Substitutions: The Rule Change World Rugby Needs Most

By
at Internationaled.org

Published: April 14, 2016

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Substitutions, or rather, reducing them is the rule change the rugby world needs most. World Rugby, the sport's international governing body, currently permits teams to select eight players on the substitutes' bench. But the expansion of substitutes has had several major negative knock-on effects on rugby—both as a spectacle and for the players themselves.

The most important benefits of limiting the number of new players who can take to the field are seeing more skilful rugby and fewer injuries. As a result, it is time for World Rugby to reduce the number of interchanges to five.

Rugby is currently a 23-person game, but is it right that coaches can change over half the team? Limiting them to five substitutions would mean all the players would need to be fitter and faster and less reliant on muscle power as they are likely to have to play a full 80 minutes. This would in turn lead to a greater focus on skills over brawn, making for a better spectacle.

That said, I don't go as far as Mick Cleary who, writing in the Daily Telegraph, argues: "It is not a 23-man game. Rugby union is a 15-man game, and many of us wish to the high heavens that it would revert to it." Nonetheless, he is right that the current state of affairs is damaging rugby.



 

More Interesting Substitutions

Coaches could still pick eight players on the bench, from which to choose five, and this would make substitutions far more interesting. With more variables, it would be more tactically demanding for the coaches and would provide greater debate for fans as to how the substitutes should be deployed.

Coaches may still pick a beefy player for 50 minutes of a game, for example a Will Skelton, but they will know they will have to use one of their precious substitutions on replacing him because the rule change would mean if such players don't slim down, they run the risk of being picked off by nimble o...
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Rugby Union

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