Rugby Football Union, the body that runs union rugby in England have sanctioned a potentially divisive trial proposal to have rolling substitutions at their amateur county championship cup.
In simple terms, this means you can interchange up to 12 players per team in a single match, so players can return to action even after having already been substituted.
This recommendation by RFU came about as a result of the infamous ‘bloodgate’ scandal when Harlequins winger Tom Williams went off with fake blood coming from his mouth to be replaced by Nick Evans.
Advantages
Some including former England captain and current manager Martin Johnson have supported these trials intimating union rugby is headed in this direction.
Lawrence Dallaglio recommended it should be experimented in the Guinness Premiership next year!
From a playing perspective, it would be advantageous to have your tight five who are normally your biggest and least fit players rotated throughout the game.
It can also end the aforementioned kind of cheating while the medics have more time to examine players for concussions and other injuries beyond the 90 second limit for a player on pitch.
Disadvatanges
I have to agree any form of cheating must be eradicated and players welfare must be paramount but I disagree with the proposed solutions.
If anyone one knows how rugby league broke away from union and the animosity between these codes of rugby they would think twice about changing the character and ethos of union rugby to look like a rugby league clone.
From borrowing ideas on video refereeing, yellow cards union is fast becoming rugby league. What next 13 players? We need more union like innovations. Besides, the 13-man panel that investigated the bloodgate scandal found absolutely no evidence of systematic cheating in rugby.
I believe measures to ensure the impartiality of medics and maybe an increase in the time medics have to examine an injured on pitch player is increased to 5 minutes should suffice.
On a lighter note and at the risk of English and Wasp fans strangling me that remark by Lawrence Dallaglio whose Wasps I have watched benefit from some suspicious uncontested scrums is unbelievable.
Probably an effect of too many years at back row.
Super 14 the world’s
hardest rugby event
By way of comparison, a 90kg man running a half-marathon (21km) burns about the same amount of energy as a Super 14 player every weekend!