The biggest change to the sport in a generation?

The RFL have announced sweeping changes to the laws of the sport to be introduced from 2024 onwards in the community game and at all levels of the game in 2025. These changes are arguably the greatest we have seen for a generation or even several generations.

Those changes include:

- Any contact above the armpit will be deemed a high tackle.
- There will be greater limitations in contact for the junior game.
- Forwards can only play 2,000 minutes in a season, backs can play 2,400 (i.e between 25 and 30 matches).
- There will be a mandatory six week off season in which players can have no full contact training.
- Increase in sanctions (i.e. larger suspensions for high tackles)

That's the upshot. But the full list of changes are available to read here. There are other changes being considered too, such as whether ankle taps should be banned, whether the defending team should retreat for 5 metres and not 10 and whether only two players should be allowed in one tackle.

The Spectre of Litigation

The RFL's Director of Operations and Legal, Rob Hicks, has insisted that these changes have nothing to do with the sport being sued by a group of ex-players, who claim that the sport failed to put in reasonable protections from head injuries. I do struggle to believe that this was not a consideration given the enormous threat it poses to the sport's solvency.

There is no question that the sport has made big strides when it comes to head injuries in recent years. In 2006, Stuart Fielden was knocked unconscious by a punch from Willie Mason in an Australia v Great Britain test match.

Mason was allowed to remain on the field. Fielden, once he regained consciousness, played on for a further 11 minutes. In today's game, Mason would have been sent off and Fielden would have been immediately removed from play and stood down from playing again for 11 days.

That represents significant change. It shows how the sport has moved on both with more suitable punishments for direct attacks to the head and more thorough protections for players who suffer head injuries.

There can be no doubt that the sport is taking this matter more seriously than it once did. And we should be proud of the steps that we have taken in the last decade or so.

The Impact

The reason behind the RFL's changes are noble. A study in the British Medical Journal, published in 2022, concluded that professional rugby players are 15 times more likely to be diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease by comparison to the general population.

I have watched Rob Burrow's documentaries about living with MND. As with almost anyone who watched them, I was incredibly moved and horrified by the brutality and cruelty of this disease. 

I should also say that I was moved by the Burrow family's bravery in sharing the most personal of moments and the most painful of experiences to open eyes about quite how devastating MND is. 

Other studies have shown an increased risk of dementia in former players and of CTE (especially associated with longer playing careers).

My view is that if there are moves that the sport can take which can begin to reduce this risk, even if that impacts on the product, our duty to the players who sacrifice so much for our entertainment should come first.

The Impact

The counter-argument is that players know how tough rugby is to play, the risk of injury is high and that the very nature of our sport means risk cannot be eliminated.

Whatever your view of the proposed changes, it is right to consider the impact that they may have.

The reality is that if these changes are not adopted in the NRL and international games, we are effectively going to be playing a different sport to the rest of the world. When international competition comes around, this may place our players at greater risk. 

Many questions are raised. Here are just a few:

With limits on the amount of playing time per season, could it be the case that a player like Jack Welsby plays his 30 matches per year all for St Helens and then could not play for England at a World Cup? How do the RFL plan to manage this for its national team?

Will the fact that we are playing under different laws make it more difficult to recruit NRL players, or will our game be less attractive to them?

Has the RFL considered that lowering the bar for a high tackle may lead to defenders dipping into tackles and seeing the heads of defenders clash with attackers knees, hips and elbows? Are we simply changing the mechanism by which head injuries occur rather than reducing them?

Are these changes going to reduce the sport's insurance premiums, which have skyrocketed in recent years?

And most importantly of all, will these changes drive fans away from the sport? 

Even the most minor of inconvenience or most inconsequential refereeing error leads to some of our fans declaring that 'the game's gone' or the utterance of every rugby league fan's favourite phrase (that something is a 'farce').

Many in the game loudly declared how fans were turning away from the sport in their droves when we made a half-hearted effort to increase suspensions for foul play the other year (the opposite was true, with TV viewing figures, attendance figures and participation figures all going in the right direction, but why let facts spoil a good moan?).

But these changes are more fundamental and when implemented will mean that the sport will look very different indeed.

We need to live in the real world though. People may like moaning on social media saying how they feel it is not right that ex-players are suing the sport.

That opinion doesn't change reality though. It is happening. No amount of social media tubthumping can change that. The real world consequences are that the sport's insurance premiums have increased. Win or lose the case, the RFL will have a significant legal bill to pay (and a significantly higher one if they lose).

I sense that we are in the territory of adapt or die. The RFL has chosen to adapt. It seems to be preferable to the alternative.