Former international referee Jaco Peyper predicts that some of the Super Rugby Pacific trials will not have their desired positive impact but a negative one instead.
On Monday, the tournament announced that measures have been put in place to reduce stoppages, inspire positive play and simplify the officiating of the game through the introduction of further law trials.
In a bid to limit the amount of scrums in the game, accidental offsides and teams delaying playing the ball away from a ruck will now result in free-kicks rather than scrums – a reminder that teams can no longer opt for a scrum from a free-kick.
Additionally, players will be allowed to take quick taps within one metre either side of the mark, or anywhere behind the mark, if they are within that two-metre channel running parallel to the touchlines.
These tweaks to the lawbook are supposed to speed up the game, increase the ball in play time and limit the amount of dead time in matches.
Super Rugby law trials
However, Springboks assistant coach Felix Jones is anxious about the trials that are being conducted and what impact they will have on scrums.
“I’m aware that Super Rugby are going to trial some laws, which is their right in their competition, it’s great to see people trying innovative things, but I have a nervousness about this… there are some fundamental changes here,” he said on the Rassie+ podcast before asking Peyper to weigh in.
The former referee, who is now SA Rugby’s national laws advisor, says that in his experience, free-kicks usually slow down the game instead of speeding it up, particularly if the team that has been awarded the free-kick aren’t in possession of the ball when the referee blows the whistle.
“The intention here is to keep the game dynamic,” Peyper explained.
“That’s what I think but with a free-kick, replacing accidental offsides, if you don’t use the ball within five seconds at the caterpillar rock or the box-kick, give a free-kick and take the scrum away, in my experience in refereeing, if you give a free-kick to the team that’s not in possession, it slows down the game because there needs to be a transfer between this team and that team.
“That means that they’re not going to have the quick tap option, they’re probably going to wait to organise their team and kick an up and under.
“So there are a lot of people calling for less kicks. With this, we are most likely going to add kicks, unless the free-kick is given to the team that has possession and then the nine, or whoever’s got the ball, can tap and play and continue with that dynamic stuff.
“I’ve given a lot of free-kicks in my life, and I stopped giving free-kicks at some point because I didn’t get the reward for that unless a certain team’s in possession.”
While he is doubtful that the trial will have a positive impact, he added: “That’s a personal view, and it’s not measured. This competition hopefully brings back some data, but that’s an anticipation.”
Meanwhile, Jones argues that there hasn’t been a significant change in the number of scrums over the past few years in rugby, but suggests that there is an uptick in the number of resets.
Upskilling referees and Six Nations directives
These law trials are aimed at reducing the number of set-pieces, which he believes is just sweeping the real problem under the rug.
“I’m aware of the Six Nations directives that have gone out to most of the head coaches and it’ll be interesting to see if some of it gets implemented or not because there’s probably a discussion point around some people wanting less scrums even though we’ve shown that there actually is the same amount of scrums as there always has been,” Jones said.
He added: “I get it from the idea of wanting to have action again, but I’m not sure we should be changing the fundamentals of what is one of the pure contests of rugby.
“It seems to be ignoring it and just sweeping the problem under the rug as opposed to going, ‘mustn’t we upskill the referees?’”
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Peyper agreed and argued that the top 10 referees in the world are likely to have less resets in the scrum and that World Rugby would be better off upskilling the officials than changing laws.
“So, if you take that stat, you say there’s more resets. Have you taken all the November games? Have you taken into account tier one teams versus tier two teams? Have you taken into account the referee number 10 and compared it to the number 15 in the world? Or if you take a snapshot of just the best five referees in the world, what are their stats?
“I believe their stats would look different because they’re better skilled, more experienced, and whatever time has been invested in them, if that same time were invested in the next 10, would we not see a better change at the scrum than changing the law?”