Why I’m cool on rugby's 20-minute red cards but I like lineout shot-clocks

The Rugby Championship is always innovative. It’s a brilliant competition to watch because new ideas come through in terms of how they’re playing or how they deal with new laws, and a lot of those trends are taken on at the start of the Northern Hemisphere season.

So as well as being an exciting tournament in its own right, it’s a brilliant learning tool. You can watch, pick things up and then throw them into a pre-season training schedule, adapt them and see how they can work for you.

It’s the Six Nations of the Southern Hemisphere and although not as prestigious or as competitive as the Six Nations, it’s still a huge occasion. We got a taste of it last month when England played New Zealand and Ireland played South Africa but those tours came at the end of long seasons for the Northern Hemisphere teams. We’re probably going to see a bit more quality over the next few weeks, beginning on Saturday with Australia v South Africa and New Zealand v Argentina.

All Blacks captain Sam Cane, centre, lifts the Rugby Championship trophy while a team-mate hoists the larger Bledisloe Cup after New Zealand's decisive win over Australia at Melbourne Cricket Ground last year. (Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)

The new laws add an extra dimension and it’ll be fascinating to see what impact they have. I’ve joined the Scotland Women coaching team and the new laws are also going to be in place for the WXV2 tournament next month so we’ll all be taking a keen interest in how they are implemented.

I like the fact that SANZAAR has now come in and adopted them straight away and aren’t letting someone else be the guinea pig. The headline-grabbing law change being trialled at the Rugby Championship is the 20-minute red card. It will mean that in certain cases, players who are sent off can be replaced by another player 20 minutes later.

I’m not really a fan but my stance is softening a little. I understand the argument from those in favour which is that they don’t want red cards to ‘ruin’ games but if you take that view, you are exonerating foul play.

Those in favour of 20-minute red cards say that the actions of an individual shouldn’t impact significantly on a team but team sport is all about individuals acting together for the good of the team. One individual’s actions should affect the team, for good or for bad.

The other argument for those in favour is that they believe it will empower the officials to give more cards for dangerous tackles, high shots and head-on-head collisions. I understand that because I think referees have softened their approach on handing out cards. We saw it at the World Cup last year and it continued throughout the season. In a lot of the conversations between referees, assistants and TMOs you can hear them trying to mitigate down the punishment. They’re trying to find ways to keep players on the pitch.

If it’s a 50-50, then that’s fair enough but when it’s an obvious one and they are still trying to find a way out of showing a red card then I think it is a bad look for rugby. This is not a criticism of the match officials. I think they have been put in an incredibly difficult position by the law makers over the last few years, but I do think there has been too many occasions over the last season where the smallest amount of mitigation has been used as justification for reducing the sanction.

If a player gets it wrong, he should be punished and it shouldn’t be up to the officials to try to find a way to keep them on the pitch.

Another innovation is the extended use of the countdown clock. As well as a 60-second limit for kickers to take conversions and penalties, there will also be a timer for forward packs who will now have 30 seconds to form a scrum or lineout.

I really like the idea of bringing it in for lineouts and hopefully this will speed up the game. Scotland have used high tempo lineouts since Gregor Townsend became coach and Darcy Graham scored a memorable try against England from one a few years ago. Now I think we’ll see more teams trying it.

I’m not so sure about a clock on scrums. World Rugby is desperate to reduce the number of scrums and the amount of ball-in-play time lost through scrums slowing the game down. However, these are big guys trying to execute an incredibly complicated and dangerous facet of the game and we shouldn’t be trying to rush them through the process. If we do, I fear there will be more collapsed scrums, we’ll see more free kicks and penalties as a result, and more time lost.

In terms of the tournament itself, it’s hard to see past South Africa and New Zealand. Having said that, South Africa don’t have a great record in the Rugby Championship and Tri-Nations – only four titles since 1996, compared to New Zealand’s 20.

Rassie Erasmus has said that he doesn’t really care what his win rate is in between World Cups and it’s hard to argue with that when the Boks have won two World Cups on the bounce. It’s also the start of a new four-year cycle so we’re going to see some changes and some experimentation.

New Zealand were reasonably impressive against England last month, winning both Tests in their first games under Scott Robertson. They didn’t appear to have massively change the way they play but they did move the ball better than in the previous few years and looked a little more dangerous with it.

England defend in a similar way to South Africa – they’ve got ex-Boks defence coach Felix Jones – and New Zealand managed to unlock them.

You usually have to beat New Zealand to win the Rugby Championship and South Africa will be helped by playing the All Blacks twice at home. I think it will be between these two and I think New Zealand will win, despite having to go to Ellis Park and Cape Town.

Australia have won four on the bounce but their Test matches against Wales were really poor. The Wallabies are developing under Joe Schmidt and he’ll bring a lot more clarity in terms of how he wants them to play.

Argentina should be strong at home but they’ve got a difficult start, playing New Zealand away in their first two fixtures. My old Glasgow Warriors team-mate Lucio Sordoni is in the Argentina squad but there’s no place for Sebastian Cancelliere despite his outstanding form in the URC. He’s an out-and-out finisher, he’s really strong under the high ball and I think everyone associated with Glasgow is perplexed as to why he doesn’t get in the Argentina squads. Argentina’s loss however, is Glasgow’s gain.