Laws: Waugh has a point

After the match between his Waratahs and the Stormers at Newlands on Saturday, Phil Waugh, captain of the Waratahs and an experienced flank forward, complained about the new application of the law because it ceased to allow a contest at the tackle. He has a point.

His point would have been more acceptable but for his petulant display during the match. Picking physical arguments with Ricky Januarie and Geo Aplon, the smallest men in the Stormers’ side, was not brave and complaining to the referee like a child whose favourite toy has been taken away was not worthy of a player of his stature, the captain of a team. The petulance was not going to stop the referee from doing what he was told to do. Waugh, like Heinrich Brüssow and others, is having to come to terms with a less effective role than in the past.

Waugh said: “I think the beauty of Rugby Union is the contest, and the contest within the contest – the battles at the breakdown, things like that.

“We’ve just got to be careful that we don’t get too caught up on the defensive side and watching only the defensive side.

“At the moment I think that passive ball-carriers are getting rewarded and dominant tackles aren’t getting rewarded. I think we’ve got to be very careful in the game itself that we reward dominant tackles and perhaps that’s not happening at the moment.”

He has a point.

If you run with the ball and I am a defender, your aim is to get past me and my aim is to stop you from getting past me. If I tackle you, I have won that contest. Surely I also have a right to try to get the ball. I know I must exercise that right within law, but it is my right surely.

I must allow you the opportunity to release the ball and you, too, have an obligation – to release the ball.

In this season’s application the emphasis is on the tackler and what he has to do – release and get away.

If one compares what is happening in the Super 14 with what is happening in Six Nations and northern club rugby, then there is no doubt that there is much quicker ball in SANZAR matches and as a result less kicking and more running with the ball in the knowledge that our ball is safe.

That in itself has a down side. It means that the game becomes more predictable and unpredictability is the spice of sport. The greatest ball you can get on a rugby field is turnover ball. That can come only if there is a fair contest for the ball at the tackle.

Within law the fair contest at the tackle is possible – if the tackler releases and gets away immediately and if the tackled player releases and gets away immediately.

Waugh is right in that there are two sides to the story. The ball-carrier must play in terms of laws and so must his support players who are obliged to come in from behind him and stay on their feet.

There was pressure to bring in what is after all ancient law – dating back at least to 1896 – in order to speed up the game and reduce kicking, but the laws need to be applied with a purpose and that purpose is to ensure continuity – that rugby goes on, whichever side does the going on.

It is not a matter of giving a penalty for a penalty’s sake any more than tries will make a match./

In Johannesburg there were 18 tries scored last Friday. The final score was 72-65. It is not often that a side scores 65 points and loses. It may happen often in basketball and Australian Rules but not in rugby football. The referee that night probably carried out the instructions of the present to perfection and because he was doing what he did with a purpose there were not all that many stoppages in the match – 74 in all, which included 32 penalties.

On Monday afternoon in the Varsity Cup match there were 38 penalties, plus seven free kicks and other stoppages, totalling 100. It was an awful match. The purpose is not to stop the game but to get it going – fairly to both sides. Penalties for penalties’ sake will not produce constructive, non-stop rugby. In this match there was just one try apiece.

In this match a player arrived first at the tackle, but he was not on the tackled player’s side and so he just stood there and watched, doing nothing. He did not have the confidence to do anything when it seemed that whatever the tackler’s side did to get the ball would be penalised. Robbing players of confidence is not good.

There has been much talk of “chicken wings”, a term to express what the tackler and his mates should do to show that they had released the tackled player. Some even clap their hands as proof. One of those who does that sort of thing was penalised three times on Saturday, which meant that his confidence was shattered.

How about saying that the tackler must release and get away immediately and that the tackled player musty do the same – release and get away? After all that is what the law requires.

These are the salient points of the law:

15.4 THE TACKLER
(a) When a player tackles an opponent and they both go to ground, the tackler must immediately release the tackled player.
Sanction: Penalty kick
(b) The tackler must immediately get up or move away from the tackled player and from the ball at once.
Sanction: Penalty kick

15.5 THE TACKLED PLAYER
(a) A tackled player must not lie on, over, or near the ball to prevent opponents from gaining possession of it, and must try to make the ball available immediately so that play can continue.
Sanction: Penalty kick
(b) A tackled player must immediately pass the ball or release it. That player must also get up or move away from it at once.
Sanction: Penalty kick

15.6 OTHER PLAYERS
(a) After a tackle, all other players must be on their feet when they play the ball. Players are on their feet if no other part of their body is supported by the ground or players on the ground.
Sanction: Penalty kick
(b) After a tackle any players on their feet may attempt to gain possession by taking the ball-from the ball carrier’s possession.
(c) Players in opposition to the ball carrier who remain on their feet who bring the ball carrier to ground so that the player is tackled must release the ball and the ball carrier. Those players may then play the ball providing they are on their feet and do so from behind the ball and from directly behind the tackled player or a tackler closest to those players’ goal line.
Sanction: Penalty kick
(d) At a tackle or near to a tackle, other players who play the ball must do so from behind the ball and from directly behind the tackled player or the tackler closest to those players’ goal-line.
Sanction: Penalty kick

15.7 FORBIDDEN PRACTICES
(a) No player may prevent the tackled player from passing the ball.
Sanction: Penalty kick
(b) No player may prevent the tackled player from releasing the ball and getting up or moving
away from it.
Sanction: Penalty kick