Super Rugby Pacific have announced they are to trial the removal of two aspects of offside law, in order to discourage territorial kicking duels.
Law 10 currently includes two clauses (in Law 10.7) that state players in front of the kicker can be put onside as soon as the catcher either passes the ball or runs five metres with it. This means players who were ahead of the first kicker can remain stationary (providing they are more than 10m away from the landing point) and wait for an opponent to put them onside. The kicker, can then stay back and wait for the ball to be kicked back towards them. This is often repeated multiple times as full backs long field trade kicks.
In Super Rugby Pacific 2024, those two clauses will be removed, meaning that the kicker will need to move forwards to put teammates onside, and those loiterers will be offside and liable to penalty. They will need to move to be put onside. Or, the kickers will be encourages to counter attack rather than kick return.
These clauses have been in the rugby law book since at least the 1870s, with the original game’s writers specifying offside players can be put onside by the actions of a teammate, or an opponent. It is only in recent years that players and coaches have identified this as a loophole and found ways to make the most of it.
The Super Rugby Pacific law Innovation has been sanctioned by World Rugby as a trial during the 2024 season.
Fan feedback
Super Rugby Pacific Chair, Kevin Malloy said the change was a direct response to feedback from fans, coaches and players that they want to see running rugby. “We want to create a game that’s exciting for our fans and enjoyable for our players. Part of that is seeing our players running the ball rather than trading multiple kicks in a battle for territory. We’re listening and with a small change we think could make a big difference.”
“Fans have been vocal in recent times about teams exploiting a loophole that’s seen large number of players standing still while kicks go over their heads in what some people have called kick tennis. We don’t believe that’s the spectacle our fans want to see in Super Rugby Pacific. We want to open up the opportunity for teams to counterattack with the ball in hand and we’re confident this tweak to the law will encourage that trend and encourage exciting, attacking rugby.”
Law innovation
Malloy noted that Super Rugby Pacific had successfully introduced a number of other Law Innovations in recent years with great success, a decrease in dead time, cleaner clearance from scrums, quicker restarts from set-piece and after tries and less TMO interventions.
“We were really happy with the spectacle last year and hence we have only made one tweak to the laws for 2024. We want to keep building an exciting, fast moving brand of rugby that our fans want to watch.”
Super Rugby Pacific 2024 will continue to trial:
- End of kick tennis law workround
- Non-putting in scrum half offside line at scrum to the tunnel
- 20 min red card
- TMO YC upgrade window
- Golden point for drawn matches
