Against Sweeping Changes In Rugby

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30316, 17 December 1963, Page 20

Against Sweeping Changes In Rugby

(NJ!. Press Association) WELLINGTON, Dec. 11 New Zealand to not in favour of sweeping changes to the laws of Rugby Football. This attitude of the delegates to the special general meeting of the New Zealand Rugby Football L'nion in Wellington last July will be conveyed to the special laws meeting of the International Rugby • Board in London on January 6 by New Zealand's two delegates, Messrs T. C. Morrison, council chairman, and C. A. Blaiey, chairman of the union's law committee.

New Zealand’s two main proposed alterations will concern the hooking law as it applies to the front row in the scrum and an attempt to restrict the “spoiling" forwards and flat-standing backs. Mr Morrison said this morning.

Broadly speaking, the New Zealand proposal regarding the hooking law is to develop hooking by the first and fourth feet. The aim is to have the feet (forming the front row of each side) well back to allow a wider tunnel than at present, and the outside foot of both nearer props to follow the ball in, with the object of stopping the ball from coining out again on that side, and also actually to assist with the hooking. Mr Morrison said. Statistics of experiments

with this during the 1961 and 1962 playing seasons in New Zealand showed a vast improvement compared with games played under the actual laws.

The biggest improvement was the few times the ball had to be put into the scrummage more than once.

To curb the “spoiling” forwards and the flat-standing backs, the New Zealand proposal is, basically, that any player not bound in a scrummage cannot be in advance of a line drawn through the base of his own scrummage, until the ball emerges from the scrummage. Lineout Length

New Zealand will advocate at the International Board meeting that a law be written to restrict the length of the lineout.

The object is to prevent the now much practised habit of one or two forwards, at lineout time, standing so far out in the field that they are opposite the inside centre, and sometimes even the outside centre.

“Over the years, the progressive changes to the laws have not in the main changed the character of Rugby," Mr Morrison said. “And when one remembers the magnificence of such teams as the 1937 Springboks in days gone by, great care must be exercised that the very features of the game that have made it such a popular and national sport in both South Africa and New Zealand are not taken away.”