New rugby laws for 2026/27: what changes in your Saturday game

Every summer World Rugby tweaks the law book, and every September half the league finds out what changed in the first game, when the referee blows for something that went unpunished last year.

This season there are more than fifty amendments. Most are wording and change nothing on the pitch. A few do, and one of them affects every tackle in a community game.

Here are the ones that matter to a club, separated from the ones you'll only see on TV.

A lower tackle height in community rugby

This is the big one. From 1 July 2026, for seasons starting after that date, community rugby has a lower legal tackle height than the professional game.

The law bans tackling above the base of the sternum, and each union can lower the limit as far as the waist. It comes out of two years of trials in around a dozen countries and more than 150,000 tackles analysed: with the lower height there are fewer upright tackles, which are the ones that end in avoidable head contact.

Two practical points:

• In England, nothing new. The RFU has set the tackle height at the waist across the community game since July 2023, so for English clubs the change is that the rest of the world is catching up. Ireland, Scotland and Wales lowered it that same season too, but not always to the same point: ask your union or your referees' society which height applies before the next game.
• Train it now, not on Saturday. A player who has spent ten years tackling at chest height doesn't change the habit because someone mentions it in the changing room. It has to be repeated at training, with tackle shields and at full speed, until going low comes naturally.

Unions can still use their own law variations for the rest of the contact area, such as the pick and go or the double tackle.

Hip drop and knee drop are out

World Rugby has singled out two ways of tackling that will no longer be tolerated.

The hip drop is the tackle from behind or the side where the tackler swivels around the ball carrier or drops the weight of their hips onto the carrier's legs as they bring them down. It's the one that breaks ankles and knees. From 1 November 2026 Law 9.13 names it among dangerous tackles, and the minimum sanction is a penalty.

The knee drop is dropping onto one or both knees before making the tackle. It didn't need a new law, since tackling off the ground was already illegal, but since 5 October there has been application guidance so referees penalise it.

If someone in your team tackles like that out of habit, now is the time to fix it, before a card fixes it for you.

More goal-line drop-outs

Some balls that end up dead in goal without a try will no longer restart with a 22 drop-out and will instead restart with a goal-line drop-out, which keeps the attacking side much closer:

• A ball carrier tackled into touch in goal before grounding, like the one who ends up a hand's width from the corner flag.
• A ball held up in the field of play that ends up dead in goal.

Everything else stays as it was. A kick from the field of play that goes dead over the dead-ball line is still a 22 drop-out, with the option of a scrum where it was kicked, and so is a missed penalty or drop goal.

The tweaks you will notice

Among the wording changes there are a few the referee at your game will apply:

• The number 8 can't change binding in the scrum to switch sides. They stay bound where they started. They can bind on a flanker and a lock at the same time.
• A forward pass that goes into touch once again gives the choice between a scrum and a lineout, an option that dropped out of the text in 2018.
• The hooker can stand on the touchline when throwing in, but still can't put a foot in the field of play.
• When a ruck doesn't produce the ball, the scrum goes to the team last moving forward, now written into the law itself.
• You can tackle in goal, although the laws that follow the tackle don't apply there. A dangerous tackle in goal is still sanctionable.
• The hooker's brake foot in the scrum becomes law for all of rugby.
• In under-19 grades that play with the variation, the scrum is only reduced if the player sent off is a forward in the scrum, not a back.

What you'll only see on TV

Several changes are only for elite rugby and won't reach a community league:

• The 20-minute red card, which allows the player sent off to be replaced after that time. Elite competitions can use it; a red for a deliberate or reckless act still leaves the team a player down for the whole game.
• Restrictions on water carriers coming onto the pitch.
• The role of the TMO, which is now recognised in law as part of the match officials.

And still on trial for another year, without becoming law yet: 60 seconds to kick a conversion, protection for the scrum-half ("protect the 9") and the uncontested crooked lineout.

How to tell the squad

With a change like this, what fails isn't the law, it's that half the team hasn't heard about it. A talk in the changing room only reaches the ones who turned up that night.

What works is putting it in writing somewhere everyone can get to, repeating it at a couple of training sessions and making sure the first game isn't where people find out.

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In Kanteo you can upload a summary of the laws to the team's documents and notify the whole squad at once, without depending on who reads the WhatsApp group. Set up your club in two minutes and share it before the next game.