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John O'Neil says rugby needs to change

The tryless World Cup final between England and South Africa and two "very poor" semi-finals showed rugby's rules need an urgent rethink to preserve spectator appeal, Australian Rugby Union chief executive John O'Neill said yesterday.

Rugby needed to learn from rugby league, which had been prepared to change its rules to improve its appeal, O'Neill told reporters on his return from attending the World Cup in France.

"Rugby league went from unlimited tackles to limited tackles, it went from 3m to 5m and reduced the value of a field goal to one," he said.

"When you say, `Why did it do that,' it did it for some pretty obvious reasons and we may be confronted with the same reasons," he said.

"We need to create space, we need to create time, we want to create a philosophy that encourages try-scoring, that's what people come to see," O'Neill said.

O'Neill said the latest matches in the Rugby World Cup, including South Africa's 15-6 win over England in Saturday's final, warned rugby might struggle to retain its crowd appeal.

"We had two very poor [World Cup] semi-finals and we had a final in which there were no tries scored, that will not bring the crowds back," he said. "It's fair to say the semi-finals and final were disappointing in terms of a spectacle."

"Heartiest congratulations to [champions] South Africa, but it was not what you would call a showcase of rugby," O'Neill said.

O'Neill said SANZAR -- the rugby alliance of South Africa, Australia and New Zealand which oversees the Super 14 and Tri-Nations competitions -- would be foolish not to embrace experimental laws recently trialed in all three countries.

"What I think it has done is convince people that the new laws, the experimental laws, must come in sooner rather than later and we expect that the International Rugby Board will write to SANZAR inviting us to use the experimental laws in the 2008 Super 14," he said.

"I think SANZAR would have rocks in its head if it didn't accept the invitation," O'Neill said.
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