Nigel Owens: The rugby experiment I don't like and the issue everyone is missing (original) (raw)

This week it was revealed that French rugby bosses are set to present several new potential law changes to World Rugby in a bid to help speed up the game.

Those changes include increasing the size of matchday squads from 23 to 25 but reducing the number of replacements from eight to six, as well as the introduction of a 30-second clock to speed up setting up scrums and scrapping the 20-minute red card experiment.

On the whole, I think what they have proposed makes a lot of sense - but I fear they are missing something which is just as, if not more important.

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Reducing the number of replacements a team is allowed is a good move, in my opinion. As my former colleague Mathieu Raynal - who is driving these changes - says, doing so will help create a greater spectacle, with more tired bodies helping to open up the space on the pitch and leading to a more free-flowing, open contest with more tries.

It could help player safety too, with players needing to make sure they can last 80 minutes rather than an hour, they will likely cut quite a few kilos. The size and amount of collisions could be reduced and hopefully we’ll see more rugby where players are trying to beat the opposition with speed and footwork rather than just smashing their way through. Whether this will see a change in coaching tactics to avoid collisions is something we will have to wait and see.

At the same time, speeding the game up is all well and good, but I wouldn’t want it to go so far that we lose one of the most important things about rugby, which is that it’s a game for all shapes and sizes. So there are still a few things to iron out, but generally I think reducing the number of replacements is a good move. Any negatives would likely be outweighed by the positives.

In regards to the scrum clock, I think what they need to do first and foremost is to encourage teams to be positive in the scrums and ensure referees are better at officiating scrums. I watched some scrums in the URC at the weekend and they were pretty poor, the Scarlets v Cardiff game being one example.

It works both ways. It’s not the referee who collapses the scrum, that’s solely the players, but you need the ref to properly deal with the issues when they arise. I think it’s more important to get that right first before rush scrum set-ups. Get the latest Welsh rugby breaking news by signing up to our free daily newsletter here

Obviously, we all want less time wasting in our game, but not if it comes at the loss of proper scrummaging. If we rush them, we’ll likely just have to reset them or there will be even more free kicks and penalties and the clock will have been a waste of time. Scrums are an important part of the game and they need to be treated that way, so let’s make sure they are done properly.

And as far as the 20-minute red card idea is concerned, I’m not a fan. As Mathieu has said, I don’t believe it will really solve any of the problems that we have in the game at the moment. If someone on the pitch has committed a red card offence, they should be given a red card that sees them sin-binned for the rest of the game. Simple as that.

Again, more attention needs to be paid to the actual issues that have brought us to the discussion of the 20 minute red card. The experiment was born out of players being ‘harshly’ sent off for offences that, by the letter of the law, were red card worthy.

What needs to be addressed is making sure that a sending off clearly is a sending off, and can not possibly be seen as ‘harsh’ or ‘unlucky’ but an act of thuggery or total recklessness. That’s how it used to be and that’s how it should always be.

The problem at the moment is that players are being sent off for things like accidental head collisions, which are not acts of thuggery or recklessness, but simply rugby collisions just accidentally gone wrong. They should not be seen as red card offences in the first place - so do we need to change the laws instead? I think so, or we certainly need to look at the options, especially upright tackles. Too often, players are still not making the effort to go lower.

I’m against the 20 minute red card, because if you’ve been sent off, you’ve done something reckless that has put another player at great risk, or you’ve committed an act of thuggery. A red card means you deserve to be off the pitch, so I don’t see why there should be a middle ground.

In my view, having a 20-minute red card is a cop-out. It’s simply papering over the cracks, when the discussion that really needs to be had is defining exactly what constitutes a red card offence and what doesn’t. That would be far more constructive for the game of rugby.

Plus, we didn’t see any real changes in player behaviour when it was trialed this summer, including at the Rugby Championship.There is still a lot of careless, reckless conduct out there, so I don’t know if introducing these new cards has made much of a difference anyway.

So while I agree with those in France that the 20-minute red card experiment should be abandoned, it is important that we make sure that their other ideas - such as the reduced number of replacements and the scrum clock - don’t end up simply papering over the cracks in the same way.

We need to deal with the issues at the centre of our game, the reasons why we have reached this point of wanting reform in the first place. If we fail to do that, then we are simply changing rugby for the sake of it and not in a way that will benefit it in the long run.

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