World Rugby Council has today voted unanimously to adopt five welfare driven global trials into full law from 1 July. The new laws mean that the upcoming women’s and men’s Rugby World Cups will feature the current package of global welfare-driven law trials including 50:22 and the goal line dropout.
- New laws reaffirm rugby’s ongoing commitment to injury-prevention at all levels
- All five welfare-focused Law trials adopted into full law
- Scrum brake foot adopted as a global law trial
- Approval follows detailed statistical evaluation and feedback from players, medics and coaches at all levels of the game
- Laws formally operational from 1 July, 2022
- New reforms including scrum brake foot progress to global law trial
World Rugby Council has today voted unanimously to adopt five welfare driven global trials into full law from 1 July. The new laws mean that the upcoming women’s and men’s Rugby World Cups will feature the current package of global welfare-driven law trials including 50:22 and the goal line dropout.
With rugby united in its mission to be the most progressive sport on player welfare, the package of five laws have all been approved with welfare advancement in mind and following a global trial period of one year where every player at all levels has been able to play under them and have their say.
The scrum brake foot, trialed in this years’ Six Nations Championships, will move from a closed to global trial, meaning it will also feature at the men’s and women’s Rugby World Cups in 2022 and 2023.
World Rugby’s Laws Review Group and High Performance Rugby Committee made the recommendations to the World Rugby Council following detailed analysis of welfare and shape of the game data as well as feedback from the Game, including players, coaches, match officials, medics and public.
All five trials were deemed to have positively enhanced both safety and spectacle and were unanimously approved by the Council. They are:
• 50:22
• Goal Line Drop Out
• Pre-Bound Pods of Players (or “Flying Wedge”)
• Sanctioning of lower-limb clearout
• Latching
Approval of the new laws builds on the package of Game On Community Law Variations providing national unions with the ability to implement modified laws at a domestic mass participation level. Allowing each union to further game experience and safety for participants by meeting the specific needs of the game in their nation. Unions can pick and choose from dependent on their context and purpose.
Source: world.rugby