Jake White

Now, if you caught it out the air, you could take a scrum or a free kick from where you caught it.

you would then be able to get an entry into their half just outside their 22.

So teams would have to kick much more cleverly and along the ground.

They wouldn't be allowed to kick in the air.

And that would stop all this barging and getting in the way and all these 50-50 penalties where you're running in front of people, etc., etc.

The one thing that it would do for the junior game, it would create more scrums in the beginning because everyone would take the scrum just outside the 22.

And then youngsters and parents would say, listen, I don't really want my kid to play rugby because the scrum numbers have gone up.

But I don't think it will last long.

I think what will happen is teams will have to keep the ball out.

And I think bringing back, you can kick it out in your 22.

So in other words, like you can still, so then you won't want to come out of your two, you kick it out, you're 22, another team can have the line out.

But if you decide to keep it in, you have the risk of, if they catch it out of the air, you have to give a scrum to the team that's received the ball just outside your 22.

And that will bring in skilled players to kick from second and third receivers as well, not just from one pass back to James Lowe who punts it down the field 70 metres.

That's one way.

You can kick it down the field and get them to counter-attack from miles out.

But the contestables of catching the ball on the halfway line basically would take them out of the game.

And that would mean, you know, more multi-skilled players in the backs, which probably means less 7-1 splits, Bernard, which also means, you know, no likelihood of an 8-0 split as well.

So that's the kind of thing that the game would change.

So a lot of good ball into place by making that one change.

The other thing, Bernard, when that's interesting, you said that about that, you know, that most penalties, that's why teams aren't taking them all anymore.