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New Zealand Rugby is set to introduce a non-contact version of the sport in a bid to keep players in the game for longer and attract new participants. World Rugby developed and launched the concept, called T1 Rugby, which the governing body describes as "the world's first non-contact sport that fully reflects the unique characteristics of rugby, including scrums, lineouts and breakdown". It contains many of the attacking and defending aspects of rugby and resembles the sport more closely than touch rugby.
England Rugby is launching a version of T1 in schools with the aim of halting a decline in youth participation. New Zealand Rugby recorded an overall increase in player registration numbers of six percent from 2023 to 2024 with close to 156,000 people pulling on their boots. The number of women's and girls players increased 15 percent.
The number of registered teenage boys, a target group for NZR, increased by five percent to about 30,000. However, overall playing numbers were still down on pre-Covid figures. In 2018, there were more than 157,000 New Zealanders registered to play, an all-time high.
NZR is now also planning to introduce the non-contact variant in 2025 after some successful trials this year, largely with teenage players. NZR's participation development manager Mike Hester said the version of T1 Rugby used in Aotearoa had been specifically designed for New Zealand. "Within the rule set, there was the flexibility for different local variants to reflect the DNA or the rugby playing context within each country.
For example, what, might work really well in developing nations in Kenya or Thailand or the like, may not necessarily be fit for purpose in the New Zealand context. "So over the last six months we've been undertaking a lot of trials around what does a variant look like for the New Zealand space," Hester said. "We're coming to the end of that design phase now and looking to lock that in by the end of the year and then it'll start to become available next year.
" Hester said NZR would be looking to seed it with a number of events and grades. "Some of that will involve working with our provincial unions to see where they think it best fits. It's really another offering for them to deploy into their communities.
"We've got some indication that there will be opportunities in the teenage space, but also in some other segments as well. Next year will be a a year of promoting it, giving people a chance to get their eyes on it, have a go at it and then what we might see is grades start to emerge if there's real demand for it from 2026 onwards." Hester hoped current and potential rugby players would give T1 a go.
"Initially with teenagers and adults it is another way to play, another way to engage in the game, but also in time to provide a scaffolding approach for children to play as they come through the grades. "So if they wanna play contact, there's good contact variant for them. But if there's also a demand for a non-contact variant, then they've got one that's a good mirror of what would be happening in the contact space.
" Hester said making the game as similar to rugby as possible was the goal. "One thing that we've been working on is around how the breakdown occurs. That's obviously a really critical identity characteristic of the game in terms of what it does to concentrate players, create space, create attacking opportunities," Hester said.
"We know in terms of how Kiwis like to play the game, you know, ball in the hand, coast-to-coast type style of rugby, then that would be a really good important attribute. So the off-the-shelf version has a a a breakdown which involves, essentially, the forming of a triangle by the defence around the player that's the ball carrier. And that in itself is really functional and forms phase of play.
"In our variant that we've been testing with largely teenagers, through a number of trials, but also some emerging communities and a few other spaces, is a variant where if the defensive triangle can form before the attacking halfback can get his or her hands on the ball, that effectively results in a turnover. "What we're seeing through the trials is that's been really motivating, to try and form around the breakdown, isolate players, etc, to create those turnovers. It's also created really good patterns of play for the attack in terms of making sure that there is a continuity of players following in support.
We think that's a real game changer for the format." Hester did not believe T1 Rugby would step on the toes of its non-contact cousin, touch rugby, with the sports played at different times of year. 'We've always had a long standing history of touch rugby and rugby clubs.
It's always been a popular summer opportunity for rugby players and rugby clubs. We know from some of our work that there is a demand for a product that's a little bit more aligned to rugby. Touch has a tackle count and offside line, which are probably more akin to rugby league.
So we felt that there was probably an opportunity there," Hester said. "What we know is that the variant that we've been testing has had probably a bit more appeal for people of all sort of shapes and sizes, in terms of the roles that you can play on the field." Hester believed T1 could help accelerate the recent growth of women's and girls rugby and keep older men's players in the sport.
"There's a high demand from girls and women to play the game, but what they need is a a better range of options and on ramps into the game. T1 Rugby could be a viable product to support more girls and women coming into the game. "But what we also know is that there's a number of players who are coming to the end of their playing careers who still want to stay engaged in the game, still want to feel the wind in the air, senior players who may be coming to the end of their time, and there could potentially be a bit of demand for them to continue playing, on a Saturday in the club colours, but in a format which means that it's a bit easy to get up on a Sunday and and go to work on a Monday," Hester said.
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