ELVs were a blight on the game
Roar Pro
By Ian from NZ, 28 May 2009 The Crowd is a Roar Pro
- Tagged:
- ELVs, Rugby Union
In response to a recent Spiro Zavos article, sure, this single game may support your argument. But rules are played over a season, and one must consider the mean of performance over a wide distribution of data.
1. ELVs encourage the breakdown of traditional rugby roles between backs and forwards. Every ELV game has seen the promotion of forwards running with the ball outside a back. This ruins attack. A prop just doesn’t have the same skill as a second five eight.
2. ELVs encourage bodies over the ball at the breakdown, awaiting the referee to determine who wins. The defending team know that the worse case penalty is a free kick to the opposition. That’s an easy trade off compared to slowing the ball down illegally to prevent a try.
3. ELVs saw the reduction of classical backline play. The only time that backs and forwards are completely separated are during scrums, and they were infrequent.
4. ELVs encourage the “field wide defensive trench”. The long horizontal line of players fanning out across the field became more dominate due to the fact that forwards didn’t need to go to the breakdown, as forward play has been eroded under ELVS and modern rugby.
5. ELVs promoted kicking to overcome (4) above. We all have seen this blight on the game. There will be less kicking when forwards return to their traditional roles and more space is found out wide.
6. ELVs destroyed the maul. Further traditional forward play removed from the rugby.
7. ELVs promoted short lineouts, with more opportunity for forwards to stand in the backline. I refer you to (3) above.
So I say, see ya later ELVs. And good riddance!
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van der Merwe said | May 28th 2009 @ 9:02am | Report comment
Agreed.
Craig said | May 28th 2009 @ 9:06am | Report comment
ian,
Please allow me to retort:
1. Not true. This has been happening long before the ELV’s. I can remember this happening back in 2001 and it probably goes earlier.
2. Not true deliberate infringments (cynical) are a full arm penalty. Even prior to the ELV’s teams would gladly give up 3 points over 7. The problem lies with referee’s not yellow carding sooner to stop it. They also add to the problem by asking players to roll away at least twice before making a decision. Players know that they have that leniancy and push it for all it’s worth. The problem is that the IRB don’t want refs being seen as pedantic and creating a stop/start game so instead of penalising they warn and warn. The free kick ELV should have allowed them to make a quicker decision because a free kick would more often be taken quickly and this would in fact add to the flow of the game rather than detract. This was an opportunity lost by referee’s.
3. Not true, again this was happening long before the ELV’s. The fact that the short arm sanction was in effect led to more scrums meaning that the backs and forwards were seperated more, not less. This in conjunction with the ELV’s seperating the backlines at scrumtime increased the chance of classic backline play.
4. Sorry not true. This was happening well before the ELV’s. Just watch the 1999 World cup to see it. The Wallaby defense was like this. They surrendered the ruck and backed themselves to defend until the oppn made a mistake. The full ELV’s in particular the hand in the ruck ELV, which wasn’t trialled would have gone a long way to sorting this out. Giving the defending team more chance to get the ball would mean they are more likely to get bodies there to attack the ball. This would in turn mean that the attacking team would need to get more there in defense. At it is now and before, the attcking team generally seal off the ball so the defenders don’t bother trying to get it and instead line up to defend.
5. I agree that kicking has been used to get over these set defensive lines, but the ELV’s do not encourage or discourage this. The “no pass back inside the 22 to kick out on the full” ELV does encourage kicks etc that land just outside the 22mtr line. These though are generally bombs which I think are attacking kicks which I have no problem with. Its the aimless kicking that frustrates. This is created because teams to not want to lose possesion in there own half. This will be worse under the old rules as a penalty is a worse sanction than a free kick, so teams will be even less liekly to chance thier arm.
6. Not true, Clive Woodward and the 2003 England team destroyed the maul. They essentially set up legalised offside where players slide past the ball and join the maul in front of the ball carrier, it is virtually impossible to defend. The ELV’s gave you a way to defend it and teams just dropped it rather than work out how to do it better. IMO if you reverted to the old true rolling maul you would have more luck against a team pulling the maul down because you could spin the maul past the players on the ground more easily than you could join players in front of it in the modern system.
7. How so??? By making the defending team not have match numbers, if a team went short they ran the risk of being outjumped by the multiple pod setup of a full lineout. This was risky and lots of teams abandoned short line-outs. This meant more chances for classical backline play.
Other than that is was a well though-out piece.
It also needs to be remembered that the ELV’s were created as an entire package to make the game easier to officiate, watch and understand. Once the ELV’s were picked apart and only certain ones trialled they were doomed to failure. The classic was removing the hands in the ruck rule, but keeping the free kick sanction. This created allot more free kicks than was intended. This helped create this “unstructured” play that some people seem to despise so much.
I am sad that rugby had a chance to try and improve it’s game and this was crushed by those with ego’s and political agenda’s. I am not saying that they were necessarily good or bad, but the fact the IRB couldn’t even get it together to get everyone to trial one set of laws so we would get a true idea about what would work and what wouldn’t is an indictment on their ability to administer the game globally.
So long ELV’s, if only we’d got to know you a little better!
Warren said | May 28th 2009 @ 9:58am | Report comment
Ian, spot on. More and more like NRL. Same-sized players spread wide with too few players committed to the breakdown. Too much full frontal contact out wide with not enough ball-skill – who these days can pick a centre from a loosie?
Ian from NZ said | May 28th 2009 @ 10:14am | Report comment
Criag,
I never said ELVS were the sole factor for the points I made, I did say that on average they enhanced more so the already existing blights on the game. Yes some of the points existed before ELVs true, BUT I do say the ELVs helped them along to make the situation worse…
Cheers
Hammer said | May 28th 2009 @ 11:25am | Report comment
What I found rather amusing is that the great champion for the ELV’s (Zavos) – recently put forward that he was surprised why why sides don’t have a play when close to the opposition posts to set up a field goal attempt ….
now that’s really trying to encourage running rugby …. get down there, get a short arm, take a tap and fire it to your desinated kicker .. and drop a goal …
Craig said | May 28th 2009 @ 12:35pm | Report comment
Ian,
Apologies for misinterpreting your stance. I still think that the ELV’s as a whole help negate what you are railing (quite rightly) against. If you caught any ARC rugby, which I think was the only semi pro comp to test ALL the rules you would have seen many more forwards attack the ruck. Its because they knew they could put their hands on it they were on their feet and that gave them a much better chance to effect teh turnover. This is turn meant more attacking team players had to get their to thwart it. Result more space out wide. There were also less free kicks because players knew that whenever they were on their feet they could attack the ball. The situation currently is ridiculous where you can pick it up, but wait an oppn player is here to competing for the ball, that means its a ruck and I have to let it go!!!
I would like to know how the ELV’s promoted short lineouts?
retiredrucker said | May 28th 2009 @ 1:06pm | Report comment
Craig and Ian,
Can anyone explain the concept of allowing hands in the ruck – it would’nt be a ruck then! The IRB would need to rename it a HANDS ON, ref shouting HANDS ON FORMED, STAY ON YOUR FEET, KNEE ON tHE GROUND 7, RELEASE RELEASE.
If we are talking features of the game that are missed by ex rugby players(maybe only forwards) its rucking(the vigorous type that hurts,not the present fru fru). IMO the removal of effective legal rucking is a blight on the game and skill which seems lost. There was an indescribable beauty of seeing forward binding up on the run and cleaning out the cheating player and presenting ball!
I know this is a gripe all my old team mates and I discuss watching the local grade over a beer and no one comes up to defend the current interpretation.
Who Needs Melon said | May 28th 2009 @ 1:27pm | Report comment
I think I swore some time ago never to comment again on anything to do with the ELVs but, with the dust settling, i’ll break my own rule…
Ian makes some observations of some disturbing trends in modern rugby which seem to me to be spot on. Craig mounts a fair argument that the ELVs are not the cause of the those trends.
What seems to be the case is that introduction of the (limited) ELVs has NOT seen any sudden reversal of trends. The game does NOT seem simpler, easier to understand or more free-flowing or entertaining. So whilst you can argue one way or the other whether the ELVs have or haven’t been the cause of any negative trends, they don’t seem to have been the cause of any positive ones.
So what’s next? Do we assume that the limited trial is not a valid sample and continue the trial, possibly expanding to include ALL of the ELVs? Or do we bite the bullet, accept the experiment was a failure (for whatever reasons) and abandon future attempts at this sort of large-scale rule re-write? Personally I favour the latter.
Are there any other sports where the rules are dicked around with as much as rugby? I certainly can’t think of any.
Dexter William said | May 28th 2009 @ 1:51pm | Report comment
Great Article Ian, and good observation Hammer on Spiros.
Craig, you are missing the point. What Melon said was exactly right, that the ELV did not improve the game.
My main problem with ELV s that it promotes “kicking for territory” and discourage ball in hand attack as the attacking team do get penalised a lot more. So more kicking has been observed in this years S14 from what I have seen (probably seeing Waratah’s game of kicking might have added to my dislike of ELV).
As much as Spiros is a great writer and a champion of the ELV, he needs to admit a mistake and move on. It takes a greater man to admit a mistake sometimes.
Ian from NZ said | May 28th 2009 @ 2:20pm | Report comment
…”I would like to know how the ELV’s promoted short lineouts?”..
One of the ELVs allowed uneven numbers in the lineout, this allowed, a team to only place one person at the lineout if defending and have the remaing players spread out elsewhere. The ELV promoted short lineouts by the mere fact that it allowed lesser and uneven numbers in the lineout.
IN SUMMARY: ELVS allowed rugby structure ( scrums, lineouts ) to be reduced, by the mere fact that a team could chose to scrum or not, to lineout or not more so than pre ELVs. This upset the balance of the game between structured and non structured play ( note: both of which is required in the game). ELVs moved the game further to the non structured side, bringing back stiff arm penalities swings the game to the structured side (just enough). Teams will have to scrum of have to lineout after ref makes the call on a ruck infringement ( Yes I know lineouts can still be avoided by a quick throw in, but this is less likely when the winger is running down the touch line to prevent this after a penalty is awarded and the team kick for touch)….