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World Rugby symposium aims to accelerate solid injury prevention progress

World Rugby Chairman Sir Bill Beaumont believes rugby is embracing its collective responsibility to implement and adhere to evidence-based injury-prevention strategies ahead of the second annual player welfare and laws symposium in Paris on 3-5 March.

The important forum will bring together game administrators, competition owners, coaches, referees, players, media and medical staff to consider the latest global injury data and trends, examine strategies to reduce injuries at the breakdown, and consider initial feedback from the package of six injury-prevention law trials.

The forum will also feature a dedicated breakdown working group meeting to consider playing and injury trends and potential law trials for an area of the game that is accountable for approximately nine per cent of match injuries, but with an higher than average severity in the elite game.

[Litzy Cole]

I find the breakdown quite confusing. But as a starter, how about:

Ref calls 'tackle'

tackled player goes to ground

when tackled player's shoulder touches down, he must place the ball backwards by one arm's length while still holding the ball with one hand

a maximum of 2 attacking players may bind to the tackled player. If an attacking player goes past the tackled player, then it's a free kick to the defenders

defenders come in through the gate and if unopposed can take the ball. Defenders cannot kick the ball forward or heel back.

maximum of two defenders at breakdown (tackler + 1)

Okay - loads of problems with that, but it's a start.

[DaveAitch]

How about: as soon as the tackle is made the ball has to be released or passed to another player. The player may not go to ground with it, roll over, make a pot of tea and push it back before releasing it.

[poyntonshark]

Don't both of those suggestions mean the end of the maul? Mauls cause fewer injuries than rucks.

[Litzy Cole]

If the attacking player's knee isn't down, then 'tackle' isn't called by the ref, so a maul could happen. Same as now? That's my understanding.

[Major Bloodnok]

I can see the logic regarding injury prevention, but this would have major effects on the game.

A maximum of two defenders in the ruck means 13 in the defensive line, so fewer gaps for the attack to exploit. No more sucking defenders in to open the field up.

Would this mean the end of the goal-line rumble? Exeter will be relegated the very season this comes ito effect.

[DaveAitch]

Poynters, what I wrote was roughly the tackle law up (about) the early 80s. I might have added in that a tackle was made when a knee touched the ground. If not, as dino has said, a maul would, or at least could, develop.

The game was much looser and tended to have a maximum of low single-figure phases before the opposition gained control, and, of course, so it went on. What is true is that the defence had much less time to organise itself than today's laws allow and was certainly part of the reason that there were more missed tackles. There were far fewer head on collisions and certainly fewer high tackles. Knocks on would be followed by proper scrums, as would mauls that had become static. Who had the throw in, in the latter case , and for how long they were allowed to go on on, went through several revisions over the years.

[poyntonshark]

Dave, with your introduction of the knee going to ground indicating that a tackle has been made, then you are describing the tackle law now. Combined with a pretty accurate description of how some referees choose to interpret it.

Surely in early 80's players could go to ground with the ball, and then lie on their backs holding the ball in the air until a teammate arrived (assuming the opposition didn't get there first)

[DaveAitch]

Poynters, I suppose we must always remember and call that certain changes are interpretations and not necessarily actual changes in the law. The problem is that when an interpretation becomes what is always applied it is, de facto, the law.

It was that spell in the early 1980s, if my memory is correct on the date, that the law was significantly less rigorously applied. Prior to that, a player had to be in the action of passing the ball, or releasing it, as soon as the tackle was made. If there was a delay that player would be penalised. What then came in was the allowed delay and the ball could be held up for the next player through, whichever side that player was from. While the tackle is still made at the same point it is the time delay that the player is allowed that has changed, and changed.

I would suggest the only way to check with certainty what was an actual law change and what was just interpretation is to have law books from each year and compare them. Somewhere I have a 'know the laws' booklet from the late fifties or early sixties. There are all sorts of, what would seem now, to be strange laws and the game is almost certainly better for losing them; probably for both the player and spectator. That said, what often seems a good idea becomes, as it were, overdone. I would argue what has happened to the tackle is one that has been overdone, whether that is actual law or just interpretation of the law, though I would be surprised if the wording on the tackle has not changed in forty years.

[poyntonshark]

Actually that holding in the air may have been a little earlier. I started playing in 1980 and don't remember being allowed to do it. Was it 4 seconds that was allowed?

[DaveAitch]

You may be right on the holding in the air, both year and time allowed to hold it aloft. I had a break from rugby late 1960s to mid 1970s. I don't recall a change in the first years after I started again, but it certainly came in soon after. Somewhere in the vaults I have (mainly) 5 nations games on video starting in the 1970s. As I was playing I used to record one of the games, usually England as that was the most likely one to be on TV. If I locate them I can check more accurately what referees used to allow over each season.

In those days video tape was expensive, so I recorded in LP (awful quality by today's standards) and could get 4 games on a three hour tape, including half time! A three hour tape actually ran for a few minutes more, but a game was over in under 90 minutes. Now it takes 120 to do the same.

This brings me to another point as regards injuries. In the old days, good or bad, all the players had to play the full game and fatigued together. Now half the team, mainly forwards, have their fitness regimes based round the fact that they will only be playing part of a game. So, while some come on fresh, and at full speed, others are fatigued and slowing. It's no great surprise more injuries ensue.

p.s. I started playing in the late 1950s and finished in the 2010s.

[poyntonshark]

The mage in my head of a player lying flat on his back holding the ball in the air, is of a Welshman, almost certainly from 5N of mid to late 70's. IIRC a teammate takes the ball from him and scores.