Allan Massie: No drastic rule changes needed, but let’s speed the game up

Eddie Jones’ suggestion of reducing the number of replacements would be a good start

Referee Marius Mitrea and his assistants consult the TMO during Edinburgh’s match against Connacht at BT Murrayfield in February. Picture: SNS/SRU.

Eddie Jones is often a tiresome fellow who delights in playing media games and stirring things up. Nobody, however, doubts his knowledge of rugby and commitment to what he sees as the best interests of the game. This week he has been speaking of the need to speed matches up.

He is surely right. Go back 30 or 40 years and from kick-off to final whistle took around 90 minutes. There was only a five-minute break at half-time, as players didn’t leave the field and were refreshed only by a segment of orange or lemon. Injury time added to each half rarely lasted more than two or three minutes.

Now the whole thing often lasts a full two hours. There is 15 minutes’ rest and recuperation at the interval, and numerous stoppages while referees conduct tutorials at set-scrums or engage in discussions with the assistant referees and the Television Match Official.

One consequence is that players have lots of opportunities to regain their breath, thus making it less likely that the game will open up in the last quarter when players tire.

There is another reason why it doesn’t open up, and this is the number of replacements permitted. There are eight of these now, which is ridiculous.

Jones has called for the number to be cut to five or six. His view may have been influenced by last year’s World Cup final. South Africa, with their powerful squad of heavy lifters, regularly changed the front five of their scrum around the 
50-minute mark, and also replaced one of their flankers. Not much chance of fatigue setting in.

This may be all right if you think rugby is now properly a 23-a-side game, but since one of its essential arts is the finding of space on the field, provisions which make this even more difficult than it naturally is are deplorable.

It’s too much to hope that we will revert to permitting replacements only for injured players, but some amendment of the law relating to replacements is desirable. A player can now win a sizeable handful of caps before he has spent a total of 80 minutes on the field.

This strange summer has deprived us of a lot. There has been no live rugby in the northern hemisphere since mid-March, and no summer tours to the southern one. In compensation we have been able to watch film of old matches, and this has been instructive as well as enjoyable. The game, we have realised, was faster 20 or 30 years ago than it is now. It is true that the ball is often, even usually, in play for longer periods now than it used to be, but much of that play is slow, repetitive and boring. Quickening the game up again probably requires some revision of the laws relating to the scrum and the breakdown, but even without such revision the game would be faster if we could cut down on tiresome and unnecessary 
delays.

There should be no need for referees to conduct a tutorial at each set scrum or to tell captains to collect their players to explain that the referee will no longer tolerate this or that. Confabulations with the TMO and the scrutiny of an incident from half-a-dozen different angles are boring – and don’t even settle disputes. It is natural that we should use the technology that is available, but its use has become excessive.

The impact of the coronavirus is going to be felt for some time yet. It would, however, be foolish to respond by making drastic changes to the Laws of the game. Rugby is what we have come to call a “contact sport”, and indeed a sport of close and vigorous contact. Take out the contact, even reduce it, and you change and devalue the game. You might as well play touch rugby, and that certainly wouldn’t fill Murrayfield.

The present coronavirus crisis will pass and a vaccine will bring the epidemic under control. Normality will return. Social distancing will seem like a strange interruption, and no more than that. International grounds will be full again and bars thronged. People will be quite ready to travel to matches on crowded trains, buses and trams.

By all means let us consider amendments to the Laws or the interpretation of the Laws in order to speed the game up and restore a better balance between defence and attack. We should certainly do as Eddie Jones suggests and reduce the number of permitted 
replacements.

But such adjustments are themselves normal; we have tinkered with laws and revised them throughout the history of our beautiful and complicated sport. Don’t, however, listen to those who propose changes to make rugby more attractive to those who don’t like the game or aren’t interested in it.

Such changes are more likely to displease those who already love it without attracting the new following the money men dream of.

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