Inside World Rugby's 'legal labs' — where the future of the game is being shaped

Twenty-minute red cards are one of the initiatives being considered by World Rugby. Photo: PA/Nigel French

The trial was recently approved by a number of World Rugby committees involving referees Wayne Barnes and Holly Davidson, coaches Andy Farrell, Jacques Nienaber and Gregor Townsend, and former players Jamie Roberts, Rachel Burford and Conrad Smith, as well as a number of leaders. including RFU chief executive Bill Sweeney and finance director Sue Day, as well as World Rugby chief executive Alan Gilpin.

Work with universities has previously been a key part of World Rugby's research into the introduction of instrumented mouth guards used to measure the frequency and intensity of head acceleration in environmental conditions for concussion monitoring, which was first trialled at Cardiff Meteorological University. According to Davis, the labs will essentially be trying to “take theory and put it into practice a little faster.”

Davis explains: “It was kind of the missing link—you had brilliant research aimed directly at playing practice, rather than being able to try it out in coaching practice and then move forward with a little more data from a practical standpoint.»

'A surprising amount of data& #39;

Coaches from participating universities will record videos of specific drills, which will then be sent back to World Rugby for analysis.

Labs will initially focus on scrum forces and will also evaluate the tackler's responsibilities when breaking down. The topic was first discussed four years ago by Richie Gray, a pitching coach who has previously worked with South Africa, Scotland and Fiji as well as NFL franchises, and Joe Schmidt, who is now the Wallabies head coach and previously worked as a World Rugby coach. Director of Rugby and High Performance.

Davis explains: “Rolling immediately east and west, what does a legal jackal look like, what is the ball carrier's responsibility—these are all types of experiments we can try with the assisting tackler, or jackaler, if you will.

“I'm not sure what it will look like in practice, but these are things that we can try out and see what it looks like in a training environment. Then, if we feel that it is warranted, we can conduct a closed trial.»

Phil Davis is a person who runs various changes to rugby laws. Photo: Getty Images/Chris Lee

Through Rhys Jones, World Rugby's game analysis manager, 80 games are «coded» around the world every weekend, giving World Rugby an «amazing» amount of data, as Davies puts it. Understanding this information and putting it into practice is a difficult task.

“If you look at breakdowns, on average there are 187 breakdowns in a game at the moment, and the referee blows the whistle 4.4 percent of the time. If someone tells you that you have a 95 percent success rate in a certain area of ​​your business, you will be very happy about it. It's about how we apply data and what story that data tells us about how we improve the game.

“When you think about how technical rugby union is, the number of competitions and the level of technical skill in speed and strength in the game, it's incredible, you know? That's why sometimes it's important to look at the data and paint the bigger picture, give it a little more perspective. Instead of, «Oh, too many kicks, too many restarts,» sometimes we look at the data and that's not necessarily true.

Coaches including Exeter's Rob Baxter don't hold back in their criticism of a sport that tries to change too quickly: goal line drops, 50-22 kicks, shot clocks and instrumented mouth guards are all the latest innovations.

The key for Davies and World Rugby is finding the right balance between enhancing safety and entertainment, while trying to avoid unnecessary manipulation.

“Modern society moves at 200mph, let alone 100mph. Things are moving so quickly that it is absolutely right and proper to address issues in the game to improve safety and entertainment,” adds Davis.

“I think the balance is right, it is there. In most cases, data can give you a balanced perspective, allowing you to make changes or go back and confirm what is written in the statute book rather than making changes for the sake of change. It's a fine balance, but what we do well is that we're always looking for ways to improve.»