Surprise, suprise, the ELVs are OK in the UK

 
Spiro Zavos Columnist

By , 10 Sep 2008 Spiro Zavos is a Roar Expert

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Jamie Noon of England during the Australia v England Rugby Union game at the Telstradome. AAP Image/Martin Philbey

Shaun Edwards, the coach of Wasps and defense coach for Wales, has clearly been watching the ELVs at work in the Super 14 and the Tri-Nations Tests. Before the Guinness Premiership started last week, he wrote an article for The Guardian telling critics “to forget all those dire warnings about the ELVs.”

“There might be a bit more kicking”, he noted, “but other than that our game has remained virtually untouched.”

Edwards was a rugby league great.

I like his use of the phrase “our game.” Does he mean rugby union, or the UK game of slow-plod forwards, multiple long-arm penalties, restricted ball in play, slowing down the game and endless kicking?

Whatever, he did make the point that the UK tournaments are playing only thirteen of the 33 ELVs.

Among the variation NOT being played is the use of short-arm penalties for infringements, except off-side, not coming through the gate, and foul play (all long arm penalties in the full ELVs) at the ruck and maul.

Another point Edwards made that is very relevant is this: “The demise of the (rolling maul) seems greatly exaggerated and I don’t see it going away just because it can be pulled down … Teams will adapt and find more ways of protecting the maul.”

In the Tri-Nations, both the Springboks and the All Blacks used rolling mauls to some effect.

Against Samoa, the All Blacks used a lot of rolling mauls, something I expect them to do at Brisbane if they get the chance.

The point about allowing the maul to be pulled down is that it gives a defence against the maul, where under the ‘old’ laws there is none at present.

So how did the commentators cope with their first experience of the truncated ELVs in the opening round of the Guinness Premiership?

The UK Daily Telegraph’s Martin Johnson is a terrific colour writer, but he knows very little about sports in general and seemingly even less about rugby.

In his match report on London Irish defeating Edwards’ Wasps he made the stupid statement that “the northern hemisphere have – thus far – stopped short of turning the game into a rugby league-style tap-and-go fest.”

If the Tri-Nations was rugby league with 15 players, how is it that a league star like Timana Tahu could not cope with the intricacies of the union defensive requirements?

London Irish won, Johnston insisted, because “they brought some structure to their game along with the passion.”

This admission destroys all the dire warnings from the experts that the ELVs take the “structure out the game.” The proposition is nonsensical when you understand that scrums, lineouts, mauls and rucks still exist under the ELVs.

In fact, while there may be fewer lineouts and scrums, each of these events has a greater importance because of the advantages that flow from getting possession that can be used more effectively than under the ‘old’ laws.

Benjamin made the point in one of his excellent articles on the Guinness Premiership that teams have already learned to be clever at the lineout, with some of them using halfbacks and non-throwing hookers as lifters.

The throwing side winning the lineout, though, can then attack a short side that does not have any defenders.

This is the thing about the ELVs: they put the cleverness in skills, moves and thinking back into rugby.

Rupert Bates in his report on the Saracens-Harlequins match in the UK Telegraph observed: “We saw the tactical upshot of the ELVs within the first minute … With both backlines required to be 5m behind the scrum, there is far more space to play with and Danny Care, the Quins scrum-half, raced right from the base of the scrum, drew the skeleton cover and fed wing David Strettle for the opening try.”

Exactly.

The cleverness and skill of the players, helped by a stable scrum, was rightly rewarded.

Christopher Lyles in The Observer described London Irish’s first try as “interesting” because the Wasps used only five men to defend against the seven used by London Irish in the lineout.

Instead of putting the ball wide where the Wasps had stacked their defence, London Irish drove through the thin lineout defence to score a try.

Lyles acknowledged that the majority of the ELVs “appear fair enough.” But the ELV that rankled was allowing the defending side to pull down a maul: “absolute, complete and total madness.”

This sort of analysis raises questions about the knowledge that Lyles has of the rugby game and how much rugby in the Southern Hemisphere he actually watches.

It is a response based on a manic ideological theory rather than based on reality. He should read Shaun Edwards (and less of the Usual Suspect), and he should watch what has happened this year with the maul in the Souther Hemisphere.

Paul Ackford’s take on the same match was that Wasps were “slow to adapt to the possibilities that are created by the much-talked about ELVs” and that London Irish had a “coherence and passion throughout the side that Wasps conspicuously lacked.”

I take from this comment the admission that there is no “structure” that it is the fault of the team and its preparation, not the fault of the ELVs.

Finally, the Usual Suspect in The Sunday Times.

“Let’s play the IRB’s game by trialling the 13 ELVs and then abandon most of them,” he told his readers.

Closed-minded, moi?

The Northern Hemisphere game was “too appealing” to be forced into jeopardy by a few IRB “experts” (the Usual Suspect’s punctuation).

Rod Macqueen et al, not experts?

Then in his match report on the Harlequins-Saracens match, he accused the referee Wayne Barnes of “interrupting the action with a whistling concerto.”

Apparently, the IRB has ordered referees to be stricter at the break-down, and Barnes, who is a barrister in real life and an extremely officious referee, was only too happy to oblige.

The Usual Suspect followed this up by defending Barnes (“he is acting on orders”) and blaming the IRB for not ordering the crackdown on infringements at the ruck and maul two years ago.

The point about all this is that the full-arm penalty is so draconian in the hurly-burly of the ruck and maul, when it is often difficult to decide who infringed first, that referees over a period of time tend to restrict the flow of penalties (except when ordered not to).

Also, teams knowing this then tend to defy the referee to penalise them by continually infringing.

I hesitate, but only for a second, to mention that this is what happened in the 2007 RWC semi-final, France-New Zealand at Cardiff, when Barnes refused to penalise France in the second half even once, even though France was blatantly playing the ball on the ground to slow down the All Black attacks.

The point about the short-arm penalty ELV is that it enables the referee to penalise offending sides – but not too harshly if they make mistakes – while allowing the game to flow.

Is it too much to hope that some of these insights into the zen of the ELVs will become apparent to some of the more influential rugby writers who have the bully pulpit to affect the thinking – often for the worse, unfortunately – of the rugby public in the UK?

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