Is rugby facing ruck and ruin? Sportsmail Special on the great debate over Italy's tactical trickery at Twickenham 

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CHRIS FOY, Rugby Correspondent 

Bill Beaumont is due to meet World Rugby's elite referees' manager, Alain Rolland, in Dublin on Tuesday to discuss the global governing body's response to Italy's 'ruck-less' ploy at Twickenham. 

As chairman of the organisation, the former England captain was name-checked by an angry Eddie Jones on Sunday evening, when the national coach raged against the Azzurri's shock tactic of not committing any defenders to the breakdown. 

In response to his criticism of the law — which rules that there is no offside line when no ruck is formed — the RFU are expected to decide within the next 48 hours whether to officially request a law clarification.

Italy's 'no-ruck' tactics caused England plenty of problems in Sunday's Six Nations clash 

The Azzurri refused to contest the breakdown which resulted in no offside line on the pitch

In that event, World Rugby will appoint three members of their rugby committee to investigate and make recommendations, which could lead to amendments in the way the law is applied. However, after Jones said: 'I'm sure Bill Beaumont watched that game and will take some action,' he is already on the case.

Speaking to Sportsmail on Monday, Beaumont said: 'I will be discussing it when I go to Dublin, for a catch-up with our referees' manager, Alain Rolland, at the World Rugby offices. I spoke to Mark Egan – who runs our rugby committee — today on a couple of matters and this was one of them.'

Beaumont has established a reputation as a master diplomat and he will seek to ensure that all views are carefully considered in the aftermath of a controversial RBS 6 Nations encounter, which England eventually went on to win 36-15. 

England head coach Eddie Jones branded Italy's breakdown tactics a 'joke' after the game 

The prospect of the RFU requesting a law clarification was encouraged, not that the matter is likely to be resolved before the Calcutta Cup at Twickenham in 11 days' time.

'The RFU are a member of World Rugby, so if they have concerns, they should write to World Rugby about them,' said Beaumont. 'If they do that, a group of three people from our rugby committee will then clarify the law. That can happen within weeks.' 

Asked if recommendations could be made prior to the England-Scotland fixture, he added: 'That is probably a bit tight. It is less than 24 hours since this happened and we will review it, as we do lots of things.'

Bill Beaumont (pictured) is due to meet World Rugby's elite referees' manager, Alain Rolland 

Before round four of the championship on March 10-11, there is a meeting of World Rugby's rugby committee and even without a request from the RFU, they can opt to conduct a review. There is an emphasis on the spirit — as well as the letter — of the law, but sources have indicated that they will seek to avoid a 'knee-jerk reaction', prompted by a sudden, high-profile debate.

Beaumont added: 'Is it a loophole? I don't know. Italy felt they were acting within the laws of the game, which they were. I'm not criticising Conor O'Shea or Italy because what they did was legal. Everyone was taken by surprise and it proved most of us have to revise our knowledge of the laws!'

The chairman has made a concerted effort to encourage frequent dialogue between World Rugby officials and leading coaches, to continually review all aspects of the game, and those men in charge of Tier 1 and Tier 2 nations are due to meet at the end of March.

England full-back Mike Brown is tackled by Italy flanker Abraham Steyn during's Sunday's tie 

'No doubt this will be an agenda item at that meeting, with Eddie at one end and Conor O'Shea at the other,' added Beaumont. 'It is a good process; involving the coaches like this. I speak to coaches on a regular basis to see if we can make the game better.'

The RFU were on Monday night considering their position. A spokeswoman for the union said: ‘This type of issue is discussed “in the round” with World Rugby, through the normal structures and meetings. World Rugby regularly issue clarifications on various laws so they could decide to do this anyway due to the interest generated by yesterday’s match.’

England scrum-half Danny Care found himself in the eye of the storm, with his passing routes to team-mates blocked by Italians who were deemed to be onside. 

He echoed Jones's comments, saying: 'Why the law is like that, I don't know, but it's within the laws to do it. It's a pretty ridiculous rule. If teams feel they need to do that to make it a level playing field, it's very negative. He (O'Shea) has gone from being the most attacking man in rugby to the most negative in one game.'

England scrum-half Danny Care echoed Jones' views on the Azzurri's controversial game-plan 

The Italian ploy has generated worldwide discussions and reactions. Former All Blacks coach Wayne Smith rejected suggestions that the law needed to be modified, saying: 'The law says you require one from each team over the ball bound together to create a ruck. I can't see them changing that. It's not an anomaly in the law, it's just a part of the game, a shock tactic that a team might use now and again, but certainly if you became predictable by doing it you'd be cut to bits.'

Meanwhile, Ireland flanker Sean O'Brien was asked whether Joe Schmidt's team would have known how to react if presented with the same spoiling tactics and he said: 'Yeah, absolutely, up the jumpers stuff! I certainly would have known the rules around it anyway. You have to adapt to those situations if they arise and it took England a little bit to do that.'  

All Blacks assistant coach Wayne Smith rejected suggestions the law needs to be modified 

 SIR CLIVE WOODWARD, World Cup winning coach 

I have rarely known an incident cause such debate! I admit, now the dust has settled, my view on Italy's anti-rucking tactic has altered. It can't be allowed so the law must be changed.

Rugby must have an offside line and, in that respect, I support England coach Eddie Jones when he says World Rugby need to act in redefining what constitutes a ruck and the offside line. The thinking seems to be that the offside line should be drawn the moment a tackle is completed and that seems right.

I still, however, support Italy's right to do what they did at Twickenham on Sunday.

James Haskell (left) and Dylan Hartley in discussion with referee Romain Poite at Twickenham 

Italy's coaching staff, notably Brendan Venter, had seen examples of teams standing back and not forming a ruck — Conor O'Shea name-checked Toulouse and Australia — and decided to use those tactics to spread a little anarchy.

I don't really buy their argument that it was designed to win the game. I suspect they thought it would probably last for 10 minutes before England reacted with a ruthless pick-and-go game. But it derailed England for 40 minutes.

Italy, with many expecting them to ship 70 points, did everything within the laws to make life difficult for England. I can't criticise them for that even if I do feel there was a slightly unnecessary element of gloating afterwards. They still lost by 21 points.

Up in the TV box we were intrigued and animated — former players and coaches analysing an unusual scenario in real time — but if I was in charge of England I would have been pretty hacked off.

Conor O'Shea and Brendan Venter (right) masterminded Italy's defensive strategy on Sunday 

I would have been unhappy at Italy's negative tactics which are against the spirit of the game and been really annoyed at England's inability to answer the questions being posed. Some of that must come down to Eddie and his coaches failing to get the right messages on to the field.

An England player needed to go down with a knock to let the troops gather round and get it sorted. 'KitKat' we used to call it — time for a break. Cynical but that's the real world.

It emerged later that England knew of such tactics from the Australia match against Ireland last November and Paul Gustard, England's defence coach, said plans were in place to counter 'anti-ruck' tactics. Well, those plans took way too long to implement.

We must now make sure this is a one-off. Italy did nothing wrong technically but it's not in rugby's interest to have showpiece games hijacked like this.

If Italy had won it would have been big news — for the wrong reasons — and there would have been an even bigger stink. Imagine what would happen if a World Cup was won by a team using such tactics?

Care and Co found space at a premium during a bizarre first half of action against the Azzurri 

On Monday, many sports-minded people asked me what the hell had been going on at Twickenham. That cannot be good for the game.

Rugby union is still a middle-ranking sport in world terms and we are trying to sell ourselves to a bigger audience. Matches like this serve only to confuse and frustrate potential fans and players tuning in for the first time. It confused and frustrated some old-timers too!

Two more thoughts. Well done James Haskell for being the one England player who tried to solve the problem on the hoof. He will possibly be lampooned and Roman Poite's remark, 'I am the referee not your coach' will live in the memory. But Haskell was right to try to get to the bottom of the matter. He was polite, asked the right questions and was insistent. He showed real leadership.

Secondly, I feel for Poite. He is a great referee and handled it brilliantly but others might not react so well.

Replacement Jack Nowell celebrates his late try as England sealed a hard-fought 36-15 victory 

The Italians had told Poite in their pre-match meeting that they intended to use the tactics and Poite had said, correctly, that they were perfectly legal while pointing out a World Rugby directive that they could not challenge the scrum-half directly. At that point, however, a sort of priest and confessor relationship seems to have taken over. And that's not healthy either.

Poite cannot be seen to favour one team over the other, and, in the match, was honour-bound only to starkly remind players of the law if they requested.

However, for the sake of the spectacle, Poite almost needed to stop the match and explain to everybody — including the crowd on Reflink — what was going on, but Italy could rightly say that would nullify an important part of their game-plan.

This is just far too messy to be allowed to continue. It would probably only have a short shelf-life anyway because once teams know the antidote it ceases to become effective, but for the greater good, anti-rucking must be outlawed now.

Italy told Poite in their pre-match meeting that they intended to use the 'ruck-less' tactics

ANDY NICOL, Former Scotland scrum-half 

Were Italy's tactics good for rugby or bad? What is without doubt is that, for this specific game, they were good. They were intended to put England off their game and it worked. England didn't have a clue what to do to counteract things in the first half. 

Italy had to be innovative because they shipped 96 points in the first two games so they couldn't play the same way and expect a different outcome. What they could not have imagined was how long they would get with it being effective. 

Jones was none too pleased with Italy's tactics after Sunday's Six Nations clash at England HQ 

As soon as England saw what was going on, they should have manufactured a time-out to work out how to stop things. They needed to pick and go through the tackle, offload, keep the ball off the ground to make it a maul or grab an Italian player and change the tackle into a ruck. None of these tactics were used.

It was designed to ask questions of England and for the first 40 minutes they did not have the answers. If Italy had played how they had in the first two matches the game would have been over so it was a game plan designed to give them a chance.

Italy out-coached England for 40 minutes and this is why Eddie Jones is annoyed, not over what it did or did not do for the game of rugby as a whole.

Having shipped 96 points in their opening two games, Italy adopted a new defensive strategy 

BEN RYAN, The man who first came up with the controversial tactic that rocked rugby 

This is a tactic I employed for the England Sevens team five years ago against Fiji in the Tokyo leg of the World Series.

Fiji had just won the Hong Kong Sevens and were attacking really well. One of the tactics we had was to have a tackle only, having no offside line and confusing them.

At half-time they were asking the referee what to do – he was very pragmatic about it and told them it was not a ruck. They sorted themselves out in the second half but we created enough of a surprise to beat them that day.

Ben Ryan deployed the no-ruck tactic during his time with the England Sevens team 

It is much easier to do it in Sevens as the ruck is more clearly defined. It is ballsier to do it in XVs.

I find it quite comical that England spoke of wanting a conversation with World Rugby about the Laws – it is called the offside line. It is a simple enough law about what constitutes a ruck and what doesn't. If it is your job, you are a professional rugby player or coach then you should know these things.

It is depressing that people on the field did not know the laws. If you watch any Super Rugby, Sevens or other internationals this is not the first time it has been used.

All the water carriers have microphones so coaches could have easily relayed a message to give players advice on what to do, but that did not happen.

England centre Ben Te'o crosses for a late try as Italy began to wilt in the latter stages 

We don't have enough innovation or imagination in the game at the moment. We are not seeing anything new, and when we do people say it is not cricket – I find that ridiculous. The game has to evolve. England should get excited about this not sound like bullies who want to knock on World Rugby's door and say they did not enjoy it.

Well done to Conor O'Shea and Brendan Venter for putting it in the Test arena. I hope we see more things like that.

Eddie Jones always likes to have sound-bites, and I have enjoyed a lot of them, but he has missed it completely this time. It was disrespectful to O'Shea and Italy. This is what coaching is all about.

O'Shea strongly defended his team's tactics after Sunday's Six Nations showdown in London 

If he had done this for Japan in the World Cup everyone would have said he was a genius. If he is going to play games with the press he needs to put his hands up and say he got this one wrong.

He cannot talk about emulating 'Bodyline' one moment and then say this is not fair.

Italy have done their homework, England have not reacted to it. If anything they should be thanking Italy because this is not going to be the first time teams try different things against them and they have got to be ready. They will have learnt a good lesson.