All about speeding up the game. The bigest culprit right now is the whistle however. Given the size of the bokkes forwards, anything to speed them up is a good idea. But I’m still dissapointed not to see at least 2 backs mandated on the bench, or a cut to it.
To reduce the whistle it might be time to warn specific players. One warning for giving away a penalty and then a yellow card. Might be funny to see teams at 10 players
It’s that and the previous recent set of changes where there is no longer scrum option from a free kick.
I don’t see that as a problem. A scrum exists to restart the game with a contest for the ball when there has been a mistake such as a knock-on, forward pass etc. If you claim a free-kick, then you should have to kick it - it’s in the name.
The problem with scrums is they lead to penalties - so in effect you start penalising knock-ons, or other phases of rugby that are accidental. And the scrum penalties are awfully inconsistent - you saw it in France v New Zealand tonight. Sometimes an immediate penalty, other times 2 scrums could look identical and one would get penalised the other wouldn’t. Its just bad for the game to have that sort of inconsistency.