How one of the chief architects of SANZAAR is now trying to revolutionise modern rugby and return it to its roots
While Super Rugby Aotearoa was a breath of fresh air for anyone lucky enough to catch the free-running New Zealand competition, the reality is that rugby as a sport has become less and less audience friendly as the years have passed.
That’s one of the key messages from David Moffet, the former New Zealand Rugby, NRL and Welsh Rugby Union chief executive who believes that World Rugby aren’t taking the game of rugby in the right direction.
“I’ve been a little bit disconcerted with the way in which rugby’s going and I think that it’s become so complicated with the constant law changes and the different way the interpretations are being changed all the time,” Moffet tells RugbyPass of his new venture. “It’s become too complicated for coaches, players, referees and, most importantly, the fans.”
Not one to simply bleat on about how the game is becoming stale without proposing a solution, however, Moffet has set about to change the way the game is played and has today announced the genesis of an almost entirely new game, dubbed ‘Rugby Rules’.
“I was having a conversation with [former Pumas and Wallabies prop] Topo Rodriguez and we felt that we could perhaps look at the laws but it became quickly evident that tinkering around with the laws – which is what World Rugby does – wasn’t going to get us anywhere different,” Moffet says. “So I think we eventually got to the point where we were heading towards a new game and that’s where it started.
There were a few catalysts for Moffet desiring change in the way the sport is played – primarily with regards to the entertainment and safety of the modern game of rugby.
“Ball-in-play at the last World Cup was something like 34, 35 minutes,” says Moffet.
“The scrums are a nightmare. The resets are just so boring. They eat up so much time. It’s the same for lineouts. The amount of time taken to throw the ball in at lineouts and get the lineout set and the amount of time it takes for a team throwing the ball in to actually get to the lineout… I mean, we’re moving away so far away from what I think the game should be all about.”
That’s where Rugby Rules comes in – a sport that Moffet hopes will be more attractive for players and fans alike that borrows the best rules of the traditional game while introducing a few modernisations to improve the spectacle.
The major changes include a reduction in the number of players on the field (down to six forwards and eight backs), creating safer (but no less competitive) contests in lineouts and breakdowns, opening up more space on the field and giving greater powers to the referee while limiting coaches’ input during a game.
Former rugby administrator David Moffett and ex-Wallabies and Argentina international Enrique Rodriguez have today launched a new version of rugby, dubbed '#RugbyRules'.https://t.co/IOr8nyLTNI
— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) August 18, 2020
Moffet laments the fact that at the highest levels, the game now seems to be controlled by the chess masters in the grandstands while not enough decision-making is handled by the players on the field. Coaches are now able to regularly deliver messages to players through waterboys and other personnel, which takes autonomy of the park.
That’s only made possible thanks to the – at times – relatively muddling pace of the game, with its ample stoppages and slow-downs.
Reducing player numbers and limiting where on the field lineouts and scrums can take place will also reward teams actually running the ball, instead of some matches devolving into kicking contests.
The safety aspect is just as important to Moffet as the added entertainment factor that he hopes Rugby Rules may provide.
Off the ball hits and high shots have become part and parcel of the game despite being outlawed in the rules. That’s primarily due to the way the breakdown is officiated, says Moffet.
“They call it a ruck but it’s not a ruck; it’s just like Greco-Roman wrestling on the ground.
“Having been a referee, I find it absolutely incredible that the laws allow cleaning out – which is basically attacking someone without the ball. I think it’s dangerous. Brodie Retallick is a very good example with what happened to him prior to the last World Cup, and I don’t think he was at his best as a result of it.”
Moffet is referring to RG Snyman cleaning out Retallick from a ruck during New Zealand’s match against South Africa in last year’s Rugby Championship. While, to the letter of the law, Snyman had nothing to answer for, Retallick was in a prone position and the hit from Snyman led to a dislocated shoulder and almost three months on the sidelines for the All Blacks lock.
While the short-term impact of the clean out robbed New Zealand of one of their best players for much of the season, it’s the long-term effects of hits that are allowed during the breakdown contest that Moffet is more concerned about.
“It’s not so much the injuries that they get now and that they will overcome now but it’s what it’s going to be like for these players 20 or 30 years down the track if we continue to allow that sort of thing to happen,” Moffet says.
It’s a similar story in the lineouts, where the advent of lifting has reduced the athletic contest while also making competitions for the ball a relatively dangerous affair.
“It’s all very well for highly trained athletic players to be lifted in the lineout but when you get down into the age-grades and what have you, it can be very dangerous when players are either being pulled down or aren’t getting supported correctly. We’ve seen a lot of injuries from that.”
Moffet is well-aware of the obstacles he currently faces to actually take Rugby Rules from a concept to reality.
“I’ll put it this way: I think we’ve done the easy part,” he says. “Coming up with the Rugby Rules and the rules of it, I think that’s been relatively simple. The hard part is going to be what we do now, the implementation of it.
“We need to get some teams playing the sport to see just exactly what the consequences of these rules are. We’ve put this in front of coaches, players, administrators and thus far we’ve had quite a good response. We’ve had some very positive feedback and made a couple of little changes here and there as well because you’re never going to get it right on your first try.”
And while Moffet is eager for feedback on the concept and to see it played on a park instead of simply in his head, the former NZR chief executive doesn’t want the game dictated by the coaches in the same way he believes rugby is now.
“World Rugby have allowed certain coaches to dictate the way in which they think the game should be played,” says Moffet.
“A new way of playing the game or law interpretation comes out and then instead of saying ‘the law is this, coach to that,’ they come out and they say, ‘okay, well we’ll interpret it the way you want it interpreted and then we will fiddle around with the interpretations’ and I just don’t think that that’s the right way of going about.”
It’s still very early days for David Moffet and Topo Rodriquez’s new rugby code which borrows a little from the past and, hopefully, a lot from the future. There’s no doubt that it’s an ambitious project for the man who helped significantly restructure the Welsh Rugby Union in the early 2000’s but it’s a project that could revolutionise the way the game is played.
Watch this space.
Comments on RugbyPass
We’re building a bridge but can't agree where the river is.
2 Go to commentsfirst no arms shoulder or helmet tackle into his rib cage is going to be so very painful even to watch. go back to RU mate.
1 Go to commentsBulls by 5. Plus another 50.
3 Go to commentsJohan Goosen avatar. Cute. Surely someone at RP knows how to do a google image search?
3 Go to commentsCan’t these games play a little earlier? Asking for a friend.
3 Go to commentsIt’s impressive that we can see huge stadiums with attendance in the 40 000 to 50 000 region. It shows how popular this competition is becoming. What is even more impressive is the massive growth in broadcast viewership. The URC is one of the two best leagues in the World, the other being the Top14.
7 Go to commentsChristie is not Sottish, like the majority of the Scotland team.
2 Go to commentsHold the phone, decline over-rated. Is it a one game, dead cat bounce or the real thing? Has the Penney dropped? Stay tuned.
45 Go to commentsTotally deserved win for the Crusaders Far smarter than the Chiefs who seem to be avoiding the basics when it matters Hotham showed them what was missing and Hannah seems a real find - a tad light but that can be fixed over time
8 Go to commentsGreat insight into the performance culture with Sarries and I predict Christie will be a fixture in the Scotland team now for some time to come. However, he is slightly missing his own point around Scotland “being soft” when he cites physicality examples in defence of that slight. The issue is much closer to the example he referenced around feeling off before a game but being told “it doesn’t matter, you can still play well” by Farrell. Until Scotland can get their psyche in that square, they will carry on folding under extreme pressure…
2 Go to comments> We are having to adapt, evolve and innovate more than when we were in Super Rugby where there was only really one style that everybody had to play to gain the most success. Have = able to? Interesting what that one style might be? I thought SA sides still had bad tours now, or at least bad schedule, months away? Those extra few hours flights have to be a killer though, no surprise to see their sides doing so badly at the start of the season each year. I wouldn’t enjoy that unfairness as a supporter.
7 Go to commentsThe problem for NZ, and Aus, is they ripped up the SR model and lost a massive chunk of revenue that hasn’t been replaced. Don’t forget SA clubs went North because they were left with no choice, Argy unceremoniously binned and Japan cast adrift. Now SR wasn’t perfect, far from it, but they’ve jumped into something without an effective plan, so far, to replace what they’ve lost. The biggest revenue potential now lies in Japan but it won’t be easy or quick to unlock, they are incredibly insular in culture as a nation. In the meantime, there is a serious time bomb sitting under SH rugby and if it happens then the current financial challenges will look like a picnic. IF the Boks follow their provincial teams and head north then it’s revenue meltdown. Not guaranteed to happen but the status quo is a very odd hybrid, with the Boks pointing one way and the clubs pointing the other way. And for as long as that remains then the threat is real.
45 Go to commentsI think Etene has had some good tuition, likely while at the Warriors to be a professional that helped his rugby jump, but he was certainly thrown in the deep end way too early. Should have arguably 20 less SR caps, and therefor a way better record that he does at his age, but his development would have been fast tracked by the need to satiate his signing away from league. Again, credit to him and others that he has done it so well. Easy to fall over under that pressure in the big leagues like that but he kept at it when I myself wasn’t sure he was good enough.
1 Go to commentsAwesome story. I wonder what a bigger American (SA) scene might have mean for Brex.
1 Go to comments“Johnny McNicholl and the Crusaders” save a Penney. Who has been in camp this week and showed them how to play?
8 Go to commentsSo, reports of the Crusaders’ demise / terminal decline are perhaps just - slightly - premature/exaggerated…? 🤔 Will we see a deep-dive into that by the estimable Rugbypass scribes, and maybe one or two mea culpas? Thought not.
8 Go to comments1. The Chiefs are rudderless without DMac, which enhances his AB chances 2. Chiefs pack are powderpuffs. The hard men arent there anymore 3. They had their golden title chance last yr and wont threaten this yr. Gone in second round of playoffs.
8 Go to commentsHonestly, why did you have to publish such a foolish article the day they play us? 😂
45 Go to comments> They are not standalone entities. They are linked to an amateur association which holds the FFR licence that allows the professional side to compete in the league. That’s a great rule. This looks like the chicken or egg professional scenario. How long is it going to be before the club can break even (if that is even a thing in French rugby)? If the locals aren’t into well it would be good to se them drop to amateur level (is it that far?). Hope they can reset from this level and be more practical, there will be a time when they can rebuild (if France has there setup right).
1 Go to commentsWhat about changing the ball? To something heavier and more pointed that bounces unpredictably. Not this almost round football used these days.
35 Go to comments