Change in breakdown rule irks Ireland
The new laws led to confusion in the stands and on the pitch at Croke Park on Saturday as referee Craig Joubert blew for 26 penalties in a stop-start affair as the players struggled to get to grips with the new style of play.
And McNaughton confirmed the players were only informed of the change the night before the win over Wales.
“What we are mainly concerned about is that the stricter interpretation of the rule is changing in the middle of the tournament,” he said.
“When you prepare a team for the Six Nations championship, you prepare them based on the interpretation of the rules when you last played, which is November. That’s what happened.
“There had to be a briefing of the players the night before because of confirmation that the strict interpretation of the rules was going to be enforced.”
The response coming from the IRB is that nothing has changed, but the interpretation has been existing in Super 14, leading to huge scorelines. The tackler must release the player he has tackled before contesting for the ball, which runs counter to the way Ireland’s players have competed all season.
“I don’t think anybody has admitted it’s been brought in mid-season which is the issue,” McNaughton said.
“The replies we’re getting is that it’s not a new law. We know that. They’re saying that the emphasis on this law was discussed after the November series. And there definitely was a briefing to the teams before the Super 14, letting them know that this law would be policed more strictly.
“The issue we had was that a similar approach wasn’t taken here. In the short-term, we would have adapted even if we didn’t agree with it. We would have had three weeks or so before the championship to prepare but it’s not satisfactory that it has happened mid-championship.
“We like to play with the football at our feet and hold the player up as he goes to ground and that’s an important part of our game and it’s been an important part of our success and our ability to turn over ball. Obviously, the strict interpretation of that rule damages that aspect, or could damage that aspect of the game. We have to adapt.”
That Ireland got the win means that damage wasn’t done, but McNaughton and Alan Gaffney admitted the players were confused by the sudden change to the breakdown laws.
And the manager said they found out too late to change the way the players approached the match.
“We asked the players not to really change too much,” he said. “You can’t ask a team to prepare for months after November and then say to them, ‘listen you can’t do that’. We had to feel our way into it to a certain extent.
“We very disappointed that they changed the rules in the middle of the tournament. But having said that, once we got confirmation that the referee would be enforcing the change we had to adapt somewhat without confusing the players.”
Gaffney acknowledged Joubert was just doing his job and had informed the management team of what he was going to do ahead of the game.
But the Australian backs coach says the new rules have led to bewilderment.
“As far as we’re concerned the game was refereed as the referee had said he would do it.
“There’s no doubt that there’s still a lot of confusion there but insofar as that was concerned, there were only a couple of penalties where we weren’t quite exactly sure how it would go, but generally speaking he made it quite clear and hopefully that will be the case when there will be discussion with Jonathan Kaplan later in the week.
“I don’t think that’s necessarily a great thing for rugby. You may see more tries scored over time but is that what necessarily makes a great game of rugby? I don’t know.
“I think that’s what considered to be the case in the Southern Hemisphere that it may put more bums on seats but I don’t know in the long term if that will be the case.”
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