The Northern Hemisphere club season may not be fully over yet (the Top 14 playoffs continue until mid-June) but eyes are already turning to international rugby with the beginning of the World Rugby U20s Championship today.
With my focus having been on the Premiership and Pro14 and already looking ahead to the World Cup, I must admit that the U20s fixtures yesterday caught me unprepared, so I was very surprised when I saw the matchday squads consist of all 28 players in the squad.
This is a change being trialled in the tournament. The number of possible substitutions remains at 3 in the front row and then 5 more, but the usual 8-man bench is extended to 13.
Personally, I absolutely love this trial and hope that it comes into practice through more tournaments in the next couple of years. With the way that the game has evolved in terms of player safety, substitutions have become more important than ever, so to have 4/8 positions on the bench filled by specialists (2 props, hooker, scrum half) is extremely limiting. Expanding the bench to 13 players means that you can have cover for every position (maybe just 1 winger and 2 back rows) which allows for much better reactions to injuries and also more tactical flexibility, without putting teams with less depth at too much of a greater disadvantage by still only allowing 8 total replacements.
While it’s still early days, I’m really excited by this trial and can’t wait to see how things go moving forwards.
Eyes on the Ball 