EVERYTHING from eight-point tries to the introduction of a rugby league-style interchange system will be up for discussion next month when the International Rugby Board stages a global think tank to improve the game.
The May 13-14 conference, which will bring together 80 of the best thinkers in rugby, is the first of its kind since the Woking Assembly of October 2007, best remembered for what it failed to achieve - a global season and a worldwide trial of the experimental law variations. But since then, there have been a number of significant developments, both good and bad, that have driven home to the IRB the truth of Australian Rugby Union chief John O'Neill's warning this year: "We're in the mass entertainment business."
Although there is no set agenda for the meeting, the issue of how rugby can best leverage the introduction of the sevens form of the game to the Olympic program from 2016 is certain to be discussed. But so, too, is the increasingly precarious financial position of teams around the world. The Queensland Reds effectively are in the hands of an administrator, while estimates are English professional clubs are operating at a collective debt of $42 million.
Almost certainly that will trigger discussion of whether players' salaries can be capped or at least reined in. At present the disparity between pay in Britain/Europe/Japan and Australia/New Zealand is resulting in a massive drain of players to the northern hemisphere.
Where once only those at the golden handshake stages of their careers were prepared to make the move, now much younger players - such as Toulon-bound All Black prop Carl Hayman - are putting money ahead of even World Cup selection.
A 38 per cent reduction in the number of tries being scored in the Premiership has triggered alarm bells in England yet, ironically, the trend in the southern hemisphere is in the opposite direction. Astonishingly, the NSW Waratahs already have scored more points (265) in eight matches than they did in 13 last year (241). And the Crusaders and Reds, with 218 and 219 points respectively from their seven matches, are closing in fast on their 2009 totals of 231 and 258.
There has been speculation in the UK press that the value of tries might be increased following next year's World Cup but past experience has demonstrated that raising the number of points on offer for a try has the unintended effect of increasing penalties because defending sides have more motivation to resort to professional fouls to stop a potential try-scoring movement.
Similarly, there is a cause-and-effect issue to be evaluated before rugby moves to a league-style interchange. Rugby promotes itself as a game for all shapes and sizes but if bigger players are able to take periodic breathers on the sideline, it will lessen the impact of smaller, nimbler players.
And while the suggestion to ban shots at penalty goal taken from within the kicker's own half undoubtedly would reduce annoying time-wasting, it would also rob the game of the "wow factor" provided by a Francois Steyn 65m monster.
Australia, which will be represented at the assembly by O'Neill, ARU chairman Peter McGrath, high-performance manager David Nucifora and community rugby specialist Ian Alker, is expected to prioritise making the game attractive and ensuring it gets full value from inbound Tests. Indications are that from 2012, the custom of two northern hemisphere sides touring Australia to play no more than two Tests will give way to a back-to-the-future format in which one nation - in that year Wales - will play a three-Test series.
And because the Super 15 will be in recess for the three-week Test window in June, there will be an opportunity for Australia's provincial sides to play midweek matches against the tourists.
