HAS there ever been a sport that tinkered with its own laws as much as rugby union has? And by tinkering I mean not only drafting new laws or clauses, but also making minor amendments and altering interpretations of existing laws.

Of course every sport changes over time, yet rugby, perhaps in part because of its complexity, certainly seems to change more than most, with the latest twist being the new directive to officials for dealing with high tackles. No-one would surely disagree with the aim of the reinterpretation - to increase player safety in an area of increasing concern - but the manner in which it is being put into practice has already caused controversy, just days after it began.

World Rugby, the governing body, has both created two new categories of high tackle - the reckless and the accidental - and instituted harsher punishments both for them and for intentional high tackles. The intention is laudable, so why is the implementation debatable?

First of all, because of the genuine uncertainty caused halfway through a season. The existing law already has scope for dealing with reckless and accidental offences in the tackle, so what does it mean when they have been specifically mentioned? When does an adventurous or ambitious tackle become reckless? And what exactly is an accidental tackle?

Such decisions, as ever, are at the discretion of the match officials. There will be some clear-cut cases of foul play in which no-one dissents from the referee’s ruling, but there will also be many disputed cases - and that is before we bring any subsequent disciplinary hearings into play in the case of players sent off or cited.

Another concern is the proliferation of red and yellow cards, which have already become so frequent that knowing how to deal with being a man down is essential for every team. With pressure on refs to show they are complying with the directive, cards are certain to be shown more readily.

Sendings-off were once a rarity, and of course red and yellow cards did not always exist. True, in the old days it was often the law of the jungle that held sway, but we have surely gone too far when you can expect to see a sinbinning in the majority of matches you attend.

We can only hope that, after the bedding-in period which World Rugby accepts will be needed, a kind of consistency emerges. Otherwise, matches could be reduced almost to a lottery according to the inevitably impressionistic assessment of some high tackles by some match officials.

Still, while we may have doubts about the implementation of the high-tackle directive, there are other parts of the game where change would be widely welcomed. And, again like the high tackle, in the case of at least a couple of the most popular areas for reform it would be a matter of officials’ interpretation rather than any new wording.

Judging by the contents of our bulging email inbox, one of the greatest irritants, certainly for those of us old enough to remember when things were different, is the put-in at the scrum. It’s meant to be straight. It’s not.

All right, at times some of us exaggerate and claim the feed was so squint that the scrum-half might just as well have walked round and handed the ball to his No 8. But it is often at least squint enough that the hooker with the put-in hardly has to hook.

Why does it matter? For one thing, because one of the sport’s skills, after which a key position was named, is now being lost. Second, because it reduces competition for possession, tending to make the scrum more of a restart mechanism than an open contest. And third, perhaps most importantly, because failure to adhere to its own laws reduces a sport’s credibility.

If you don’t like a law, change it. But don’t hold it in disrespect until it is more honoured in the breach than the observance.

A personal bugbear is the advantage law, or rather the way in which it is applied. In the early years of the professional game, it seemed to be standard practice by referees to allow a team two clear passes when playing advantage. Once they had had time to decide on a course of action and launch an attack unhindered, that was it, advantage over.

Now, by contrast, some referees allow lengthy passages of play before reverting to the original offence and ordering a penalty to be taken. The section of play you have just seen becomes wholly hypothetical, and the whole thing is tantamount to turning back time.

So what is the solution? Either change the wording of the law to specify how long advantage lasts, or, less satisfactorily, instruct referees to interpret the existing law less liberally.

So, World Rugby, while I accept absolutely the importance of safety and hence the need to concentrate on the new tackle directive before thinking of further changes, do please get round to dealing with the put-in or the advantage law. Just don’t do it in the middle of a season, will you?