Sir Steve Hansen wants to see better communication and a more open World Rugby after accusing them of being a “secret society”.
The former All Blacks head coach has also outlined the areas that he feels needs addressing, especially from an officiating standpoint.
Rugby’s top coaches and referees will meet in November at a World Rugby summit to discuss where the sport stands and whether there needs to be amendments.
For Hansen, he is clear that certain things need to be changed, starting with how head contact is officiated.
Hansen’s recommended changes
“What needs urgent work? Clearly the yellow card thing needs urgent work. We’ve got too many games happening where there’s 13 on 15, and 14 on 15, for things that are not intentional,” he told the Rugby Unity podcast.
“Yes, I know we have to think about safety but there are other contact sports that we can learn from which we seem to not want to.
“We’ve got to really dig deep into that and come up with a way of making our game still competitive and safe, so there’s something I would love us to sit down and talk about.”
Hansen has also been a constant critic of the television match official interjecting and slowing the game down.
“What do we think about the TMO at the moment? Those are the conversations I would love them to answer, but I would guarantee you that they’ll go there and talk about how the game’s going to be refereed and interpret it in the November Tests because that’s what always happens when they have this meeting,” he said.
“I would be happy to eat a meat pie if they turnaround and do something different.”
Sir Steve Hansen demands ‘reassurance’ from World Rugby after ‘waste of time’ summits
Interestingly, Hansen believes that there has been a development in regards to the TMO, but that World Rugby have opted not to pass that information on to the wider public.
The 67-year-old is adamant that it is a consistent issue, claiming that there is a lack of accountability at the global governing body.
Criticism of World Rugby
“Up until now, we’ve been a secret society. No one’s vulnerable enough to say: ‘We got that wrong’. That’s what we’ve got to be, we’ve got to be able to do that,” Hansen said.
“Clearly, there’s been a directive to the referees in the last month or so to ignore the TMOs or fight back on the TMOs because you’re starting to see referees get a bit stronger, but they’ve not told anybody that.
“We’re on here assuming that and it’s a positive thing I think what they’re trying to do, so tell us so we can support them.
“It’s a twofold thing; the more they communicate, yeah they will get some people that won’t like what they’re communicating but they’ll also get people who do like it.
“But they’re a secret society, they don’t tell us anything.”