Matt Williams: Rugby’s grassroots begin a fight back for the game’s soul

Ever so gently the embers of a revolution have begun to glow. Today, Brisbane is ground zero, as rugby’s grassroots begins its fight to take back control over the destiny of the game.

The crisis within rugby regarding time wasting and laws no longer fit for purpose has escalated so greatly that the Australian and New Zealand Super Rugby coaches have united in an unprecedented manner to recommend or, more accurately, demand a series of law changes.

In a huge victory for those fighting for the massive law reform required in the game, World Rugby has agreed to sanction two games using the law changes proposed by the Super Rugby coaches.

For the first time in the history of the game, it has not been the legislature or the judiciary of World Rugby that is attempting law change. This movement is coming from the factory floor. Coaches wearing tracksuits, whose job it is to deeply consider the reality of the game each working day, are telling those standing on shag pile carpets at World Rugby headquarters that the status quo cannot continue.

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Across the next two weekends in Brisbane, a Queensland Presidents XV will take on a Queensland Reds Development team, playing under new laws that are specifically aimed to speed up the game, keep the ball in play for longer periods of time and reduce time wasting by forwards at set plays.

The essence of every game should be the joy of playing and watching great athletes run with the ball in hand. Under the current laws, the setting of lineouts, scrums and shots at penalty goals are consuming huge chunks of game time. This has robbed rugby’s entertainers in the backline from equal involvement in playing the game. In simple terms, backs now enjoy drastically less involvement in the game than in the past.

The new proposed trial laws will enforce that scrums and lineouts will be set within 30 seconds. Teams must also move the ball out from rucks within five seconds of the referee calling ‘use it’. Failure to comply with any of these instructions will give the possession to the opposition via a tap free kick with no option for a scrum.

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Penalty shots at goal must now be completed within 60 seconds. Considering NFL goal kickers get about 1.5 seconds, even a minute seems excessive.

These laws are attempting to claw back valuable game time that referees and lawmakers have been robbing from players and spectators for years.

Added to these are decades overdue law changes of common sense. Defending scrumhalves will be required to stay at the midpoint of the scrum. This speeds up ball to the backlines and makes the scrummaging time shorter.

Lineout throws that are not contested, in other words, the defending team does not jump, cannot be whistled as not straight. Joyously, at long last, the ridiculously outrageous situation of players being yellow carded for attempting to intercept a pass is dead. This will now be ruled as either a knock on for attempting an intercept or a penalty for a deliberate action.

All common sense interpretations of laws, but common sense is currently a rare commodity in rugby officialdom.

I am very disappointed that the Super coaches did not request a return to the 1980s scrum laws where all infringements, except for foul play or offside, were free kicks.

Stopping games from being decided by scrum penalties was the motivation for the change back in the 1980s. How we reached this point where history is somehow repeating itself is one of rugby’s sorrowful mysteries.

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Now let’s be brutally honest and agree that the refs have not got a clue what’s really happening in the scrums, yet scrum penalties keep deciding matches.

In the complex maze of rugby’s realpolitik the Super Rugby coaches did not request a greater raft of changes because they were advised that a broader set of demands would have been rejected by the conservatives within rugby’s legislature.

The coaches had to tread the fine line between what was achievable and being termed “subversive undesirables” and banished back to the gulags in the deep south. So we should interpret these proposals as stage one in a series of demands.

In Ireland, these actions should not be viewed as some far off distant skirmish in the Sunshine state of Queensland. Ireland is a dominant player within rugby corridors of power and carries a punch of political clout far above its weight division.

South Africa and England will use their formidable political capital to quash any talk of speeding up the game, keeping the ball in play for longer periods and empowering their backlines.

This is simply because their respective national teams have made an art form out of reducing the time the ball is in play to maximise their physical dominance at scrums and mauls. While their constant kicking in general play squashes any risk of quality backline attack. Faster matches with more creative entertainment are not in their national team’s interest.

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For Ireland, there is a long list of compelling reasons to align itself with the agents of change from Super Rugby.

Firstly, if we descend to the level of pure self-interest, as most other nations do, Ireland’s national team is playing a successful, high tempo, ball in hand, running game.

Speeding the game up and reducing the effectiveness of South Africa’s and England’s giant dinosaur forwards and empowering backline players to become more involved, will not only be beneficial for the global game, but it will also be good for Irish rugby at every level.

A fast, ball in hand attacking game, with few stoppages that raises the requirements for aerobic fitness suits all of Irish rugby.

Games dominated by behemoth forwards, who are like giant NFL linemen, possessing mainly anaerobic fitness who require long periods of nothing happening so they can catch their breath, does not suit Irish rugby or the game at any level.

As a responsible global rugby citizen, Ireland should support these law reforms because, at their most fundamental level, these changes (and I hope many others in the future) create more game time for kids to have fun playing rugby.

Over the past few weeks I have had the great enjoyment of being asked to help with two very talented U16 and U18 representative teams in France. I was shocked when I attended their matches to see that they are officiated as exact copies of our Test matches. With over 20 penalties, many created from slowly formed scrums, the ball was out of play for long periods and the greatly talented backlines had very limited opportunities to play.

None of which resembled anything like the fun we had playing as kids.

There is a group within World Rugby who are fighting for law reform. Let us hope that these statesmen and women, who have championed the cause for reform by gaining permission to play these trial law games, can counter the politicians, who are seeking only short-term advantages for their own national teams’ style of play.

Sleepy little Brisvegas has become the unlikely battleground for the first shots in what could be a long and bitter fight for rugby’s soul.