World Rugby urged to change laws after Italy breakdown tactics confuse England

As The Province documented a year ago, a ruck isn’t formed until players from each team arrive at the tackle area *and* engage with each other. Head coach Eddie Jones, in particular, is very excited to see how he fares in the midfield, when he is alongside George Ford and Owen Farrell.

The situation became even more weird when England briefly adopted the same approach at the breakdown in the second half. Italy did nothing wrong technically but it’s not in rugby’s interest to have showpiece games hijacked like this.

That prompted Wales’s leading worldwide referee Nigel Owens to tell the Daily Telegraph: “I am surprised at players not knowing this because global referees tend to go in with their respective national squads and discuss stuff like this”.

During the game, Ugo Monye, another Harlequin who was working as a co-commentator with ITV, said he had spoken to O’Shea beforehand and reported that the Italian coach told him, “just make sure you understand your laws”. Whether their tactics of not competing at all at the breakdown is the way rugby is supposed to be played was the talk of the press conferences after the game, but the reality was that it unsettled England and added a new talking point to a tournament that is never lacking in subtext. We got some things right at the weekend and we didn’t get other things right.

The French official replied: “I am the ref, not a coach”. “I thought we did that second half, but it was frustrating, to say the least”.

Maybe the Sunwolves should take note, because Italy have used a quirk in rugby’s rules to stifle England at Twickenham.

“It is called a Test match for a reason and we have been tested and you always want to learn”. Be normal, lay down and get beaten?

The tactic has become the talk of the sport and World Rugby chairman Bill Beaumont was due today to have informal talks with global referees chief Allain Rolland in Dublin but official discussion by the game’s bosses will not take place until next week. We have to think differently as a country and play our own game.

“There’s an obvious weakness in that you can pull out of the tackle and put no one else in, but it’s hard to avoid them pulling you in”.

“We’re just sitting back watching it and thinking “fair play to them”. We didn’t come up with this overnight”.

Limerick man O’Shea, 46, added: “He wanted 70 points so he wanted to take us to the cleaners”.

England captain Dylan Hartley was more restrained in his assessment of Italy’s approach, which has been seen once or twice in the southern hemisphere, notes Irish website The 42.

“We actually had rucks at times – well it wasn’t a ruck because there was no Italians there – we had three or four England players around the ball and it was still slow”.

“We have to change in Italy and I am sick and exhausted of people having a pop and having a go”.