Nigel Owens Says He Would Like To Make One Major Change To Rugby

Nigel Owens is one of the most respected officials in World Rugby.

He has taken charge of some of rugby’s biggest games at the highest level including a World Cup final, and is a former World Rugby Referee of the Year.

Owens did a brilliant Q&A for WaleOnline not too long ago, with the public putting some excellent questions to him.

One of those was whether or not he would make any law changes to the game, to which he replied no, but that’s not saying he wouldn’t make any changes to the game itself.

“If you look at some of the great games of rugby that have been over the last few years then that will tell you there can’t be much wrong with the laws of the game. That doesn’t mean there are not little changes that need to be made to some of the laws from time to time as the game evolves, but in general there is no law that I would like to change.

The one thing I would like to change is the amount of substitutions and when they can be used in the game. There is a lot of disruption, especially in the second half of the game when you could have 16 new players coming on. How you would change this, I don’t really know. Maybe substitutions can be made twice during the game, otherwise any player coming off must come off as a replacement i.e injured. Also we could maybe reduce the amount of substitutions i.e five or six instead of eight. It’s certainly worth thinking about.”

What do you think? A good idea?