Every now and then, calls for the jackal to be banished from rugby seem to get a little louder.
They returned recently after a couple of nasty long-term injuries occurred, with more than a few pundits calling for the jackal to be dispensed with altogether. Former Wales captain Sam Warburton's voice was not among them.
Granted, the two-time Lions captain was one of the finest exponents of the jackal in the modern game, so you would hardly expect his answer to be any different. Regardless of that, it is still an issue he feels passionately about and you will find few more fervent defenders of the art of the jackal than the former Wales openside, with the likes of Stuart Barnes and Brian Moore arguing very much the opposite view.
So when that debate over whether the jackal still has a place in the game reared its head once again, Warburton tackled it in the style he has adopted in his flourishing punditry career: eloquent, reasoned and well-informed.
"I wouldn't want to see the jackal go," Warburton told WalesOnline. "It would basically be rugby league.
"Turnover ball is amazing and recent law changes have made the three-second maul turnover harder to do. You've got to hit more upright and you're risking shoulder to head. That was kind of acceptable when I was playing, but it's not now. So I've got sympathy for players as it's much easier said than done.
"That's going out of the game now, or there's a lot less maul turnovers at least. You think back to Ireland in their pomp and they'd get six or seven a game.
"I think you still need to allow a competition for a turnover. The reason these jackal injuries are happening is really poor cleanout. If someone goes in for a cleanout and they miss the jackaller, they shouldn't be allowed to go for a croc roll and flip. They should have to get out and reload.
"By that time, the jackal would be given. So the jackaller is in there for less time. If they miss that first cleanout, you've got to reward them quite quick."
That takes us to the change Warburton would make instantly to improve rugby. When it comes to how the sport is presented to the public, Warburton can't help but brim with ideas. How information is collected and relayed in the most simple and engaging of manners is a passion of his, with the new smart ball technology alone resulting in a string of tangents on how the sport can make itself more palatable in understanding not just the bigger picture, but the minutiae too.
But when it comes to concrete law changes, Warburton is absolute on what needs to go, and it won't surprise you to learn it isn't the jackal.
"It's coming back as a topic again, this whole croc role thing," he adds. "It's simple, get rid of it. It promotes lazy cleanouts. I think it's got to go. I first thought this when Cardiff played Edinburgh and Rory Darge got injured.
"It's nasty. It nearly ended Jean de Villiers' career when South Africa played Wales. It ended Rhys Webb's World Cup in 2015. It's arguably blunted Ellis Jenkins' career massively when he had two years out from it. So many players have had their careers significantly affected by a croc roll.
"We've got to get rid of it. We need to promote better technique around the breakdown, which is why I love doing it. When you see a jackal won, the first thing we do is focus on the jackal. But if you look at the cleanout, it's often a terrible cleanout, either slow or late, or they've gone too high and not enough accuracy. Getting rid of those poor clearouts would get rid of a lot of horrible injuries."
The argument many are beginning to make is that even if the clearout is what does the damage, rather than the jackal, it is the mere presence of the jackal in the game that is leading to the injuries. Put simply, the root of the problem, in some eyes, perhaps can't be solved.
Players, either lazy, fatigued or desperate, will try to win breakdowns that aren't realistic. If there is no easy solution to solve that problem, it might be easier to eliminate something else entirely. But that doesn't wash with Warburton.
"I would never want to get rid of the jackal," he explains. "People challenge me on how you can get safe cleanouts.
"I've gone through this and it's quite easy. I've walked through this with international players when I was playing and coaching.
"You come in at a 30 degree angle, you go in just below the armpits around the ribs and you've just got to pull their leg towards you. You get their foot off the floor, you keep chasing their legs and you fold them onto their back.
"It's quite a natural thing and we did a lot of it on the mats. You can teach teams to clear out without being a missile flying in head-first.
"Justin Tipuric is by far the best at it. He's not the most powerful or biggest guy, but his technique is spot on. He hits guys legally on the side, always pulls their leg off the floor and folds them through.
"If you're a young player, look at TIpuric and that's the technique to do it safely. Rugby is an attritional sport and there's always going to be bumps, but that's a way to eliminate a lot of injuries.
"That's why Sevens is such a good sport. It promotes really good habits for the player arriving first. Be low, be quick, get over the ball.
"We used to go training games where as soon as you got touched, you'd hit the deck and you'd have one second to secure the ball. You have to be there so quick and so many turnovers are because lazy players aren't there in support and haven't worked hard enough to get there.
"You want to be in arms length because that gives you options. You can either receive an offload or clearout immediately.
"The reason that doesn't happen is that players get lazy and disconnected in their attacking shapes. To get rid of the jackal would just result in teams keeping possession too easily.
"If you take away the jackal, you'd have more attacking phases, more defenders on their feet as there'd be no point in competing and you'd have 14 men in the frontline on both sides. It would make it very difficult.
"You need to promote that competition. That's where teams overcommit and opportunities are created.
"If you get rid of the jackaller, you only need to commit one player. Or do you need to commit anyone at all? I don't know.
"You're just filling the field. We'll never make the game perfectly safe, but removing croc rolls makes it much safer and promotes better behaviour."
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