Expect anything with the new laws
Expect anything with the new laws
Wayne Smith | February 05, 2008
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au...012430,00.html
EVERY new season brings change, but this is ridiculous.
Waratahs captain Phil Waugh expects early-season blow-outs, Western Force coach John Mitchell is worried that blindside flankers will morph into second-rowers and that backrows will become populated entirely by openside flankers.
Referees boss Peter Marshall is so concerned about mischief-making that he is appealing to coaches to alert whistle-blowers in advance about what tricks they have up their sleeves.
The cause of all this angst is the experimental changes to the rules that will apply in the Super 14 competition that starts next week, a bold initiative by the International Rugby Board to improve the game as a spectacle.
That's the intent, at least.
But history shows that whenever the laws of the game change, one overarching law remains constant - the Law of Unintended Consequences. Tweak the law to produce result X and you can be certain to get result Y instead.
"It's coaches' jobs to exploit the laws so it'll be interesting to see how they do that," Waugh said yesterday at the Australian launch of the Super 14 series.
The NSW captain suspects that scores could balloon in the early rounds as players, coaches and referees struggle to come to terms with the laws, most especially with the change from a full penalty to a free-kick for all offences outside of foul play and offside.
"The ball's going to be in play longer with quick taps," he said. "There's going to be more flowing rugby and teams that can adapt to that will be more successful, especially in the early rounds."
His Force counterpart, Nathan Sharpe, isn't sure what to expect but is bracing himself for anything.
"Coaches will look for loopholes ... that's going to happen for sure," Sharpe said. "You're going to see some pretty way-out things happen. What? I don't know. I'm still at the stage where I don't know what I don't know."
What Sharpe does know now is that he didn't know all the new laws before he captained the Force against the Crusaders in a pre-Super 14 trial in Melbourne last weekend.
Time and again referee Stu Dickinson's decisions left him totally bewildered and while it's generally not unusual for Dickinson's decisions to have this effect, this time Sharpe acknowledged the fault was his entirely.
Like all the other Australian World Cup representatives, he was in France last year while the Australian Rugby Championship was being played at home under the new rules. Usually the Wallabies form the core of the leadership group within each team but for the early rounds at least, they will be following the lead of some of their younger team-mates.
So there's a wariness in all camps as the start of this season draws nigh. Every coach has done his homework and hopes he has anticipated every devious trick his rivals might spring but there's this nagging fear that something will come entirely out of left field that no-one has reckoned on.
Force coach Mitchell will be looking to do the is simple things right.
"It's the basics that serve you well, in the game as in life," Mitchell said. "You go into the season with concepts on plans and methods. We've got a framework we're pretty happy with but I think that framework will evolve."
Mitchell's concern is that the game will become so fast that coaches will be tempted to drop less mobile second-rowers for more athletic blindside flankers, that the need for speed will see three No7s filling the six, seven and eight jerseys.
Ultimately, however, he is pinning his faith on the game's self-correcting mechanisms. Yes, some teams might give themselves over entirely to speed and movement but then it's not obligatory to take a quick tap whenever a free-kick is awarded.
It's possible instead to set a scrum, which would ensure that teams built around strength and power up front have an equal chance to impose themselves on proceedings. The old yin and yang of rugby will not be lost.
