France have declared themselves “satisfied” following World Rugby’s Shape of the Game conference during the week, despite rumours of a rift.
The great and good of the sport met in London to discuss the future of rugby union where various matters were discussed.
Head of referees at the French Rugby Federation, Mathieu Raynal, was one of France’s representatives and he went in looking to defend the game’s ‘traditional values’.
Raynal has been a critic of the move, driven by Australia and New Zealand, to reduce the impact of the scrum.
Law amendments
A World Rugby law amendment now prevents a scrum from being taken after a free-kick sanction, while Super Rugby Pacific have introduced more law trials which could further depower the set-piece if adopted globally.
But the former Test referee believes that discussions at the recent Shape of the Game event were positive.
“We leave satisfied that we were listened to, heard, and supported in our vision for the overall well-being of our sport. World Rugby created the conditions for this exchange, and they demonstrated a level of attentiveness that is a credit to Brett Robinson and his team,” he told RMC Sport.
“Bringing together more than 200 people from all the world’s federations to find common ground is a real strength for the future of rugby.
“We exchanged a great deal of information with them, shared a lot of data about our work, and experimented with rules in our championships. So they see that we’re working, and they also know that we will remain very attentive to preserving the overall interest of our sport.”
There were reports by L’Equipe of two factions emerging at the conference with France and South Africa on one side, and Australia and New Zealand on the other.
However, by the end of it, Raynal felt that they were all on the same page as to how the sport can move forward.
“We went to London to defend our positions but also to listen to other opinions. We know they want continuity of play, a more dynamic game. We’ve never said we were against it,” he said.
“We’re also in favour of a very spectacular style of rugby [but] we simply don’t want continuity of play to come at the expense of player safety or fair play. As long as this principle is respected, we’re very much in favour of discussing continuity of play.”
Over recent years, the trans-Tasman duo have made a concerted attempt to speed up the game with Super Rugby not quite garnering the attention it once had.
It is France’s Top 14 that is now the biggest league in the sport, which is far more attritional than the southern hemisphere competition.
‘We need to be vigilant’
“They’re inclined to change certain rules to make our sport more attractive and to gain new spectators. But what Florian Grill and Yann Roubert explained to them is that in France, we have a model that works as it is, and even works very well,” Raynal said.
“We need to be vigilant because we have a complex sport that needs to evolve, so there’s a real need to constantly reflect on it. But we mustn’t forget to seek a certain stability.
“Every time we propose a rule in the future, it will have to adhere to one of the fundamental principles of our sport, which is safety, fairness, or the continuity of the game.
“We can’t keep changing things for the sake of change; it has to have a real benefit for the game, it has to be well-reasoned, we need data to back it up, and there needs to be a consensus among all the nations. Only then will we find the right balance.”
World Rugby have adopted the position of wanting to speed up the game and see more tries scored, but Raynal insists that they also need to ‘fair’ on the defence.
“Before the Shape of the Game, the philosophy was to ‘reward attack’, and for us, that didn’t respect the principle of fairness. Defence and attack must have the same chance to compete for possession of the ball,” he added.
“Today, in the general philosophy that World Rugby wants to apply to the rules of the game, ‘player safety’, the concept of ‘contest’ and therefore fairness in the struggle, and then ‘continuity of play’ are key.
“Every time a new rule is introduced in the future, we will refer to this general philosophy. You understand that if it hadn’t been modified, it would have represented a potential problem for the future.”