LONG READ Are law tweaks required to govern rugby's new 'unofficial set-piece'?

To say the try line is important in rugby is to state the intellectually obvious. Of course, the try line is important in rugby. It’s where tries are scored and five points are awarded. Although, as an aside it hasn’t always been this way. In the early days of the game during the 19^th century, putting the ball down on the ‘try line’ was worth nothing, it just allowed you to ‘try’ a shot at goal – which was worth something.

But basic history lessons aside, the role of the try line has changed hugely over the past four seasons. Prior to this the try line signified the end of a process, it was the reward for skills, a velvety pass, or a delicious line-break. However, in recent seasons, getting to the try line has almost become the easy bit. The hard bit is now getting the ball down on the white paint.

It all changed on 1^st July 2022, when changes were made to the laws governing what happened when a player was held up in goal. Where before, the attacking team was awarded a scrum five metres out, the defensive side had earned a goal-line dropout. Essentially a chance to drop-kick the ball deep to the halfway line, or in certain circumstances executing a shorter kick in an effort to regain possession.

A chance to kick deep is way easier to defend than a five-metre scrum, so the need to defend the try line has become a far more high-pressure situation – in some games, it’s like watching seagulls defending a half-eaten pasty. It’s got to the point where try line defence and attack has now almost become the second unofficial set-piece – the other being halfway line restarts, and the two official set-pieces being the scrum and lineout.

This focus on try line defence has even led to a new tackle, which I have unofficially called the ‘duvet’ tackle. It’s where the defenders voluntarily attempt to get underneath the carrier, like they’re lying down on a bed, and then attempt to pull the ball carrier up over their body like a 16st duvet. The result being, the attacker (the duvet) can’t ground the ball, because he has a massive flesh bed/mattress underneath him – single bed if it’s a scrum-half, super king if it’s a Springbok lock.

The situation has been made all the more complicated because the try line, in ruck situations, becomes the offside line. And when behind the try line/offside line a player has no responsibility to be on their feet when making a tackle – therefore making it far easier to get their body under the ball. As we saw when Charles Ollivon executed this technique brilliantly against the Stormers in the last sixteen of the Champions Cup, being already on the ground, legally, provides a huge advantage when sliding underneath the ball carrier. Especially in that particular fixture, when Ollivon’s elite rugby knowledge resulted in Toulon knocking out the Stormers by a single point.

The whole reason the goal line restart law was enabled, was to discourage teams from taking multiple ‘pick and goes’ on the try line – and to try and score in the wider spaces. Multiple ‘pick and goes’ are not a great spectacle, and the repeated contacts obviously have implications for player welfare and HIAs – all of which are laudable reasons to have changed the law in the first place. However, with defensive coaches now being able to dominate and suffocate the try line, attack coaches now need to figure out a way to unlock that defence.

With narrow defences dominating on the try line, and attack coaches needing to go wider to score, the subsequent ‘conversions’ also become slightly more difficult with every metre you move wider from the posts. Imagine a scenario where a team needs a converted try to win, the best place to score is under the posts, but if the defensive team can simply hold you out, or worse still force a goal line dropout (with duvet tackles), then the only option is to go a bit wider. But wider often means more passes, more passes mean handling errors (or even kick passes) which substantially increase the likelihood of errors and decrease the likelihood of scoring.

And therein lies the dilemma. As a rule, rugby’s laws should always slightly favour the attacking team. Not by 90%/10% – but 60%/40% seems reasonable odds in favour of those trying to score. And in that regard the new tryline ‘set-piece’ seems to have inadvertently done the opposite. But that’s the beauty of rugby. You tweak one law, and it has another effect on something else. It’s like Newton’s third law but with 30 monsters and a ball that simply won’t do what it’s told.

Maybe the solution is to ensure all tacklers must be on their feet – even behind the try line. Maybe the goal line restart can’t go past the 22m line – meaning the attacking team has less meterage to recover on the following phases. Or maybe all conversions should be taken from in front of the posts – why should a try scored out wide be punished with a tougher kick at goal?

Either way, rugby will find a solution. It always does.