lister:
One I’ve been saying is the smart meter animation on video ref decisions waiting for it to go back and to, which increases the time taken. Jon Wilkin then mentioned it on The Bench podcast.
Maybe show sponsor at the start for a few seconds when the video ref is getting ready anyway. After the decision go straight to sponsor themed Try/No Try.
The shot clock - it was brought in to speed up drop outs and scrums but now teams just wait for the clock to count down. Reduce the time, or even get rid and give the referee control over the restart again.
Agree with both of these.
The clock is a massive bugbear of mine. There are massive inconsistencies in how the game is played and lots of potential game time is wasted.
Just as an example, if a defending team concedes a dropout, there should be a 20-25 second shot clock on the restart. But the match clock should be stopped completely, so the attacking team doesn't lose any benefit from having forced the dropout. Instead, especially at the end of a half, we see the team dropping out milling about for 30 seconds while the time is run off the match clock. Rubbish.
