Players, refs accept joint respnsibility
SANZAR coaches and referees have accepted joint responsibility at the tackle and the scrums in order to produce a faster, more attractive game.
Something similar happened in England when Ed Morrison took his elite referees to each of the Guinness Premiership clubs in an attempt to reduce penalties at the breakdown and facilitate quicker ball.
SANZAR is attempting to correct faults in a transparent way. The two aspects especially under the spotlight at-re the tackle and the scrum. More specifically at the tackle there is the tackler’s obligation to release the tackled play – break his contact with him before playing the ball – when he is on his feet.
SANZAR now has a referees’ manager – Lyndon Bray of New Zealand, recently a Test and Super rugby referee. He will be in charge of seeing to consistency in application of the law and compliance with it. The first responsibility will rest with the players to comply.
This is not new but an application of law that exists.
Law (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
(c) The tackler must get up before playing the ball and then may play the ball from any direction.
Sanction: Penalty kick
Law 15.6 (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
Referees who get their application of the ;law wrong in Super 14 will be told of their problem and the matter could be made public. In fact the buck will stop with the men who select and appoint referees to Super 14 matches – Andrew Cole (Australia), Colin Hawke (New Zealand) and Tappe Henning (South Africa), who is also an IRB referees’ selector.
Talking of the tackle, Bray said: “We’ve agreed philosophically to change what a tackler can and can’t do. He’s doing too much. In the evolution of the game we’ve allowed him to remain in contact with the ball and the ball-carrier after he leaves his feet and he stays on the ball and jumps up and rips it away.
“It looks great in a one-on-one scenario, but it’s actually against the law. It creates in the game a repetitive scenario where the ball-carrier ends up with no rights because he can’t do anything with the ball.
“The tackler inevitably gets the penalty which philosophically goes against what we are trying to achieve. We’ve agreed the tackler must release everything when he goes to ground and not hold on as he gets to his feet.”
Then there is to be emphasis on scrumming within law in an attempt to reduce the resets of scrum which take up to 16% of playing time. SANZAR has appointed three scrum coaches in each of the three countries – Pat Noriega (Australia), Mike Cron (New Zealand) and Balie Swart (South Africa).
If a player in a team is presenting scrum problems, the coach will inform the team. If the problem persists SANZAR has the right and the permission from its teams to go public – let the other teams and the media know.
