New Innovative Rugby Power Play Rules To Help Develop Player skills

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I have been watching the Varsity Cup rugby tournament which is televised on Monday evenings in South Africa. This year the laws have been tweaked with some new innovations which should in theory make the matches more entertaining. I am all for changes at the lower levels of rugby as it will help develop an attacking mindset in future players feeding through the professional system.

there are certain areas of the professional game that cannot be tweaked like the scrums as then this would dilute the game too much. Making the game safer by all means looking after payer welfare, but not changing the rules to favor a particular team due to the caliber of players as that is no different from cheating. This we have to be aware of and why when a law change happens you have to ask for whose benefit is this for the players of a certain team or teams. The votes will tell a story if it is in favor of those teams which have always tried to manipulate the system and it is always the same ones with England at the front of the queue.

This new law innovation being tested this year in the Varsity Cup which is a University rugby tournament is that when a team scores a try they can opt to skip the conversion kick worth 2 points and start an attack play from the 22 yard line. The team has 120 seconds in order to score and cannot relinquish possession during that attacking period of time. If the team scores then the 5 point becomes a 12 point and why it teaches players and teams to attack with a purpose. 120 seconds or two minutes is a long time for teams to defend considering they would have been defending prior to this attack period when the other team scored.

This is a power play that can be used twice in each half and when used correctly should result in many more points being scored. This will help at a national level with players feeding through that are used to attacking from the 22 yard line. This will also develop players in their defensive structures having short periods of intense play which will benefit teams that these players join once they finish their studies if they choose to turn professional.

We always here about teams visiting the 22 yard area which is known as the red zone and how many points they score in each visit. This will in time with players coming through the system having played with these new rules help change and improve the attacking statistics.

Another attacking change to the laws is that if a team scores a try from within side their own half then that try will be worth 9 points if the try is converted or even more if they choose to accept the power play which could turn that score into 14 points. This would generally require a number of phases of attacking play which could turn any game on it's head.

This as I mentioned previously is great for developing players, but not for professional rugby as this would change the game too much. These laws speed the game up and if adopted by professional rugby the smaller teams would surely benefit as this type of game would be way too open and loose. The tight tactical games are more interesting to the purist and these laws would only be for attracting a younger audience.

Posted Using INLEO