Nigel Owens: Scrap substitutions from international rugby, only injury replacements allowed

Former international referee Nigel Owens has told us that he thinks tactical substitutions should be dropped from international rugby competition such as the Six Nations, stating that replacements should only be allowed onto the pitch for injured players.

“I think we need to look at substitutions,” Owens said. “There’s too many substitutions in the game. Whether you reduce them from eight down to five or four? Or at international level, do you just have them for replacements rather than substitutions? So, the only time you can come on is when a player is injured; you can’t come on for a tactical substitution.

“I think that will help the game. It’ll prevent all these changes and players coming on in the second half. You can have eight players coming on in the second half – more than half a new team – fresh, fit and playing against seven players from the opposition that have been on the pitch for 60 minutes, and they’re just coming on fresh for the last 20 minutes.

“Also, I think that what it would mean as well is, instead of a player coming on carrying 120kg to last 40 or 50 minutes in the game, he may now just have to carry 100kg or 110kg to last 80 minutes. That will take away some of the bulk. Will that then help with less impact, less big collisions because players coming on are actually not as heavy? Will that help with the safety of the game? That’s something that needs to be looked at. I do think it will benefit the game by changing it to replacements rather than substitutions.”

Owens added: “As for other rules, I would also definitely change the goal-line dropout when a team kicks the ball into end-goal and it’s made dead. That should still be a dropout 22 I think, because It’s putting the side that’s defending under pressure to kick out from their own goal line. Will it encourage teams to kick a bit more and put the ball in there and put pressure on the defending team? So that’s another thing I definitely would change.”

Looking ahead to this weekend’s Six Nations fixtures, Owens says he has been hugely impressed with France during this year’s tournament and would be very surprised if they didn’t land a first championship since 2010 over the coming weeks.

“The question mark I had on France was what would they be like if they go to Murrayfield or Cardiff and then Scotland or Wales get amongst them?” Owen said. “What would they be like then when under pressure and with a fairly inexperienced side? But at Murrayfield they just blew Scotland away, so I can’t see them slipping up winning this year’s Six Nations and the Grand Slam, and you would be a brave man to bet against them in winning the World Cup next year for the first time ever either. At the moment, the Six Nations is theirs to lose. And if they play well against Wales on Friday and then beat England next week and win the Grand Slam, then they’ll go into the World Cup as many people’s favourites.”

England have been less impressive in this year’s Six Nations and Owens feels Eddie Jones’ side will have to up their game to have any chance of beating Ireland on Saturday.

“England need to find their best form, there’s no doubt about that,” Owens said. “At the moment they are not at their best. The top two teams in the Six Nations are France and Ireland. There’s not too much between those two but France are clearly the better side, but then there’s a bit of gap to the others. If England do find their form, they’ve got the ingredients and the talent for it. But at the moment, it’s just not clicking for them for whatever reason. When they do click, they’ll be good but at the moment they’re not.

“They’ll need a very good performance against Ireland. If they don’t produce one and Ireland win, it could be a long week for England going onto Paris next week. Up in Murrayfield I thought England were the better side for 60 minutes but still managed to lose, you only saw glimpses out in Rome, and against Wales last week they still failed to fire. If they were firing on all cylinders going into this game, then it would be England for me to win this one but they’re not. And Ireland are a very good side at the moment so I’m going to go for Ireland to win at Twickenham.”

Owens went on to discuss the general standard of refereeing during the Six Nations and feels it has been of a strong standard with very few errors.

“One way to judge the standard of refereeing is, is everybody talking about refereeing decisions or are they talking about the actual matches and teams and players?” Owens said. “In all fairness, there’s a couple of decisions we can look at – that try at Twickenham for England against Wales that probably shouldn’t have been. We can look at a couple of other debatable decisions or talking points. But if you look at the whole context of the tournament, the referees have done a pretty decent job. Some referees have performed better than the others, but that’s the way it is. It certainly hasn’t been an issue I don’t think.

“The powers that be will have found out a bit more about the referees they have a question mark about – whether they are good enough at that top level or do they need some more time? They’ll know more this weekend and next weekend. Are they on form now, which they need to be for the World Cup? You can say some referees have been better than others, but you can’t say they’ve been a blight on any game. People are talking about the games and that’s what you want as a referee.”

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