20-minute red card, time limits… What are these new rules that could change rugby ?

Un carton rouge de 20 minutes, parmi les nouveautés proposées par World Rugby. MAXPPP – David Davies

L’instance mondiale du rugby World Rugby a annoncé mardi avoir franchi une étape pour l’adoption de plusieurs nouvelles règles testées cet été dans différentes compétitions, dont le carton rouge allégé à 20 minutes.

Validated by the World Rugby Executive Committee, these rules could be adopted worldwide if approved at the World Rugby Council on November 14, the body indicated in a press release. They had been tested for several months in various competitions such as the Rugby Championship, the Women's XV or the Pacific Nations Cup, and resulted in “an increase in playing time”, highlights World Rugby.

“The proposed changes […] are designed to improve the experience of spectators and players by promoting a faster game, reducing stoppages in play", defends the instance. Among these new rules desired by World Rugby, the most notable is that of the lightened red card: an excluded player could still no longer return to the pitch, but could be replaced after 20 minutes, allowing his partners to no longer finish the match with 14.

30 seconds for scrums

Other rules are also affected: a 30-second time limit for playing scrums and lineouts in order to speed them up, the possibility of making a volley save within one's 22 metres on throw-ins, the obligation to play the ball from the first stop of a maul and no longer the second, or the possibility of allowing play to continue if a throw-in is not straight, as long as the opposing team has not contested it in the air.

World Rugby would also like to limit the time to kick a conversion after a try to 60 seconds, to align it with that of a penalty. The body wants to improve the rules for protecting scrum-halves behind the rucks, mauls and scrums, always in order to promote a "fluid" game.

The executive committee also validated an expanded protocol for video referees, who could be given more power to intervene in the event of fouls before a scoring action.