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Area behind tackle will be crucial

Area behind tackle will be crucial

15/01/2008 3:04 PM

Look for the area immediately behind the advantage line at the tackle area to be the point of most obvious difference when Super 14 rugby kicks in under the new laws next month.

Blues coach David Nucifora said on Tuesday that 80 percent of the game wouldn't be affected by the law changes but the new law as it applied to the tackled ball would bring into effect the new offside line.

How teams cope with that would have a significant effect on games.

"It will be very, very quick around that tackle area in some instances," Nucifora said.

"What it will mean is that you are going to have players out of the game a lot quicker because the offside line is being drawn a lot quicker and that will mean differences in certain situations," he said.

While rucking might not be the most obvious aspect of the game that is employed, Nucifora did say that the changes will cause some rethinking on the strategy by which back rowers are used, and for the general awareness in the team.

This would be crucial because it would depend on how players recognised situations from that law to understand what was likely to happen next in the game.

Nucifora said there had been emphasis placed on the changes at Blues training, but it had not been an over-riding aspect of preparation.

"From what we've seen from other games, the ball will be in play for longer.

"There is going to be a need for their [players] aerobic capacity to be up there so we've been trying to integrate that around some of the games we've been playing," he said.

Another important consideration was that much of the evidence on how the laws will affect the game had occurred at lower levels of rugby.

"I think there is still an unknown about how this level of rugby will manage them [the changes] so there's going to be a bit of learning over the first few rounds of the competition," he said.

As far as the Blues' overall preparation was concerned, he said he was mindful of not concentrating too much on new laws.

"The game is still the same game, we've been working on our primary things that are still going to be really important to us. But, obviously, we have been trying to filter in and get an understanding of where the new laws are going to affect the game," he said.

 
Photograph Copyright : Getty Images

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