faster then their predecessors, coaching techniques have evolved, playing styles have evolved. Rules need to evolve to adapt to the changing style and pressure of the modern game.

Again - a push-over try would most likely have been scored if the Rebels hadn't purposely infringed so who cares?

There really aren't THAT many re-set scrums. Here's a comment that was made on an article on this subject in the NZ Herald:

There are about 4 scrum resets a game, they take around 28 seconds to reset. That is not a lot of time but gives media something to write about. More time is lost on making decisions on what to do at a penalty and players just stopping to have a break and wait for the ref to call time off. Add in players coming off the bench, a minute for every kick at goal, plus time to wait for the kicking tee and the restart, there is a bulk of your lost time. There are more pen kicks so far this year so at this stage of the season that is where you are losing time. If media & including Justin Marshall looked at the numbers rather than picking on the scrum they would draw the same conclusions. I code every game live so I know they numbers not a quick scan around the stats to make a headline. Disappointing that the paid media don't do the research just go off what comes to mind.

Anyone else in GAGR who codes the games who can add anything?

I actually think the game is pretty close to as-good-as-it-gets at the moment. I think the standard of the refs has ben poor at times so far in Super Rugby but the actual laws themselves are fine. Teams who want to play attacking, 'exciting' rugby can choose to do so if they want - we shouldn't be looking to change rules to force a certain style of play.

Let's be happy with our game and if other people don't like it, so what?!

 

[Braveheart81]

I actually think the game is pretty close to as-good-as-it-gets at the moment. I thunk the standard of the refs has ben poor at times so far in Super Rugby but the actual laws themselves are fine. Teams who want to play attacking, 'exciting' rugby can choose to do so if they want - we shouldn't be looking to change rules to force a certain style of play.

Let's be happy with our game and if other people don't like it, so what?!

Importantly, teams that take the game on and do it with some degree of skill are generally being more successful than those who don't.

It would be a different story if the teams that played the most conservative style of game were dominating. That was true maybe a decade ago, but certainly isn't true now.

 

[terry j]

'code the game', never heard that expression before. Presumably it means something similar to cricket, logging balls, wides, scores etc etc? I can see the attraction actually.

But we need to keep the scrums, yet I can also see it being a positive step to call time out for them, they are then still part of the game yet not 'in' the game. (maybe they don't want that as it makes it harder for broadcast scheduling?)

Back to the coding, maybe it was on the roar recently but someone made a claim of how long the ball was in play for different games. And union somehow came last on the list with some low number.

I don't see how it could be so low, which begs the question 'how is that time determined?' The only way I could imagine it being that low is that for some reason rucks and mauls etc are not included within 'time in play'. Which does not make sense to me.

Does anyone know how they determine this figure? Any coders out there know the 'rules' on this?

 

[Bullrush]

In the NZ Herald article, it stated that the ball is in play for approx 30min each game. It was asking if scrums were taking to long and that's why this peron who 'codes' the games replied.

 

[wamberal]

Important games are won and lost, based upon subjective judgements by referees who do not really know what is going on in scrums, in most cases have put their head inside a scrum in their lives, and cannot see the whole picture.

This is just plain wrong. We have seen plenty of evidence of poor scrumming by the Wallabies over the years. Fair enough, a poor scrum should be penalised. But we have also seen situations where the wrong decisions have been made, sometimes with the benefit of an overhead camera angle - and plenty of predetermined action against the presumed "weaker" scrum.

If tries are so carefully scrutinised to determine whether or not they are fair, why not scrums? Arguably a single poor scrum decision can cause more damage than an incorrectly awarded try (particularly when a card results).

The whole momentum of the game can change because of a single scrum decision. That is just wrong, as I said earlier. Scrums are to restart play. Not to change the whole flow of a match.