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 Alterations ahead Law changes essential to speed up game
Posted: Sunday November 07, 1999 04:06 PM
CARDIFF, Wales (Reuters) -- The Rugby World Cup claims to be at least the third biggest sporting event in the world but it is hard to see how the last six weeks' action will help turn it into any sort of global game. It certainly produced incredible tension and moments of high excitement but far too many games were decided by the referee penalizing a technical offence that many watching fans may not even have seen. The laws, or the persistent breaching of them, have made it difficult for teams to sustain momentum in attack and all too often a promising move ends not with a winger diving over the tryline but with a flyhalf taking an age to kick a penalty goal. Officials, players and coaches are well aware that the product is by no means perfect but although they are generally united in their frustration at many of the laws, or more accurately the referees' varying interpretations of them, how they should be changed is not so clear. The moratorium on law changes ends next month and the International Rugby Board (IRB) is almost certain to introduce some alterations when it meets in Sydney. Many unions have proposed amendments and the administrators are well aware that adjustments need to be made. The biggest current problem is the tackle area. South Africa coach Nick Mallett says it has become so confusing as to become almost farcical. "It's very difficult for players to know at what instant a ruck has formed for example and we are seeing a stream of penalties for offences players honestly have no idea they are committing," he said. "The tackle situation is also a real problem. It's often very difficult to know if a player is refusing to release the ball or being prevented from doing so. When the referee blows all the players look up to see which way he's given the penalty." Australia coach Rod Macqueen has voiced similar concerns and says he wants to see the law changed to make the offside line run through the ball at the tackle. "Players must then come in from behind the ball. At the moment it's just a mess. It's incredibly complicated and the guys honestly don't know what's going on." After the Wallabies' quarterfinal victory over Wales, Macqueen said that the game would become very boring to watch if players were continually allowed to infringe in the loose. "It is very, very frustrating for a coach," he said. "We want to get quick ball but there are players all over the place, wandering around with their hands in the air, coming in from the side, laying on the wrong side, etc. It just slows the whole thing down and makes it impossible to recycle quickly." Macqueen is a strong supporter of the "sin bin" system that has been used with some success in Australia and elsewhere to punish the professional foul. "Virtually every time a team loses a player to the sin bin they give up a try," he said. "It's a very severe punishment in modern rugby." Mallett, however, is not convinced it is the answer. "I was against it in the Tri-Nations because it was used to easily," he said. "I'm nervous that it gives a referee a further opportunity to influence the result of a game. "I believe in cumulative yellow cards, so the player gets punished by missing matches but not his team by losing them." IRB chairman Vernon Pugh said this week that he expects the introduction of the sin bin to become widespread in the near future. "A number of unions are trialling with it and it's an option we want to look at," he said. "It seems to be popular with those using it and it's certainly one of the amendments that are being proposed." Rugby officials are aware of the need for progress and have acted quite radically in the past to fundamentally change areas of the game. The line-out, which used to be a source of endless penalties and often a spark for violence, has been cleaned up immensely. Some people do not like the current system of lifting, or "supporting" as the laws call it, and claim it is no longer a contest. While it is true that teams rarely lose their own throw, it does happen, and teams such as Fiji have shown that if you attack at the lineout you can cause disruption. Few would surely want to see a return to the bad old days where teams were content to trundle up and down the pitch kicking for touch every time they got the ball. Rob Fisher, head of the New Zealand Rugby Football Union and vice-chairman of the IRB accepts that change is necessary but said many of the areas expected to be a problem have worked out well. "There was concern before the tournament about use of the boot in the ruck situation but I think the refereeing has been pretty good in that area," he said. "Lifting in the lineout and collapsed scrums also haven't been the problem people talked about. "The ruck and tackle situation will get a thorough going over in December and come March I would expect there would be some changes."
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