All Blacks coach Steve Hansen has warned rugby union risks becoming “boring” unless steps are taken to make the game more attacking and simplify its bloated law book.
– Wales’ Jonathan Davies ready for anxious Six Nations wait
– #360Rugby: First Six Nations setback for Schmidt
– #360view: Welsh triumph over Ireland hands England advantage
Hansen says defence is dominating the 15-a-side code and detracting from the game as a spectacle.
“I don’t think the game’s boring yet but it could go that way,” he said. “I think we’re victims of our own demise, we’ve got better and better at coaching defensively and because of that we’ll have to get better at attack. But at the moment it seems to be a defensive game rather than an attacking game.”
Hansen says the laws of the game, which run for more than 200 pages when downloaded from governing body World Rugby’s website, needed to be culled.
“One of the problems we’ve had is that we’ve added rules in but we haven’t deducted,” he said. “So we’ve got this mess and at some point we need to fix the mess and say ‘what are the critical rules we need so people can understand it and make it easier to referee?’.”
Combined with the increased athleticism and speed of modern players, Hansen said hard-to-understand rules and defensive coaching were stifling attacking play.
“There’s a lack of time and space, the tackle area has got no clarity about it,” he said.
“(When there’s) a penalty in the breakdown, no one – players, fans, coaches – has any idea who’s going to be awarded a penalty. What does the game need? It needs clarity. It’s a very, very difficult game to referee at the moment.
“There’s so many things they’ve got to look at and unfortunately, with the pace of the game, you can’t see it all.”
