Enforcing the breakdown laws should be automatic

World Rugby’s Covid-19 trial laws got pretty short shrift from the Premiership and New Zealand’s Super Rugby Aotearoa, but as the southern hemisphere nations get back to playing, they’ve decided to tinker around with the laws to suit their individual purposes.

- COLIN BOAG

I’m no fan of a lot of what World Rugby do, but an important part of their role is to maintain a common set of laws across the game and to ensure that changes are made in a considered fashion. Forget the Wild West, we’re headed for a period that might be called the Wild South, where anything goes, and where the future of the global game might be under threat.

Australia has always considered itself to be a special case, with rugby a poor third to Aussie Rules and Rugby League, and most of the madcap ideas about the laws have originated from the southern hemisphere – remember 2010’s disastrous Experimental Law Variations (ELVs), which were initially trialed in South Africa but then enthusiastically endorsed by the Aussies?

Rugby Australia is obsessed with running rugby, having decided that the only way it can compete with its competition is by copying it.