Rule changes:

by robbo277 Fri 18 May 2012, 6:27 pm

Haven't seen anything about this on the boards (apologies if there is), but the IRB have sanctioned global trials on 5 law amendments.

Full article: http://www.irb.com/newsmedia/mediazone/pressrelease/newsid=2062222.html#irb+unions+sanction+global+law+trials

Selected section:

The five Law amendments to be trialled globally are:

1. Law 16.7 (Ruck): The ball has to be used within five seconds of it being made available at the back of a ruck with a warning from the referee to “use it”. Sanction – Scrum.

2. 19.2 (b) (Quick Throw-In) For a quick throw in, the player may be anywhere outside the field of play between the line of touch and the player’s goal line.

3. 19.4 (who throws in) When the ball goes into touch from a knock-on, the non-offending team will be offered the choice of a lineout at the point the ball crossed the touch line; or a scrum at the place of the knock-on. The non-offending team may exercise this option by taking a quick throw-in.

4. 21.4 Penalty and free kick options and requirements: Lineout alternative. A team awarded a penalty or a free kick at a lineout may choose a further lineout, they throw in. This is in addition to the scrum option.

5. A conversion kick must be completed within one minute 30 seconds from the time that a try has been awarded.

In addition to the global trials, the IRB Council approved three specific additional trials:

1. A trial to extend the jurisdiction of the TMO to incidents within the field of play that have led to the scoring of a try and foul play in the field of play to take place at an appropriate elite competition in order that a protocol can be developed for the November 2012 Tests.

2. A trial has been sanctioned for the November 2012 Test window permitting international teams to nominate up to eight replacements in the match day squad for Test matches. In line with current practice at domestic elite Rugby level, the additional player must be a qualified front row player.

3. An amendment to Law 3.4 (Sevens Variation) to enable Sevens teams to nominate up to five replacements/substitutes. Under the revision, which will operate from June 1 2012, a team may substitute or replace up to five players during a match. Approval has been granted on player welfare grounds to recognise the additional demands on players and squads owing to the expansion of the HSBC Sevens World Series where there are three blocks of three events on consecutive weekends.

My opinions?

For the amendments:

1: Like it.
2: Thought this was the case now.
3: Like it. Basically advantage is played from the knock-on, and the non-offending team gets to pick what is most advantageous to them.
4: Like it. If your line-out is dominant enough to win a free-kick, why should you be punished by not having the option of going for it again? (similar to free-kicks from the scrum). Obviously if it is a penalty you can just kick it back out, so no huge change there.
5: Seems a little bit long, but like it in principle.

Specific trials:

1: Good in theory. Interested to see how the trial goes.
2: Like it in general, but also from a selfish England point of view it allows us to get Marler and Doran-Jones on the bench (as opposed to Stevens, who is barely a jack of both sides and definitely a master of neither).
3: Don't follow the Sevens too closely, but it sounds like it makes sense.

What does everyone else think? Interesting to see the scrum and the ruck itself are unaltered (if you don't count amendment 1 as a change to the ruck, more as a change to the continuity of the game once the ball has been won and the ruck is effectively over as a contest). But the changes themselves are good in my opinion, I don't have a problem with any of them.

Also, the Northern Hemisphere nations will start playing these rules in August while the Southern Hemisphere nations won't play these until January 2013. I may be wrong but I think the Autumn Internationals will be played under the new rules, possibly giving the Northern Hemisphere nations a slight advantage, although I don't think any of the rules are radical enough that this will make a significant difference.

by Portnoy Sat 19 May 2012, 9:22 am

It has been covered Robbo. No doubt to will later be merged.

My opinion is not what is there - but what is missing.

The awful (as it turned out) CTPE scrum engagement not abandoned.

No requirement for props to wear loose clothing in the shoulder area.

No direction to refs to apply the scrum feed to return the scrum to the a contest for the ball (as per the line-out).

Rule changes:

Rule changes:

Re: Rule changes: