"Chatty refs have aided the growth of dissent"

[Digby]

I'm envious! It was the one that's part of his year's ELVs which previously said that a ruck (and an offside line) was only formed when a player from each team was present and which now says that a ruck is formed when a player from either team is present.

Puja

Ah, I was fine with the tidying up the tackle such the tackler loses special rights to make things simpler for the refs, but the non ruck ruck seems a solution to problem that doesn't exist imo. Instead I'd rather they applied the already existing notion that rugby is a game for players on their feet

But you yourself just said that confusion on the part of the ref as to whether something was a ruck or not happened all the time? Surely that's a problem that existed and is now solved - a completed tackle with one player creates an offside line and no-one needs to work out if it's just a ruck or a tackle on the fly.

Puja

I can live with it, either way, rugby is a complex game but keeping players on their feet in another example of enforcing existing laws would do much more

[Numbers]

But it wasn't a usual in-play assessment

It was. His calling of ruck and tackle was no different to many games I've watched and played in. The rest you may have a point on - I can't remember how he dealt with the scrums - but on this, I can only disagree.

I will disagree - refs did not (before the law change) preemptively call "Just a tackle!" for every single occasion that no ruck was formed. It was only generally said when someone looked offside to announce that it was okay, not as a message that players could come round.

Puja

In my experience the ref calls "just a tackle" to make the defensive team aware that no maul is formed and hence no choke tackle, so the defensive team don't fall the wrong side when the ball is going to ground, I can't remember the Italy game so can't comment on that specifically.