[NPC] New refereeing interpretations are resulting in lots of penalties
TV commentators are talking as if referees have made it clear which laws were being focused o for this year’s New Zealand National Provincial Championship (NPC) but no-one told us – the paying public.
And it doesn’t seem like the players have been all that well versed with the high amount of penalties being awarded during matches.
If this was America, there would have been an effective marketing job prior to the kick off of the first game to ensure everybody knew how things were going to go.
Diagrams would have been drawn with appropriate animations to clearly illustrate the law, the current interpretation and then how it was going to be played for this competition – and why.
That way the fans would be more informed, more sympathetic and could even provide productive feedback.
But that’s not how it went in New Zealand’s premier rugby competition.
Rugby’s laws are complicated enough without introducing experimental variations for one competition and then reverting back to old laws for mid-year internationals.
Then later the same year, introducing new ways of interpreting laws around the ruck and mall.
These include:
Tackle Safety
- Any tackle that starts high (over shoulder, neck, head) is ruled ‘head high’ [and penalised] regardless of where the tackle ends up
- Any tackle that involves lifting a player to a point where the tackled player’s legs get to an angle where they are parallel to the ground is ruled ‘dangerous’ [and penalised]
