The Laws of the Game of Rugby

If you get a quiet moment over Xmas, it might be an interesting exercise to have a look at the Laws of the Game of Rugby! If I were a GREAT coach and could get all our players to run with the ball, pass brilliantly off both hands, get all players perfectly positioned to support the play and get every one to make perfect decisions in attacking and preserving space, we would play some absolutely entertaining rugby. But what's missing? The only laws in the book that would be concerned with this style of play would be whether the pass was forward and was there obstruction (crossing)!





I pose the question then, how many tackles, rucks, mauls, scrums, line-outs, etc does the law book say that there must be in a game of rugby?



Well ... ... ... Eeerrrrrrrrr ... ... ... Uuuummmmmm ... ... ... There's actually no trick here, the laws doesn't demand any! So if we could play as prescribed above, we have actually minimised the affect of a referee and played entertaining rugby. But this can only happen when we have possession of the ball!



So something like 70% of the laws of the game of Rugby are concerned with the competition for the possession of the ball!!!

Last Tuesday, at training, the backs and Mikey were introduced to a new defensive aproach to our game, which I'm hoping will get us far more turn over!

I'm going to try and do something new every fortnight for this page, so next article will be in the New Year. Merry Xmas and a happy New Year to all.