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Nigel Owens calls for law rethink after incident during Italy-Scotland
By Ian Cameron
Revered retired rugby referee Nigel Owens has voiced his concerns over the current rugby law relating to holding a player up over the goal line.
The incident in question occurred at the Stadio Stadio Olimpico when Scotland's Duhan van der Merwe lifted and held up Italy's fullback Ange Capuozzo in Scotland's dead ball area, winning a goal-line drop-out for Scotland.
According to the Laws of the game "When a player carrying the ball is held up in-goal, so that the player cannot ground the ball or play the ball, the ball is dead. Play restarts with a goal line drop-out or a 5m scrum, depending on how the ball entered."
Owens - who retired in 2020 - isn't a fan of the law.
Owens criticized the goal-line dropout rule for players being held up, arguing that the law favours defensive play over attacking efforts. He stated, "That is why I don’t like the goal line drop out held up law. We should be giving the benefit of the doubt and rewarding the attacking team not the defence. The game is far too much defence-oriented already."
His comments have ignited a conversation about the balance between attack and defence in rugby on X, with many supporting Owens' call for a reevaluation of the rules to encourage and reward attacking play when these incidents occur.
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Latest Comments
The England backs can't be that dumb, he has been playing on and off for the last couple of years. If they are too slow to keep up with him that's another matter.
He was the only thing stopping England from getting their arses handed to them in the Aussie game. If you can't fit a player with that skill set into an England team then they are stuffed.
Go to commentsSteve Borthwick appointment was misguided based on two flawed premises.
1. An overblown sense of the quality of the premiership rugby. The gap between the Premiership and Test rugby is enormous
2. England needed an English coach who understood English Rugby and it's traditional strengths.
SB won the premiership and was an England forward and did a great job with the Japanese forwards but neither of those qualify you as a tier 1 test manager.
Maybe Felix Jones and Aled Walter's departures are down to the fact that SB is a details man, which work at club level but at test level you need the manager to manage and let the coaches get on and do what they are employed for.
SB criticism of players is straight out of Eddie Jones playbook but his loyalty to keeping out of form players borne out of his perceived sense of betrayal as a player.
In all it doesn't stack up as the qualities needed to be a modern Test coach /Manager
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