Discussion: Ball-in-play time and whether the law trials at the Queensland Challenger Series are the answer

Rugby union has come under fire of late for the lack of ball-in-play time, forcing clashes to take much longer than required, frustrating fans, players and coaches with a stop-start feel to the game.

Looking at the broader picture, Statsperform.com reveals a notable increase in the ball-in-play time since the game turned professional. During the 1995 Rugby World Cup, the ball was only in play for 25 minutes and 45 seconds of the 80. Since then, it has only improved, with the 2019 World Cup reflecting 34 minutes and 21 seconds of ball-in-play time.

That is progress, but increasing ball-in-play time by less than 10 minutes over 24 years is surely not enough to offer the game as a spectacle to more of the world and more demographics within the game’s current geographical interest.

With a clear understanding of what the issue is, just what exactly is causing so much time to be taken with the ball out of play?

Set piece

The set-piece has increasingly become such an integral part of the game, with teams using it to leverage their hold on their opposition. For example, the 2019 world champions, the Springboks, almost solely used set-piece to power to glory in Japan by playing for penalties and using their scrum or maul to squeeze opponents to cough up points.

The value in this is obvious, and in the modern game, it is a prerequisite to have a strong set piece. However, the issue is the time taken to complete them.

An analysis done by Roar Rugby on the July Tests taking into account the series involving South Africa and Wales, Australia and England as well as New Zealand and Ireland, shows that scrums took 65 seconds to complete, and there was an average of 11 scrums per game. That is just short of 12 minutes of scrumming, including resets.

Meanwhile, lineouts took an average of 25 seconds to complete, with 27 in a game taking over 11 minutes to complete.

Penalties and conversions

The first Bledisloe Test in 2022 was plagued with controversy right at the end, where Wallabies fly-half Bernard Foley was blown for time-wasting when taking a penalty kick for touch, ultimately opening the door for the All Blacks to steal the game.

There has always been a time limit on how long one can take to kick at goal and kick for touch, but the reality is that it has been loosely policed, which is why the Foley incident struck the rugby world as an anomaly.

However, there has been many an occasion where a goal kicker from a team who holds the lead will take as much time as possible to run the clock down. It is gamesmanship, and some teams are better at it than others, but that does not always do much for the game as a spectacle.

Solutions

Rugby’s governing bodies are aware of the ball-in-play concerns and set out to trial new law innovations in the Queensland Challenger Series played in early October between a Reds Development XV and a President’s XV over two games.

The law innovations targeted increased ball-in-play time and promoted more attacking rugby. The laws trialled were as follows;

List of rules to be trialled:

– There are only five seconds to use the ball from the rucks after the referee called ‘use it.
– 30 seconds to set the scrum.
– 60 second to complete a penalty, 90 seconds for conversions and 30 seconds to restart once the conversion is complete.
– If there is no clear infringement at scrum time, the team with the feed receives a tap after two resets.
– Scrum-halves cannot go past the tunnel of the scrum.
– A throw to the lineout will only be called not straight if there is a contest in the air.
– Emphasis on tackler rolling away.
– Deliberate knock downs will be seen as a ‘deliberate attempt to catch’ or a ‘deliberate attempt to knockdown’ in which case it would be a penalty.
– Only three phases of advantage with territorial and tactical at the discretion of the referee.

Review

The Reds Development XV won both clashes with scorelines of 57-24 in game one and 57-36 in game two.

Planet Rugby caught up with Zimbabwean Test star Connor Pritchard who shone for the President’s XV in game two, bagging a brace of tries, to understand how the innovations influenced the series.

Pritchard, capped seven times by Queensland Country in the National Rugby Championship, felt one of the biggest and most effective changes was the timer on arriving and completing the set piece.

“Definitely the 30 seconds at scrum time and 30 seconds at lineout time. Those two are on par with each other,” Pritchard said when asked what the most influential innovation was. “I mean, as soon as that referee says ‘mark’, we were literally ready to go, you know, we were binding up and it’s just so much quicker.”

The flanker believes the timer on the set-piece could also reduce controversy, much like the Foley call in Bledisloe I.

“I think the 30 seconds for scrums and lineouts and kick-offs will play a huge role in the development of rugby because you get teams that are just so good at manipulating time, especially towards the end of the game, where they’re ahead. And although it’s gamesmanship, it becomes unfair because it is not reffed consistently throughout. Whereas if they have a definite time, you got 30 seconds, then there’s no complaining, and there’s no 50/50.”

Pritchard claims that with the ball-in-play more, it offers more chances to carry the ball, which could be more conducive for attacking play, as the high scores in both games suggest.

“It’s unbelievable how much time on the ball I got in the series compared to during the season. I don’t know the stats off the top of my head, but I must have touched the ball double the amount of times as I would in a normal premiership (Queensland Premier Rugby) game,” he said.

What inevitably comes with more ball-in-play is heightened fatigue, something the 26-year-old felt during the game and interestingly pointed out how that will bring more emphasis on tactical substitutions.

“All of us, both the Reds (Development XV) and the President’s team, were all gassed in the second half. So you’re gonna have to have good tactics when you subbing guys on.”

Ultimately, for the most part, the law innovations seemed to work by increasing ball-in-play time, producing more attacking rugby with higher score lines. The changes will reward the fitter teams and potentially reduce controversy.

It is still uncertain whether World Rugby will, in fact, utilise or further trial any of these innovations, but it does seem to be a step in the right direction.

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