Why Is Rugby’s Bench Becoming So Important to the Outcome of a Match?

When Scotland beat England 31-20 at Murrayfield in this year’s Six Nations, they weren’t winning the scrum at first. The home side was second-best at scrum time until the replacement forwards arrived and the balance gradually tipped.

Scotland lock Max Williamson, who earned his 11th cap off the bench, explained the plan afterwards. “We knew they’d gone 6-2 so we needed to beat their bench essentially,” he said.
That sentence says a lot about how rugby has changed.

The numbers behind the split

Teams are allowed eight replacements in a match. England named six forwards and two backs among theirs, a so-called 6-2 split, and Scotland treated it as a target. Beating the opposition’s bench had become part of the game plan, alongside beating the starting XV.

The most extreme version came from South Africa. At the 2023 World Cup, the Springboks went with seven forwards and one back on their bench, a 7-1 split, in the 35-7 win over the All Blacks at Twickenham. Some pundits called it an abuse of the system. Mathieu Raynal, the French referee, later called for fewer replacements, saying too many came on in the second half and broke up the flow of matches.

Rassie Erasmus has made the idea explicit. A Planet Rugby columnist wrote that the modern bench governs Test matches, and described Erasmus as having turned the concept into something colder and more exact.

What the bench actually changes

The impact is easiest to see in the scrum. Fresh props and hookers arriving after about 50 minutes are facing tired opponents, and the difference in power can be dramatic. That’s why a scrum can swing from even to dominant within a few minutes of the first changes.

It shows up elsewhere too. Replacements can raise the defensive intensity in the last quarter, add carrying power in tight channels and change the tempo of a match. Against Scotland in November 2025, Planet Rugby argued that Argentina turned a game at Murrayfield because Pablo Matera came on and raised the temperature until the contest couldn’t be played at Scotland’s pace.

Jake White, the former Springboks coach, has argued the point from the other side. He questioned whether the All Blacks’ use of replacements weakened them in a decider, noting that many fans don’t know what “the Bomb Squad” actually refers to. His underlying message was that you have to coach your bench as carefully as your starters.

The case for cutting it back

Critics say the bench has become too influential. A proposal in the Ruck set of suggested law changes for 2027 would reduce the number of replacements to six, arguing that it would reward fitness, encourage versatile players and lessen the influence of specialist Bomb Squad tactics. Its argument is that the best XV should decide the biggest games, not necessarily the strongest bench.

There’s something to that. A match where the final quarter belongs to the players who didn’t start can feel like a different contest from the one fans watched for the first hour.

The case against

The counter-argument is about safety. French rugby authorities once proposed allowing 12 replacements per match in the Top 14 and Pro D2, in response to a medical study on how to avoid injuries. The logic was that more fresh bodies means fewer injuries from fatigue, and the proposal would have let tactical replacements return for injured teammates.

That view treats the bench as a welfare tool, not a loophole. If forwards are heavier and collisions harder than ever, asking them to play 80 minutes without relief could be dangerous. So the debate has two sides that are both about the players. One says fewer substitutes would produce a fairer test. The other says more would produce a safer one.

What’s missing from both arguments is time at the scrum. Raynal suggested a 30-second limit and a shot clock, which would address the fatigue question directly and speed up the game.

Should World Rugby cut the bench to six to put the focus back on the starting XV, or increase it to protect players in an increasingly physical game?