New laws making game like league

After the first week of this season's Super 14, I had some reservations about the new laws due to teams aimlessly kicking the ball up and down the field. But there has been a huge improvement since then.

Coaches have obviously seen this wasn't the way rugby should be played and devised better tactics to deal with ball they couldn't kick out.

But I do have a number of concerns. One is the option from a freekick to call for a scrum. Many scrums particularly late in the game are taking well over a minute to complete. This is counter productive to what these new laws are trying to achieve because it takes less time for teams to kick into the corner and have a lineout.

The law makers need to look at what a short arm penalty is and whether scrums can be taken because it's time-wasting. They will go for scrums every time and wheel them and drop them once to take up time.

If the aim of these laws was to speed the game up then they've succeeded. But the real concern I have is rugby is looking more like league every year.

People who love the game don't want that to happen.

We want to see rugby maintain its identity and part of that is having struggles up front in the forwards and creating space for backs to run with the ball.

The defensive lines in rugby are now akin to league and I feel the game is getting choked.

If we went back five years and reinstated the laws to allow rucking, I believe we'd have a solution.

With the greater skill and fitness we see in players today we'd have a fantastic game.

Also, there are some inconsistencies with the laws.

If a player on the defending team puts his hand into a ruck to slow the ball down it's a free kick but if a player comes into the side of that ruck it's a penalty.

This concerns me because a hand in the ruck and slowing the ball down is doing more damage to the game than a player often, marginally, getting penalised for coming in on the side.

Sure, referees have to deal with that, but how can you say that is a worse infringement than coming into a ruck from the side?

Hopefully, at the end of the Super 14 these are the type of things the law makers will discuss.

As for Warren Gatland's comments in today's paper about All Blacks assessing the opposition, I would find it really surprising if leading All Blacks and New Zealand players don't spend time analysing the opposition and individual players in it.

When I was coaching I felt it was paramount to look at the five or six key players in the opposition team, discuss it with our players and work out tactics to nullify their strengths.

I find it difficult to believe Warren's claims are right.

- © Fairfax NZ News