New season brings changes for Premiership Rugby

The Gallagher Premiership kicks off on Friday at Ashton Gate with a significant number of new player welfare driven initiatives and research projects, and a raft of new World Rugby law trials.

From this season it will be mandatory for Premiership teams – in all competitions - to seek an ICC review if either, return to play is expected within or on the 10th day or reflecting the sport’s focus on an individualised approach to concussion management, a player is deemed as higher risk irrespective of the time taken to return.

Premiership Rugby will also be trialling a number of welfare-driven law trials:

• 50:22: This law trial is intended to create space via a tactical choice for players to drop out of the defensive line in order to prevent their opponents from kicking for touch, reducing impact of defensive line speed
• Goal-line drop-out: This law trial is intended to reduce the number of scrums, reward good defence, encourage counter-attacking and increase the rate of ball in play
• Pre-bound pods of players: Outlawing the practice of pods of three or more players being pre-bound prior to receiving the ball – the sanction will be a penalty kick
• Sanctioning the lower limb clear-out: Penalising players who target/drop their weight onto the lower limbs of a jackler – the sanction will be a penalty kick
• Tightening law relating to latching: One-player latch to be permitted, but this player has the same responsibilities as a first arriving player (i.e. must stay on feet, enter through gate and not fall to floor) – the sanction will be a penalty kick.