Rugby’s Law Book Set For Massive Change
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Rugby’s law book is being shredded by a whopping 50%.
The British & Irish Lions series threw up a number of controversies, while no one will ever forget that Italy and England game in the Six Nations. As a result officials have decided it’s time to simplify the rules and the wheels are already in motion.
In fact, by late 2018 we could all be enjoying a simpler game, thanks to the World Rugby Council’s commissioning of a technical group to undertake a Laws Simplification Project.
New Zealand Rugby high performance referee manager Rod Hill was nominated by NZR to help run the project, and over the last 18 months he has been involved in completely re-writing the law book.
“I’ve had three three-day lockups, where we’ve got through everything in the law book and said ‘how do we make it easier to read and easier to understand’,” he said.
Hill was joined by two others from South Africa and one from England, along with three from World Rugby.
“We’ve reduced the number of words in the law book by 50 per cent,” Hill said.
“What’s happened over a period of time, is that, as there’s been some changes, they’ve just been added to the law book and it’s a bit piecemeal. So you had exceptions here and there.
“So this project was about ‘let’s start from scratch and make sure it all reads well’, to reshape the law book to get that as an outcome.”
