IAIN PAYTEN
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH
JUNE 03, 2014 10:00PM
A strategic yellow card, crooked lineout throws and less time for setting scrums and kicking goals.
These are some of the law changes that could be rolled out in the National Rugby Championships after an ARU panel revealed a 12-point shortlist for public consideration.
In a bid to liven up the NRC, rugby fans were invited to suggest law changes and after receiving over 600 submissions, a Law Variations Committee comprising Ewen McKenzie, Bob Dwyer, Rod Kafer and Wayne Erickson, narrowed it down to a dozen.
One of the most interesting could see a captain allowed to choose the opposition player who goes to the sin bin when a yellow card is issued for a repeated team infringement (excluding dangerous play).
Other ideas include no such thing as a crooked lineout throw if the non-throwing team doesn’t contest, a “mark” being able to be called anywhere on the field and instead of a 4-try bonus point, the winning team gets one if it finishes three tries or more ahead.
The principle of deterrence saw the panel resist a reduction in the worth of a penalty goal, but their impact on the game could potentially change.
Among the proposals is reduced time to kick the goal, no goal-kick option after a scrum penalty and the re-start after any penalty kick — successful of unsuccessful — could be a scrum to the non-kicking team at the penalty spot.
A time limit for scrums is proposed, and so is keeping non-feeding halfbacks behind the mid-line of the scrum to help clean up set-piece ball.
Voting on the shortlist closes on June 8 at ausrug.by/RWqX7v