Somewhere in November, in the heart of London, a very important meeting looms.
And like everything in rugby, it can have some incredible consequences for the game we all love.
World Rugby’s next meeting on the way the game is played is scheduled for November, and already some forces are moving to try and change the way the game is being played.
We all know Dave Rennie’s rants about the scrum, they have both infuriated and frustrated South African coaches and fans alike, and Rennie is on a mission to have the game’s rules “deleted” - in his words - so that the scrum is “simpler”.
In theory that all sounds wonderful, but in practice it is a much more dangerous thing. Trying to change laws to give your side an advantage because you don’t like the setpiece can have dangerous consequences for rugby, especially when the laws you want to change are there to try and prevent injuries.
THEY ARE COMING FOR THE MAUL
And the scrum isn’t the only thing that is likely to be under assault. The maul law clarification, taken at World Rugby’s Shape of the Game conference, where the clarification was sought to enforce the current laws, not change them, has also started to gain some critics.
And in rugby nothing operates in a vacuum. Rugby’s laws - as frustrating as it is - cause more frustration when they are constantly tinkered with. It makes it confusing for everyone involved - just watch any game from a decade ago, and you have to remind yourself they were playing under different laws then.
So it wasn’t surprising this week when an Irish newspaper started the talking - that too many maul tries were being scored in the United Rugby Championship.
“24 URC matches so far this season have produced 32 maul tries. Each team is averaging 10 mauls per game, with each maul worth 3.7m per maul. The maul has become rugby's cheat code, are you not entertained?”
This was from the Irish Independent’s chief rugby writer Ruaidhri O’Connor, and underlined what has been bubbling under the surface for the past year since the State of the Game conference took place.
Clearly at that conference there were winners and losers - nations that had tried to shape the game their way, and some who didn’t get their way. World Rugby came out afterwards and reiterated that rugby was a game “for all shapes and sizes” - underpinning the setpiece and other elements that make the game unique.
But it hasn’t stopped those who disagreed, and you can believe they will want to impose their will again when the meeting happens.
RENNIE WILL LEAD THE ASSAULT
You can expect an assault on all of that - the scrums, the mauls and everything else that doesn’t fit the profile of how some want the game to be played.
While the argument about the maul being boring may resonate with some, it is within the laws for a reason, and taking it out, depowering the scrum and all the other measures that people like Rennie and others want, will certainly bring rugby closer to League, which is the biggest concern in both Australian and especially New Zealand rugby currently.
Rennie said in that same interview he had a go at the Bok scrums, that the issues will be brought up at the Conference in November.
“So I think the Sunday before we play Scotland, we’re all meeting down in London. So there’s definitely a lot of personal interest or self-interest when you go to those meetings and so maybe what’s best for the game isn’t always what happens because teams may feel that it doesn’t benefit them but I think there’s a handful of things that are odd in our game,” Rennie said in the same interview.
“The half-backs being able to roll the ball back with their hands, but they’re rolling it back outside the ruck. So that ball’s out the whole time. And you can’t come around and compete for that. In a game where we’re saying we want competition like high ball and you can’t block, but you can’t touch the nine in those situations.
“So I just think you shouldn’t be able to put your hands on a ruck because you get penalised for that normally. There should be five seconds to kick a ball. You shouldn’t be able to bring more numbers into a ruck once the ruck has been set because that just slows the game down and then makes it more difficult to apply pressure to a nine.
STRANGE THINGS
“There are a few strange things that have come in and been adopted that haven’t really been discussed by all the coaches from nations around the world.”
What Rennie means is that he wasn’t appointed when the Shape of the Game conference happened and subsequently some had said that Rassie Erasmus had “bullied” the conference to ensure the laws were kept the same.
The assault is coming, and Dave Rennie wants to be the face of that assault this November. The Boks and French, who led the call for the scrum to stay the same, and the maul laws to be enforced, will know that.
They will be prepared for another attempt to change the game we love. And another attempt to mould it into a game the All Blacks feel they want to impose on the rugby world.
The irony is that Rennie wants the game that suits him and his team, and as Cody Taylor told all of us at the start of the Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry Tour, the All Blacks believe they do “Rugby justice” by playing the way they do.
And now they are actively looking to impose that will again.
Watch out rugby world, because the All Blacks will again be leading the charge to depower the scrum, to make the maul less potent and shape the game to their liking when November comes.
The real question is - when will rugby finally stop tinkering and leave the game to be played the way it was intended?