Law changes

[no sleep]

Just saw a great camera angle from the England-France game, after a penalty for England collapsing a maul. The camera angle showed the whole defensive line half a metre off side. Ref that properly and you change the game for the good.

[septic 9]

Off topic a bit but should they ban lifting from open play. Thinking of restarts here. Loads of great restart kickers but, except when Scotland play, restarts end up with the same formula.

nothing to do with Scotland, but I'd go further and ban jumping to catch the ball in open play. We are seeing a clear tactic from certain players and coaches to get the kick chaser not just to contest the ball but jump into the defender to disrupt him. Its been on the increase for a couple of seasons, but more frequent in the current kick fest
Defender is coached to jump to catch the ball so that he cannot be tackled until back on the ground, so he is in the air
- chaser launching himself after a sprint run up is just dangerous - its like the worst combination of the human missile launched over a ruck and driving under the jumper in a lineout

refs are not calling this for what it is, someone is going to be badly hurt

[stevedog1980]

I'm just positing here in case anyone wants to continue talking about the jackal / ruck or anything else. Apologies but 1 or 2 of the other threads have been a bit derailed with ruck chat

[stevedog1980]

That's sort of my point in a nutshell, allowing players to have their heads in the vicinity of the contact is the problem.

Definitely not and I think they should be penalised for their own safety.

Only allow hands in if you're not part of the ruck full stop. If you want the ball, counter ruck until your team can pick it up. Otherwise the advantage stays with the attacking team.

What about the caterpillar ruck? Are you happy with the state of play there?

I'm on board with getting rid of the jackal but only if the guy on the floor needs to properly release the ball and the whole height of the ruck comes up. At the moment, you are allowed to enter a ruck at a height that, if the other team pulls away, you will inevitably fall on the floor. The ruck therefore becomes a solid mass on the floor that is impossible to counter ruck. If you got rid of the jackal too, the attacking team could keep ball forever. It needs to be clear that if you are touching the floor with your upper body you either need to roll away or get penalised as otherwise you are making it impossible to compete.

Agree with all of this. I don't think you will be able to stop people pulling back in order to bring players out of the ruck but people will have to consider how much force they are looking to bring to the initial engagement. Trundle up (relatively speaking) and you should be able to stop yourself from falling forward if the opposition do try and pull back.

I'm not entirely sure how everything would go if these changes were made but I am 100% convinced it's the jackal that needs to go and not everything else around it

[Cameo]

Just a thought from watching a game today, does there need to be a bit more nuance re the don't touch the half back rule?

It sometimes seems like you can have two three players counter rucking who have blown away their opposite numbers who have fallen out the side or to ground. They presumably can't pick up the ball as it's still in the ruck but they also can't drive beyond it as the opposing 9 is poking around.

I think we want to be encouraging teams to commit to ruck but they end up not getting rewarded for it. I'm all for protecting the 9 from people taking a wild grab from inside the ruck but if they can drive straight through it, I think the 9 is fair game.