By WYNNE GRAY
The All Blacks and Wallabies are keen to make a pact to ignore new rugby laws introduced this week but are worried South African referee Jonathan Kaplan may be under greater pressure from the International Rugby Board to abide by the rules.
"At this stage I think we are going to have to play under the new laws, but we have a meeting jacked up with Keith Lawrence [referees director at the NZRFU] as soon as he is certain what is going to happen," All Black coach Wayne Smith said yesterday.
"It is a very unusual position in the middle of a competition."
There are a handful of law variations brought in from August 1 to coincide with the start of the Northern Hemisphere season.
The one with perhaps the greatest impact would be that players must be bound to a team-mate as they hit breakdowns, rather than singly taking opposition players out.
"I would have thought if the Aussies felt the same as us and didn't want to change anything in what is a significant international competition, then we should go ahead with it," Smith said.
He received support last night from his Wallaby counterpart, Rod Macqueen, who claimed it would be "ridiculous" to switch laws in the middle of the Tri-Nations.
"Sanity should prevail," Macqueen said.
Smith was equally anxious his side was not obstructed as they were by the Wallabies loitering round the fringes of the breakdown during the first Tri-Nations test in Sydney.
"In the maul and tackle area we had difficulty being able to form our defence because you get hit out of the way and we had trouble getting around it," Smith said.
"We were also not quite agile enough to evade them and stay facing up."
The All Blacks had trouble getting to the Wallaby ball carriers, especially during one try, when Joe Roff scored by running behind John Eales, who was standing by the breakdown.
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