Rugby players are smart. Well, specifically Antoine Dupont. Back in 2023, he decided to read the rules of rugby. By going through the rules, he quickly discovered that the offside law was terribly written. Not just a little bit badly written. Terribly.
Dupont discovered that by exploiting this badly written rule, he could create a situation that has since been dubbed ‘kick tennis’. A kicker and a receiver would just be kicking the ball back toward one another. The other players on the field would need to stand around just looking pretty for however long this took and, trust us, it took a long time sometimes (we’ve seen rallies taking 10-15 kicks).
Now, we don’t know if Dupont was just trying to point out the stupidity of the rule or whether he wanted to use it to his tactical advantage. All we know is that everything came to a head during the Six Nations in February. Scotland faced off against France, and the kick tennis led to a routine chorus of boos every time it happened (and it happened a lot).
World Rugby needed to change the rules. If they didn’t, betting on rugby would pretty much just be side bets on how many times the rule would be exploited. Oh, and the game would just be bland to watch, because, you know, when a rule can be exploited like this, people are going to exploit it, particularly if it benefits their team.
The Dupont Law
If you regularly watch rugby games, then you’ll probably know the Dupont Law already. Pretty much every pundit has been peeved at it, and you’ll know it is happening because the fans will start booing. Essentially, it boils down to this (remember – the rules have now been changed!):
Under the old rules of the game, opposition players could only be put onside when a kick receiver either:
– Passed the ball.
– Ran five metres.
– Kicked the ball.
It didn’t matter where the opposition players were on the field. They were offside until they were played onside by the receiver. This meant they had to stand around and do nothing. This led to one of two situations (although, thankfully, we didn’t see the second situation too much).
– The receiver wouldn’t want to play those opposition players onside. Most of them would be deep into the attacking territory and playing them onside would probably result in some points. So, he’d kick it right back.
– The receiver could just stand still and not do anything with the ball. His team, and the opposition players, couldn’t do anything, because, according to the old rules of the game, all of them would be offside.
So, as you can imagine, it made for some pretty bland plays (something that can’t be thrown at the latest All Blacks victory over England, though, despite the result). Unless the ball was intercepted or the teams gave up on this whole kick tennis thing, the entire pace of the game would slow down. We don’t think we’ve been in a stadium watching an event where the DuPont Law was used excessively, but we certainly booed our TV when it happened!
Thankfully, there are some changes afoot.
Changes to eliminate the DuPont Law
So, how are things being shaken up? Well, in a couple of ways. There are some rewrites of most of the offside laws for World Rugby. Minor rewrites, of course. However, the goal is to ensure that you don’t have all those players loitering in the middle of the field, waiting to be put onside. They have to make an effort to get onside themselves, and if they don’t, they’ll be penalised. This should cut down on many of the kick tennis battles. Let’s tell you how this will work:
10.1 changes
Law 10.1 essentially states what an offside player is, and that they shouldn’t interfere with play. Pretty simple stuff, especially for the regular rugby watcher. There haven’t been a huge number of changes made here. Well, except for one.
Law 10.1 has added 10.1 (d), which states that if a player is in an offside position, they cannot loiter in that offside position. An offside player cannot benefit from being placed onside by any action that the opposing team takes. If they do, they’ll be penalised. Right away, this starts to take out some of the benefits of the DuPont Law, as the whole idea behind the DuPont Law is to provide some benefit.
10.4
Changes to 10.4 (a) state that an offside player will be penalised if they do not make an effort to retreat into an onside position and they are interfering in play while remaining offside (see the previous rule).
The text has also been changed in 10.4 (b) to state that an offside player will be penalised if they move toward the ball.
10.7
This is where World Rugby have made their big changes. They have essentially removed some of the times that an offside player can be played onside.
Remember that rule about how a player can be played onside when their opposition carries the ball five metres or passes the ball? Well, that’s out the window. They can now only be played onside when the opposition kicks the ball or intentionally touches the ball.
This means that there are more situations where players need to actively attempt to move into an onside position, or they’ll be penalised. The hope is that it will speed the game up a bit, meaning far fewer snooze fests than we’ve seen in recent years.
How will this impact the game?
It is fair to say the reaction has been mixed. While changes to the DuPont Law have been trialled, it is difficult to predict how things will work on the world stage. Trials have indicated that the game will speed up, but the changes to the game may take a while to get used to (this has been the biggest shake-up of the offside rule in a while). All we’re hoping for is far fewer kick tennis matches. If we wanted to see a ball being knocked back and forth, we’d watch tennis.