FFS...you yourself quoted Tappe as saying they weren't allowed to change the intention of the law. So why would there be any intentional changes :shrug:
when you remove an anomaly, or when you settle an ambiguity one way or another, that's an intentional change.
but for others, we can only speculate. But here's two examples, where I think I can see why
- the hand-off with excessive force, I think is due to ongoing discomfort about the hand off in rugby. I think the PTB are increasingly uncomfortable about hand-offs because of head contact (they don't sit well with the focus on high tackles) and eye contact (we know about that). So they are tinkering with the laws here. In time I think we will have a no hand off above the shoulder law. They are edging us along that path. Of course YMMV
- the new Law about when a tackle ends (there was never a law about how a tackle ends before) was a complete mystery to me when it came out - I couldn't see why they bothered to insert that, no one noticed it, it didn't seem necessary, and it made no difference to anything. It was very odd. But in May suddenly it was clear -- in came the Tackle With Offside Lines (replacing the mono-ruck) With a TWOL then suddenly you have to know when a tackle is over - because that's when the offside lines disappear. So that was the reason for the new Law - they already knew the TWOL was coming. Indeed I had heard the phrase myself this time last year, but I din't put two and two together.
Some of the other changes it's pretty clear why. But some, yes, are less clear. Or accidental. But while it's easy to leave something out by accident, it's hard to introduce something new accidentally.
