Southern Hemisphere given big advantage

WELL, if ever there was a sign of a true bias in the game we have just had it with World Rugby making five law changes with just under seven weeks from the start of the most important competition in the whole of the world game just after the Northern Hemisphere have ended their season.

With the Rugby Championship trialling the new laws it will give them a major advantage over the rest of the teams at the World Cup by having already had time to adjust to the variations that these laws bring. 

World Rugby has said that the primary objective for the changes is to optimise the speed and continuity of the game, notably with time restriction imposed on various acts within the game to improve the game from a fan perspective.

This will include the goal kick, conversions and penalties (something that I thought was already in place), set pieces and rucks with the aim of making them quicker and faster and without so many breaks in open play. This will be achieved by the referee enforcing a maximum 90 seconds for a conversion, 60 seconds for a penalty kicks, 30 seconds to set scrums and lineouts, plus a ridiculous five seconds for the ball to be used from rucks. All this will be monitored by the match official with the referee using a stopwatch to time the goal kicks. Another significant change will be the implementation of a more streamlined Television Match Official (TMO), limiting their intervention to clear foul play missed by match officials so as to reduce interruptions in the rhythm of the game.