Rugby union needs speeding up to improve the entertainment factor

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2015/mar/12/the-breakdown-rugby-union-needs-speeding-up

Version 0 of 1.

A number of former players, and a current one, are among a group set up by World Rugby to review the laws of the game with an instruction to put player welfare at the heart of any proposed changes.

The process takes place every four years. Unions submit suggested law amendments, which they will do by next month, and they are considered by a laws representation group, which this year is 11-strong and is diverse in its make-up with a former referee, a coach and a woman, Rachael Burford, among its number along with Ryan Jones, the Wales international who is playing for Bristol.

The group will report to World Rugby’s rugby committee in October, trials of proposed changes would take place locally in 2016, globally the following year and the governing body meets at the end of 2018 to decide whether any should become permanent.

Unions have been encouraged to look at areas that would improve player welfare, with reducing the number of concussions a priority. Also, “the game remains a sport for all shapes and sizes; the unique identities of the game are maintained, such as the scrum, lineout, ruck, maul, tackle, kick-off and restarts; any changes must promote enjoyment for participants and entertainment for spectators; the laws must be able to be applied by match officials.”

With regard to the last point, why is the offside line behind a ruck or a maul, as the New Zealand head coach Steve Hansen pointed out recently, policed so fitfully, especially at a time when space in the top matches is so rare? The more space, surely, the fewer collisions and the fewer collisions, the less the chance of concussion.

It is interesting that World Rugby uses the word ruck considering that rucking, in the traditional sense at least, is all but obsolete. While a stated precept for law changes remains maintaining the unique identities of the game, they have been steadily eroded in the professional era. A common complaint this Six Nations has been a scarcity of stand-out moments that should characterise elite sport, more artisan than artist.

Rugby union should be two contests in one, forwards and backs. Backs only line up against each other now at set pieces, and with the scrum an ineffective means of restarting play because of a combination of rule-breaking and a lack of strict refereeing, determined in part by safety considerations, that effectively means the lineout.

Where set pieces used to outnumber rucks and mauls by some four to one, the opposite is now true and breakdowns come with two lines that cover most of the length of the pitch; with so little space, collisions multiply. The laws representation group may look at the ruck, with concussion in mind, and ponder whether there is a way of making more forwards commit to it and so create some gaps behind. Rucking, where boots make contact with bodies, has long frightened the authorities, but deliberate stamping on heads was rare in the days when the law of the jungle prevailed and concussion is an issue that has come to dominate thinking because of its impact on players’ health and the damage negative publicity does to the image of the game with parents concerned about their children taking up the sport.

World Rugby mentioned law changes in terms of entertainment for spectators, but sufficiently in passing for it not to be a priority, although some unions in the southern hemisphere would, and will, dispute that. The 15-a side game remains the governing body’s financial driver, but Sevens is beginning to make an impact: the World Cup used to account for 95% of the money used to develop the sport throughout the globe, but it is now some 90% and falling.

In many developing countries, Sevens is the more popular form of the sport, quicker, shorter and easier to follow. Other sports are using truncated versions to increase appeal, especially to the young and social media. Tennis has a new format called Fast4, two sets with four games rather than six proving conclusive. “It’s whatever the crowd wants, whatever TV wants,” said the former tennis player Pat Rafter. “I think grand slam events will always stay their way, but for others, if this is what the fans want, this is what we should be playing.”

Basketball in the United States has experimented with 11-minute, rather than 12-minute quarters, Major League Baseball has been looking at ways of increasing the pace of play and in cricket Twenty20 has proved been a commercial success beyond the expectations of those who created it. “I think all sports constantly have to be looking at format, particularly pace,” said John Kristick, the global chief executive of the sports consultancy firm GroupM ESP.

“The reality is that there are a number of sports with tradition and history that limit what they can do, but the step change is speaking to a wider, newer and, by default, younger audience. The issue with youth is that they consume sports differently and consume content differently. What we need to see more of, to address their needs, is looking at the different platforms: the second-screen experience and content in smaller bites that will ultimately drive people back to the core product.”

It is, apparently, to do with attention spans which are perceived to be under duress. Sports are becoming focused on making formats more compact and minimising dead periods, a reason football introduced the white spray at free-kicks to prevent layers in a wall from encroaching and being sent back by the referee after a debate.

World Rugby currently has no plans to reduce the periods when the clock ticks and nothing is going on, such as scrum resets and even the minute allowed for a conversion when the ball is effectively dead, because it feels that with sone matches achieving a ball-in-play time of 40 minutes it has virtually reached its optimum from a player welfare perspective.

World Rugby is effectively run by the established unions with Europe having an in-built majority. As long as the Six Nations remains popular with paying spectators, broadcasters and sponsors, there will be no pressure for radical change in the north, but with Sevens being the format for rugby union in next year’s Olympics and a number of emerging countries tapping into its popularity – 75,000 watched the World Series in Las Vegas last month – the day will arrive when change will reflect the times as well as tradition.

• This is an extract taken from the Breakdown, the Guardian’s weekly rugby union email. Sign up here.