The NRL will trial two rule changes in Friday night’s Indigenous All Stars match that could become permanent as soon as next year.

The 40-20 rule has been relaxed to allow any kick for touch that is 40 metres long or more to give possession to the kicking team, while all scrums in the pre-season extravaganza on the Gold Coast will be moved to the centre of the field.

The attacking team will have the choice of which side the ball is fed into scrums, while the lock from the attacking team won’t have to bind in scrums.

NRL referees boss Tony Archer said both changes would allow more attacking opportunities for both sides and potentially ensure a more exciting contest.

“With significant space and attacking opportunities on both sides of the scrum, we hope that there will be ample opportunities for the team in possession to attack immediately from the scrum win,” he said.

“While this remains a trial of the change, we wanted to test this in a high-quality pre-season match and the All Stars presents us with that opportunity.”

The video referee will be used to help measure the length of kicks in light of the 40-20 adjustment.

The changes have been discussed by the NRL’s competition committee over the past 12 months, with the scrum rules trialled in a Holden Cup pre-season match last year.

The pre-season trial of four touch judges will also continue in the All Stars clash, with two of them also able to move to in-goal areas when the attacking team moves into a position to score.

The All Stars game has been used to test experimental rules twice before.

In its debut year in 2010, the match was divided into 20-minute quarters while a ‘double try’ rule allowed teams to opt for an extra tackle instead of a conversion attempt after scoring a try.

Restarting the tackle count for ruck infringements was one of several rules introduced in the 2013 edition.