Baxter: All these law changes are madness

ROB Baxter believes World Rugby’s latest proposals to make further law changes will end up alienating supporters, rather than attracting them.

- MARK STEVENS

The game’s governing body announced last month a detailed plan aimed at speeding up the game with a tranche of law amendments, all of which they claim will help make the game a more viable spectacle for the watching public.

Those potential changes, which will be voted on by World Rugby’s council next month, include 20-minute red cards, the abolition of a scrum option from a free-kick, as well as ‘Dupont’s’ offside law. They will also see a specialist working group set up to examine the results of the community tackle-height trials across 11 unions and their ‘appropriateness for elite rugby’.

The plan has caused much debate among the rugby world in recent weeks and Baxter, the Exeter Chiefs director of rugby, was not shy in coming forward when asked to give his take on the proposals.

“We’re trying to grow the game, yet there’s no sport in the world that tries to grow by confusing new supporters every 12 months,” he said. “We need to stop changing the laws. The game was fine three or four years ago – and we didn’t need to change it then.