Taking a leap of faith with law changes

As has become an annual tradition, the powers that be have decided that the rules need a little bit of a shake-up. Though normally done to improve the quality of the rugby product, it looks like safety is the main motivation for the latest mooted changes. The major change that is now being trialed in the U20-Championship is lowering the maximum allowed height for a legal tackle (to the nipple line), but it’s another law that has been causing issues for a number of years now that is also potentially up for discussion: jumping to compete for high balls.

Mind-bogglingly high leaps have been one of the hallmarks of many great players’ games, particularly fullbacks. You only have to have seen the Waratahs play the Chiefs over last weekend to see how much of a bonus it can be having a player who’s capable of performing almost gravity-defying jumps. Israel Folau did his best to keep the Waratahs in the game by taking a number of kick-offs he had no right to stake a claim to.

Over the years, the law interpretations seemed to have regularly changed when it comes to competing for the ball in the air. The current law stipulates that “a player must not tackle, charge, pull, push or grasp an opponent whose feet are off the ground” – it seems fairly clear that you can’t intentionally take out a jumping player, but things get a bit murkier when there’s no intention involved – for example, when multiple players are competing for the ball.

Seemingly left to the referee’s interpretation, it’s hard to predict who’s going to be penalised when two players are competing for the ball in the air. To an observer, the general interpretation seems to be that when competing for high ball, a player that jumps second will be punished if they collide with the first jumper. If both players jump at the same time then either no one is punished, or the player who fails to catch the ball is punished. Basically, don’t jump unless you know that you’re going to get the ball – otherwise you’re risking a penalty or worse.

In the heat of the game it can obviously be quite difficult to judge whether or not you’re going to win the air battle, which creates a bit of a conundrum. At present, players can either compete for the ball and risk being disciplined, or not compete for the ball, thus removing a key contest from the game.

The other, potentially more infuriating issue, is how players who don’t jump for the ball are dealt with. In a situation where a jumper propels himself forward (as is almost always going to happen when the fullback rushes forward to take a high ball), players on the ground, by the letter of the law, have to actively get out of the way of the jumping player. Think back to the ITM Cup match last year between Tasman and Taranaki when Viliami Lolohea was red carded for twice being caught underneath jumping players – Lolohea never attempted tackles on either of the jumpers, but because they jumped over and into him, he was punished.

A general dangerous play law exists in the rulebook that states “players must not do anything that is reckless or dangerous to others” – which is ostensibly a catch-all for anything the referee feels the need to punish on the day. Whilst not moving out of the way of a jumping player may fall under the category of “dangerous to others”, it seems somewhat harsh to penalise a player for standing his ground.

The fact that there are no laws designating when it is or isn’t ok to jump creates a big issue – as was seen on last year’s Lions Tour. When Connor Murray delivered a poor pass to Kyle Sinckler, Sinckler jumped to catch the ball instead of just reaching up to grab it. Charlie Faumuina was then penalised for tackling Sinckler in the air. The Lions received the benefit of Murray’s poor pass when it should have helped the All Blacks. If Murray’s pass had been straight into the breadbasket, would Sinckler have been allowed to leap into Faumuina’s arms?

There are some extremely obvious cases where it makes sense to penalise a player on the ground for taking out a jumping player, but it seems that more often than not the call is not so easy to make.
Apart from completely avoiding an area two or three metres around where a high ball should be falling, it can sometimes be impossible to avoid putting a jumping player in a dangerous position. Simply keeping clear from the impact area hardly seems like a smart solution because it will create huge open spaces for catching players to run into. This begs the question, should jumping be removed from the modern game?

Perhaps purists will argue that competing for high balls is a rugby tradition, that removing the aerial battle will remove some competition from the game, but the fact of the matter is that fitness levels and athletic abilities are higher now than ever before – jumps are higher and falls are heavier. Even if two players both observe the rules to the T, it’s inevitable that there are going to be some incredibly dangerous mid-air collisions. You could argue that the way the laws are interpreted now means that the aerial battle has already been somewhat subdued – players have to sit back and wait for a player to jump or face some pretty hefty consequences.

There will be suggestions that if jumping is banned, it won’t be long before the rest of the traditional rules are tinkered with and the game is turned soft. Rule changes are, however, almost exclusively independent of one another. There’s no reason why outlawing jumping should have an impact on any other aspect of the game.

Many will not agree with removing jumping from open play, and that’s their prerogative – they think it’s a key part of the game, for right or for wrong. But how often do you read a match report discussing how important jumping was in the match? Israel Folau’s recent work aside, it’s a fairly rare occurrence. How often do you read about how a game was marred due to a strange or inconsistent yellow card decision?

Jumping may well be a rugby tradition, but sometimes traditions need to be let go in order to move forward. Maybe removing jumping altogether isn’t the way forward, but something certainly needs to be done about the current laws.

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