Friday bulletin, 6 January: Happy New Year!

Law Application Guidelines

As you may well have seen and heard in the media, World Rugby has issued new guidelines for law application, which can be found by clicking here. Important: these are NOT ‘new laws’ (as some TV commentators would have you believe); World Rugby does not change or introduce new laws in the year leading up to a World Cup. These are clarifications and guidelines on the more consistent application of current laws. Many of the clarifications are already being implemented at our community level, but in summary:

• Conversions must be taken no more than 90 seconds after the try is awarded
• Penalty attempts at goal must be taken no more than 60 seconds after the team awarded the penalty have indicated their intention to kick
• Lineouts are formed “without delay”
• Scrums must be ready no more than 30 seconds after the mark is made
• Negative player actions are to be sanctioned (timewasting, preventing quick taps, etc)

You may well find in the first few weeks of this year that players’ expectations of enforcement of the above may be higher…

‘Sledging’ and Game Values

It will also not have escaped your attention that a Premiership player has once again been involved in serious verbal abuse of an opponent. We will all have our ‘red lines’ beyond which sanctions are applied for such behaviour, but referees may wish to read the Marler judgement which can be found here, in order to understand the reasoning behind the RFU’s conclusion, and to manage any altered expectations from players at community level