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Law Changes in the pipeline

smartcooky

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Those of us with our ears to the ground and informants in all the right places have been hearing about likely Law changes to kick in from the beginning of the 2012 Super Rugby season

1. Scrum Law: Change in the engage sequence from the current "Crouch, Touch, Pause, Engage" to "'Crouch, Touch, Set". The reasons behind this is that "pause" is something that should be done rather than said, so effectively, the engage sequence is "Crouch" *pause* "Touch" *pause* "Set" (the pauses are silent). The word "Set" replaces "Engage" because it is one syllable, and will help reduce the incidence of early engagement.


2. Ruck law: A 5 second time limit will be imposed from the time the ball is available, similar to the 5 second restart Law for the Maul. No further details available, but some of us are assuming that the referee will be required to say "use it" at this stage.

3. Maul Law: The unplayable turnover is to go, being replaced by the scrum being awarded to the team going forward when the Maul ends unsuccessfully.

4. The Drop Goal: If a drop kick at goal is unsuccessful, and goes dead in goal, then the scrum back option will be offered to the defending team. So the drop kick at goal is treated just like any other kick.


Also, the iRB are trialling a change to the points scoring system in South Africa's Varsity Cup. They will use the following scoring system:

Try.......................5 points
Conversion............3 points
Penalty Goal......... 2 points
Drop Goal............. 2 points
 
Couple of interesting ones there...

I agree with the Scrum Law, believe the Pause is not necessary and believe Set will be easier to hear... again the Ruck Law makes sense means more likely to get quick ball and attacking rugby... and I think a Drop goal should be treated like any other kick if it goes dead...

As for the points, I don't think these should change, dropping penalties and drop goal's devalues them and they shouldn't be devalued in terms of the game... A conversion is less significant than a penalty (IMO)
 
I like all of those rule changes except for the points value changes. The points values for tries, conversions, and kicks for goal are perfect as they are, in my opinion.
 
I like the ruck law should prevent some of those annyoing end of game moments where a team just sits there and does nothing until the game ends, will at least force them to pick and go at the very least. Point system changes are utterly awful and are so stupid they might ruin the varsity cup this season and I'm meh to the maul rule, don't really see why it needed to be changed.
 
The Maul law is another that goes down to interpretation of the referee which could cause debate. Basically if a team defends a maul well ... they lose out.
 
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Don't like the possible new maul law. Does that mean that if the law was enforced during the World Cup, when Ireland held up the Australian attacker on several occasions would the Wallabies have gotten a scrum instead of Ireland? Doesn't make much sense to me.
 
Don't like the possible new maul law. Does that mean that if the law was enforced during the World Cup, when Ireland held up the Australian attacker on several occasions would the Wallabies have gotten a scrum instead of Ireland? Doesn't make much sense to me.

Canada won the game vs. Tonga at the very end by holding up a maul as well it was a great moment in the match.
 
I agree with others: I like the look of most of the changes.

Not at all convinced by the points system changes being trialed though: the most important person in a team is already the goal-kicker, so I don't know why you would want to increase the value of conversions (which I personally think are too valuable already). The aim of the game is to score tries - it shouldn't matter that much whether you score them under the post or out wide. Indeed many of the better tries are actually scored out wide, with tries under the posts quite often reflecting a score against the run of play (for example from an intercept). If anything I would increase the value of tries from 5 points to 6 points, and lower the value of conversions from 2 points to 1 point.

Likewise I'm not a big fan of decreasing the value of penalties - I can see an increase in negative play by the defensive team if this was the case. With this scoring system you could afford to give away numerous penalties, as four penalties would still only be as valuable as a converted try! I can only assume that this rule change would be to encourage more attacking play - for example going for an attacking lineout rather than taking a shot at goal. Personally my preferred option (which I'm sure a lot of people won't agree with) is to make it so that you can only kick penalty goals if the penalty offense occurs inside the oppositions 22. This would lead to more attacking play, as teams would have to take a lot more quick taps or attacking lineouts from penalties. I don't think it will ever happen as it would be a huge (and probably unnecessary) change to the game, but personally I think would lead to a more interesting game of rugby from a spectators point of view (as they would get to see more rugby, rather than a goal-kicking contest).
 
With the proposed new points structure, France won the WC Final 8 - 7 :p

rugbyfirstsmiliefishing.gif



Its not that simple.

Different points scoring might lead to different on field decisions being made.

Besides which France would not have even been in the final, because Wales would have won their semifinal 7 - 6 !!

Nice try though
horse.gif
 
Interesting changes if they are enforced. But not sure if any are going to work. The idea of the ruck change is to encourage running rugby? Then what's stopping a team from just picking and going anyway and killing a game. That's what they do all ready. I'll have to see them in action and play a little first before making a opinion on them.

Also I think IRB are looking to the wrong areas to encourage running rugby. One thing I would change without a doubt is; if a defending team in lineout doesn't put up a defender then, if the ball is not thrown straight, just play on as it would have no effect on the game. And not picking up on every single knock on, like when a scrum-half taps the ball forward by mm when trying to get the ball out of the ruck. Just simple things rather than revolutionary things like that.
 
Interesting changes if they are enforced. But not sure if any are going to work. The idea of the ruck change is to encourage running rugby? Then what's stopping a team from just picking and going anyway and killing a game. That's what they do all ready. I'll have to see them in action and play a little first before making a opinion on them.

Nothing, but there will be more breakdowns which could potentially result in a turnover.
 
One thing I would change without a doubt is; if a defending team in lineout doesn't put up a defender then, if the ball is not thrown straight, just play on as it would have no effect on the game.

What if the reason the team isn't putting up a defender is because the referee has been allowing squint throws all game so they have given up trying to compete.

We already have crooked scrum feeds at epidemic proportions right now, so I see no reason to offer crooked line-out throws to that mix.

Personally, I would like to see crooked line-out throws given as a free kick. You watch them suddenly get a lot straighter were that to happen.
 
What if the reason the team isn't putting up a defender is because the referee has been allowing squint throws all game so they have given up trying to compete.

We already have crooked scrum feeds at epidemic proportions right now, so I see no reason to offer crooked line-out throws to that mix.

Personally, I would like to see crooked line-out throws given as a free kick. You watch them suddenly get a lot straighter were that to happen.

Why don't they get a grip of the crooked scrum laws, I support a team reliant at having a heavy dominantt scrum.

It really grips me that the scrums tend to be a farce these days.

It strikes me that you need to get the rules right that you have before tinkering with the rest.
 
What if the reason the team isn't putting up a defender is because the referee has been allowing squint throws all game so they have given up trying to compete.

We already have crooked scrum feeds at epidemic proportions right now, so I see no reason to offer crooked line-out throws to that mix.

Personally, I would like to see crooked line-out throws given as a free kick. You watch them suddenly get a lot straighter were that to happen.

Or ... some referees are pedantic.

Take for instance the referees that my own club Aberystywth have had over the last couple of weeks, their calling of not straight for lineouts has been diabolical. Some have been slightly off a straight line ... and bang referee blows his whistle instead of letting it go because in reality it is straight but not in his interpretation.

Also I never intend to throw the ball 'crooked' ... and I think you would find it hard press for a professional player to say they intentionally do. So I don't think its fair to make that assumption.
 
Bloody hell, IRB proposing sensible law changes, what's the world coming to? I'm not sure about any changes in the points system, but tbh I'd need to see it used before making any final judgements. I may be in favour of reducing the value of a drop-goal to 2, because I feel it's over-used in todays game. It might also encourage teams to go for a try from a penalty advantage instead of having a pot-shot at a drop goal like most teams do nowerdays (although I still don't understand the reasoning there).

I'm also not sure on the Maul proposal. I think what Ireland have perfected over the past year involves great skill and ultimate strength, and they should be commended for it, no matter how annoying it is to be on the recieving end.

The ruck law is long, long overdue, even if some refs already implement it (Nigel Owens tends to say 'use it' after roughly 5 seconds already).

The scrum change is a minour improvement and might help reduce the frequency of teams getting pinged for going early. Getting rid of the word 'pause' also makes sense, it simply doesn't make sense at present. I still don't think it's gone far enough, and it'll still be a problem area in the game, but it's a start and we can see how these minour rule manges help before seeing if more drastic measures need to be implemented (i.e. getting rid of the hit altogether which is what I think ultimately needs to happen).

Again, changing the drop goal rulings so that it's treated like every other kick is sensible. It might reduce the number of pot-shot, long range drop goal attempts, because currently you are almost guaranteed the ball back in roughly the same position from the 22m drop-out.
 
Also I never intend to throw the ball 'crooked' ... and I think you would find it hard press for a professional player to say they intentionally do. So I don't think its fair to make that assumption.

Once upon a time a scrum-half might have said the same thing about his feeding.

I automatically don't like them as I think we need to let the rules settle and see how they effect things once people have thought about them rather than changing them every five seconds. I also think we have too many rules already which is leading to simply being mediocre as a ref being a considerable challenge, so more rules is stupid. So the following critique is based on that...

The scrum change - Doesn't go far enough but not bad. I'm ok with this one.

The ruck law - Stupid. The biggest change I think this could lead to is attacking teams putting more men into rucks so they've automatically got the pick and go pod available if things go wrong while the defensive team can suddenly leave them alone - this gives the attacking team a numerical disadvantage going forwards, which means its either time for a safe pick and go or a tactical kick. Might also lead to scrum-halves doing less sniping. Other possible knock-on I can see is if the ref's watching the ruck, the offside line becomes more malleable - again, not good for running rugby. I understand the frustration with 'cappucino time' service and very slow ball movement at the end of the game, but as a rule, making the attacking team's platform less secure has not been good for running rugby.

The maul law - Someone didn't enjoy Ireland's defence. Personally, I enjoy watching it and think its clever rugby. Won't change too much, but I won't enjoy the change.

The drop goal law - ok, this one is genuinely good and sensible.

The points change - If you want to encourage running rugby, don't go and encourage opposition players to cheat unrepentently at the breakdown. That is what the change in the points does. It reduces the deterrent dramatically, particularly when you consider that not conceding a try is more important. The main deterrent becomes the yellow card, which is likely to whinging about refs ruining the game by being overly pedantic.

In short - change 1 is ok but probably should have waited until they had a more comprehensive solution, change 4 is good, change 3 is bad, and change 2 and 5 are potentially imbecilic beyond all belief. We shall see how it plays out on a field should it come to it, but it took me all of three seconds to spot how a team in a negative mindset would thrive off of them, I'm not very optimistic.
 
Five seconds is a long time. I think the law should really be a bit more open - perhaps simply that teams can't just hold the ball at the base of the ruck for extended periods of time. Teams will soon work out how long the ref will allow it, but it really shouldn't be that long.

Basically the only time you see teams hold the ball at the ruck for significantly longer than five seconds is when they want to shut the game down, and the opposition can't contest the ball when it's sitting at the back of the ruck. It's negative play and should not be allowed.
 

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