General Rugby Discussion 3

Cityam.... Nah.

Here, here!!

It would be a great pleasure to hear if the Welsh and Scottish are hoppin mad.

Hope the tournament never happens. Although I would like a watered down version (Emerging Ireland type) in the US.

Mike Catt heading to the Waratahs (this might have been known previously but I think it's news to me)

Yet another prime example of a highly touted Springbok moving overseas and then just mailing it in and giving what looked like virtually zero effort.

I hate the 20 min red card, just disagree with it and think it sends a bad message.

On the others:

Very much in favour of the set piece clock - just seems logical.

Get the logic of not allowing the sacking of SHs too.

There was another change you omitted I think: the refs are not going to whistle line out throws that aren't straight if uncontested by the opposition - I'm very much in favour of this rule too.

"20 minute red cards" is one of, if not the worst, rule changes in recent memory.

Being reduced to 14 men for 20 minutes is not a reasonable punishment for potentially taking out another teams key player. You could play 79 minutes without your star player due to injury whilst the opposition only suffers for 20 minutes. It's farcical.

Yeah, but adjudicating on "deliberate" acts is very very difficult in the pressure cooker situation of a ongoing game.

"Accidental" head contact isn't a red card though.

If you start in too high a tackle position then it isn't accidental, it's reckless.

Anything truly accidental is already mitigated to a yellow.

But if it's a red card, it's a red card. If something is not quite a red card, that's what the yellow card is for. And if it's in-between, empower the bunker system to make a decision.

How can anyone tell 100% of the time what's deliberate and what's not? And what's to stop players playing on the edge knowing that once it doesn't look deliberate, the risk isn't as high as it was. The law lowers the punishment for being reckless.

"SANZAAR explain that the rationale behind this variation is that the individual, not the game, is punished for red card offences." - Which is an absolute load of BS.

Replaced by a sub.

Yeah that's my understanding too. A ref can give a straight red and that means the team is down a man for the rest of the match. If the ref seems it meets YC threshold, then it goes to bunker for review and can be upgraded to a 20 minute red. I like it.

What if a player gets a second yellow? Is it a 20 minute red or the full match?

I have a nephew playing for his uni team in London. Recently he got a bad concussion during a game, couldn't remember anything, pale in the face, disoriented, etc. Bad one. Anyhow, afterwards no-one got in touch w any family and coaches didn't organise for him to get to hospital or even get home. Luckily one of his team mates texted his mum and got him a taxi to his brothers house, they took him to A&E. I was surprised the coaches/team didn't make sure he was looked after, is that common?

Yeah, shocking. Ive never come across it before but have no experience of uni rugby in the UK.

In fairness to World Rugby the 20-minute red card is something that was pushed especially by New Zealand and SANZAR. New Zealand used it in Super Rugby in 2020 already to not impact the "integrity" of the match. Which is all rubbish, you either believe in player safety or you don't. We already see players are not tackling lower and that is why you see head on head contact, even with the threat of a red card. But reducing the sanction once again will not impact trying to change behaviour of players in tackling lower. It is a trial and we will see if the other nations actually go for it as well. I don't think the threat of lawsuits have hit the Southern Hemisphere yet so they are still a little blaisé about head injuries. I think all of the top people and commentators say the right thing on record but off the record they are probably thinking and saying the game has gone soft.

As for the other changes, what is to stop a team that is being destroyed in the scrum from just not getting ready for it? Your choice seems to be a penalty if you scrum or free kick if you don't, that does not seem right. Can the referee give a penalty instead? The problem at the moment that a strong scrum being an automatic penalty is too much in favour on the one side but this seems to be a way to mitigate that.

On the scrum point - after a free kick the referee is supposed to escalate to penalty for repeat infringments.

This is the worst part of the rule. Bringing on someone who doesn't play the position of the guy who has gone off will result in rearranging the team on the fly and could be equally damaging to the spectacle of the game. The logic behind it is nonsense.

If a prop gets a 20 minute red and your front row subs are on, do you get to bring back on someone who as already been subbed off? Or is it uncontested scrums and you can bring on whoever is unused on the bench?

And any game that has an appointed ref from any of the 4 provincial associations/society has to fill in form for any player removed from their games who were suspected of getting a concussion.

Probably the same as currently happens, if they can’t bring on a prop it goes to uncontested scrums and another man goes off.

Australia looked lost out there. Joe is starting at a very low base compared to any of his previous jobs, it's a big ask. SA continue to improve their wide game, Kriel has become a fantastic player.