Has the Reds' Quade Cooper got it?
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Boring super rugby could be a thing of the past according to Spiro Zavos in the Sydney Morning Herald.
"Last season's rugby was dominated by kickathons, defensive play and collapsed scrums. As entertainment, some of the matches (but not all) were about as pleasant to experience as a root-canal procedure. Something had to be done. Lyndon Bray, SANZAR's manager of referees, worked out a three-pronged solution with the coaches.
"Instead of the defending sides having most of the rights to the tackled ball, the new interpretation goes back to the basic law, requiring the tackler to release his grasp on the attacker and for all defenders near the ball to roll away if they are impeding the ball coming back in the ruck.
"The scrum procedures are now slowed down and the protocol of ''crouch, touch, pause, engage'' must be followed rigorously. The offside laws applying to kicks and players positioning themselves in defence at rucks and mauls are to be strictly enforced.
"These changes have been spelt out here because it is clear that a number of the players either did not understand them or were confirming the Zavos theorem. In the Sharks-Chiefs match, for instance, John Smit was heard arguing with the New Zealand referee, Keith Brown, about the penalties his team were giving away. Smit seemed to be suggesting that if the tackler was on his feet, he was entitled to keep holding on to the tackled ball. Wrong. The sequence now - as the law has always stated - is tackle, release, grab if possible."
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