BOB CASEY'S DIARY:The day when rugby was a sport for all body shapes is no longer the case in the professional game.

IT’S TIME for a little hardcore analysis on the changing face of rugby under the amended laws. In the recent Tri-Nations championship the ball was in play for 39 minutes, up two and a half on the previous year’s tournament. That might not sound like much of a difference but when you’re on the pitch it’s a massive increment.

Again using the Tri-Nations as a barometer, teams reached 10 phases of possession or a greater number 30 per cent more of the time in the tournament just finished, than they did in 2009. There’s little doubt that the faster game with more line breaks carries more appeal for most spectators – well, maybe not the purist who’ll lament the absence of a genuine contest at the breakdown.

Referees have been instructed to strictly police this aspect of the game and to ensure that there is daylight between the tackler and the tackled player. In order to steal possession at the breakdown, a player must make a tackle, ensure that the referee sees him release his opponent, get up and then try and grab the ball. It’s not impossible but it’s become so much more difficult and as a result the role of the openside flanker has changed.

In London Irish’s opening match of the season Steffon Armitage managed one turnover on the ground; last year he was averaging three a game. A player has to be very careful when trying to poach possession because doing it in the wrong part of the pitch will not only lead to a penalty but a yellow card.

The focus now is on keeping the ball and the kick-tennis that had dominated the game over the last few years – remember Argentina and eventual champions South Africa in the 2007 World Cup – is considerably reduced as illustrated by another statistic.

In the 2009 Tri-Nations there was an average of 65 kicks per match whereas this year in the same tournament that figure was down to 35.

Teams are well aware of the folly of kicking ball away now because they’re going to have to tackle for 10 or more phases to get it back. Defending takes far more out of a team physically so the emphasis under the new interpretation is on ball retention.

In our game against Bath we, as a team, made 150 tackles in the match. In the 2009 English Premiership season London Irish made on average 90 tackles per match; the tally after the first two games has already climbed to a 135 average.

Patience is definitely a cherished virtue in trying to turnover ball. The ball carrier really does have to be isolated to give the defending team a chance to counter-ruck. Teams will have a trigger call for that process.

Given the difficulty of stealing the ball at the breakdown teams have had to look at other areas of the game to try and force turnovers. One obvious battleground is the first phase collisions of scrum and lineout. Another is the restarts. Most teams are kicking contestable restarts rather than kicking long as was a more favoured option in the past.

Attacking the ball in the tackle with one player tackling low and the other high in attempt to dislodge the ball is another popular gambit in the hunt for turnovers. As a spectacle the game is higher octane which is great for the fans but it place even greater demands physically on the players. You’ve often got to make three or four tackles in the one sequence of play: the front five would be conscientious objectors to this development.

The 120kg boys have to refine the way they play the game. The game changes periodically and players have to adapt and that’s the case under the new amendments. It’s all about speed, explosiveness and great skill sets right throughout the team.

Everyone’s expected to be able to run, pass and make good choices on the ball. One danger of this new vision is that rugby union’s resemblance to rugby league increases – that wouldn’t be a good thing. The day when rugby was a sport for all body shapes is no longer the case in the professional game.

The referees appear under instruction to get rid of resets in scrums. They have been encouraged to go for a longer pause in the hope of catching one scrum going for an early engage. It’s a bit of a lottery. It’s important to sow the seeds early on that you possess the dominant scrum so that you’ll get the majority of the 50/50 decisions.

The number of sin bins in matches under the new laws will go up and teams will have to come up with contingency plans for being a man down or a man up. These are part of patterns in training sessions. I’ve noticed that I am more involved in matches, touching the ball more frequently in all areas of the pitch.

There’s no room in the game for loose cannons chasing lost causes. You have to conserve energy and be pragmatic in decision making. I must be getting old because it’s taking me longer to recover and most afternoons I find myself having a little siesta. It’s all that increased running around in matches. It can’t be good for you.