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Referee Wayne Barnes claims players have embraced new scrum rulings

Wednesday 4 September 2013 17:10, UK

Aviva Premiership Final 2013
Image: Wayne Barnes: Believes player reaction to new scrum rulings has been positive

Referee Wayne Barnes has called for patience as new scrum laws that have attracted criticism before the season has even started are trialled in the northern hemisphere.

It is feared the early rounds of the Premiership and RaboDirect Pro12 could be marred by a succession of free-kicks and penalties as teams get to grips with the laws.
Important
Barnes did little to refute this up by warning that referees will adopt a zero-tolerance policy from the start. "If a player continues to do something that we told them in pre-season they shouldn't, there have to be sanctions," he said. "This is a season-long trial. We don't want to start off week one being very harsh, then by week 20 everyone's forgotten about it. "We have to hold (people) to account throughout the season to make sure this works. "That's why it's important that we've gone into clubs beforehand, and we've done over 40 visits to the 12 teams. "The clubs know what we're trying to deliver. They're all saying they're going to buy into this. "I'm optimistic this will work. What we've seen in pre-season is that scrums are up, scrums are off the floor and they're good pushing competitions. As rugby fans we all want scrums to work."

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