England captain Owen Farrell has adjusted his technique of falling foul of World Rugby’s crackdown on play in fear.
Farrell was guilty of reckless no-arms challenges against South Africa and Australia last autumn – although he escaped penalty – to raise concerns over his manner of stopping opponents.
World Rugby are determined to rid the game of touch and also in May issued a directive clarifying the process for officiating tackles and shoulder charges, including the usage of cards.
Even though England head coach Eddie Jones is worried that games danger being »destroyed » with a bad decision by officials, he has also seen the importance of refining Farrell’s strategy.
« Owen is not overly concentrated on that place, but he has made some alterations, » said defence coach John Mitchell.
« John Carrington, our strength and conditioning coach, will also be my service on defence and he is very good at working on tackle technique. They have made some adjustments based on that [fall ].
« There may be mitigating circumstances, however when your hands are in front of your shoulder you’ve got a better probability of creating a suitable wrap handle.
« If your shoulder is ahead of your palms, then the legislation doesn’t care for you very well. »
Mitchell insists on the officiating will play out in practice, every team will input Japan 2019 with a sense of uncertainty.
« It is in the back of everyone’s mind and there’s some apprehension about it, » Mitchell added.
« You are just going to have to deal with whatever happens. There’ll certainly be some apprehension around – ‘OK, is it going to be just like this?’ .
« You’d like to think that because then there has been learning, a tiny bit more common sense and you can hear the words’mitigating circumstances’. »
England begin their World Cup campaign against Tonga.

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