Whilst watching the FIFA Women’s World Cup earlier this year, I made some observations about how the reaction in the football world to the Video Assistant Referee technology was typical of the change that any implementation brings (http://www.marksutton.me/about-us/var---technology-changes-the-football-industry). I find myself, several months later, musing similarly over the rugby world’s reaction to World Rugby’s insistence at its World Cup in Japan of the implementation of its high-tackle Law.
Many high-profile rugby experts are taking to social media, and other channels, to express their concerns about how World Rugby is spoiling the game with the fresh focus on any in-play tackle that could appear to put a player’s welfare at risk. As an arm-chair observer and fan, who has never played the game, it seems to my more detached eyes that this is a typical fall-out from a significant culture change experienced in that sport. A cultural change, because several of its participants – past and present – have not understood that World Rugby is seeking to change the game, alter the fundamental way in which the sport is played.
Our world is seeing more and more litigation. Lawyers increasingly determine the outcome of sports events. Our world is seeing more and more litigation. Lawyers increasingly determine the outcome of sports events. The lawyers of the international athletics governing body, the IAAF, successfully fought Caster Semenya's attempt to block her ban from middle-distance athletics competition if she was unwilling to take hormone-controlling drugs. Chris Coleman is only the IAAF 2019 100m World Champion because his lawyer spotted an error in the work of the author of the International Standard for Testing and Investigations, instead of being banned for not following the whereabouts protocols demanded of elite athletes.
With this backdrop, World Rugby is keen to be able to say that it is doing what it takes to protect player welfare, and ensure that tackles are not made in the head and neck area. It introduced a clear high-tackle decision-making framework for its officials to follow. We have seen instances of players being red-carded, or banned retrospectively after being cited, as this decision-making process has been applied across the sport.
My personal observation is that this still relatively recent World Rugby focus has been better understood in the Northern Hemisphere than in the Southern Hemisphere. The Barrett decision in Perth and Hodge decision in Japan were greeted with significant criticism by New Zealand and Australian rugby-followers respectively. This contrasts England fans’ worry about past high-profile misdemeanours of England’s captain, Farrell, in the 2018 Autumn internationals and 2019 Six Nations fixtures. Perhaps, this is only circumstantial evidence for my possibly empty claim.
This actually matters not, because the comments from participants both past and present during this Rugby World Cup indicate that they have not understood World Rugby’s determination to eradicate the head or neck area high tackle. Completely. Fully. Totally. To get rid of it. Full stop. So that we do not see an incident of it in the sport, ever again. Never. Not one.
There are two dimensions to this issue.
Firstly, ex-players and ex-coaches did not play in today’s litigious world. Their view on the game from their personal experiences are now to some extent outdated. World Rugby wants to evolve the game. It is NOT the game that they played for this very reason. What worked for them, does not work for the current crop of players, and the generations to come. It is a slightly different sport. This is why the change to the Law has a cultural change impact. It is requiring a change of mind set. An acceptance that previous ways of behaving are no longer valid. Some of the sport’s ex-participants seem to understand this. Others do not.
Secondly, this is still a relatively fresh change. Players, coaches, officials, disciplinary panel- members, governing body-members, and other participants in the sport are all trying to get to grips with how they should behave differently. They are having to unlearn old habits, values, procedures and routines as they seek to enact the consequences of the World Rugby Law change. As with anyone who has gone through change, they are hesitant in their first experiences of it. They are not yet experts able to instinctively apply the new behaviour patterns required by the transformation introduced. They will sometimes get the new behaviour wrong. They will sometimes believe that they need to apply some of that behaviour in not quite the right moment (this may be recognised by those who witnessed the Australian captain Hooper’s bemusement when his colleague was told by the referee that he had committed a penalty whilst carrying the ball into a tackle with a Welshman in the Australia v Wales group match). These are all standard occurrences for those who are going through moments of real cultural transformation. Eventually, they learn the new target habits and behaviours, they intuitively operate as required, masters of the new values, knowledge and skills they have been asked to express.
It just seems to me that this Rugby World Cup has come a little too early for all in the sport to have reached this post-change outcome. Some are further forward on that journey than others. The comments of Cheika and Hodge after Hodge’s hearing that saw him banned for three matches may indicate Australia are further back in this transformational process than England who have been deliberately seeking to alter Farrell’s tackling technique. Some officials appear more comfortable with applying the change than others. In an unprecedented move, in the pressure-cooker environment of its high-profile World Cup event, World Rugby has criticised the performance of some of its officials, and so has added to the intensity of scrutiny of how they are applying the still relatively new behaviours that their role demands. As suggested above, they will sometimes get it right, but also sometimes be too sensitive to applying the change, as – like the players - they seek to match what is wanted and consistently operate the Laws.
Lastly, rugby is a sport in which the Laws are being constantly refined. Players are asked to adapt annually to new, slight alterations to the game. So it would not be a surprise that, as with any change, if the target outcome is not achieved or can be further improved, those asked to apply the new-world behaviours may suggest further refinements to those replacement routines, habits and expectations. As the target zone that World Rugby is trying to protect with lower tackles is so small, some are already suggesting that the answer may be to extend the ‘no-go’ area further so that anything above the nipple line cannot be targeted by a defending player. Yes, controversy will still remain about whether the referee believes that line was crossed and deserves punishment, but the head and neck area would be clearly off-limits and no transgressor would be able to dispute a red-card decision if they got anywhere near to that region in the tackle.