In the Scotsman, Allan Massie laments the loss of the traditional tackle.
"All changes in the laws of a sport have unintended consequences. The present tackle law and the International Rugby Board's directive concerning its interpretation were aimed at ensuring there should a contest at the breakdown while at the same time providing for quick release. On the whole it has worked quite satisfactorily to date, though no doubt defence-minded coaches are plotting ways of slowing up delivery. Yet one of the unintended consequences has been a change in the style of tackling
"For almost all the history of the game there was a "correct" way of tackling. Young players were taught to go hard and low. This classic low tackle is of course still employed: Chris Paterson gave a couple of perfect text-book tackles to save tries against England and Italy.
"Nevertheless, it's been falling out of favour in recent years. First we had the chest-high, front-on "big hit". Now we commonly have the "scrag", a player being pulled, or thrown, down by a "tackler" gripping his jersey."
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