By RugbyThinker -
October 31st 2009 @ 1:19am
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ELVS could have fixed problems at breakdown
England's Phil Vickery, center, tries to muscle his way through the Italian defence during the Six Nations rugby union international match at Twickenham stadium in London, Saturday Feb. 7, 2009. AP Photo/PA, David Davies
I’ve heard it all now. The North is bemoaning the Laws of the Game. What audacity, as it was these conservative, blazer wearing buffoons that derailed the Experimental Law Variations project last year.
In the Sunday Times in London last week, Stephen Jones, one of the architects of the ELVs destruction, unbelievable stated, “That the problem with the modern game is the breakdown. It is killing rugby, it is destroying the flow, it is boring the pants off everyone.”
Stephen Jones, shame on you.
If you had not totally ignored the first few years of the ELV project that started in Stellenbosch University – instead of waiting until the ELVs were due for trial at a more senior level in UK territory – you might have understood that the Law Project Group had the primary intention of reviewing the breakdown, rectifying it and then looking at the wider effects on the rest of the game.
The knock-on effect of simplifying the breakdown was to ensure it could be better refereed.
In fact, they went right back to the beginning and played matches at the University with no Laws at the breakdown to understand player behaviour and how the breakdown operated under such conditions.
Naturally, they had to tweak it, as no Laws meant it was all too easy to kill the ball and to go to ground.
The next step was to slowly add in Laws that would see the breakdown operate functionally. This included keeping players on their feet.
This is what transpired and included the trialling of use of hands in the ruck by players on their feet which had its merits.
The next stage was to take the trial out of the University to higher level competitions around the world. So what happened?
When the Project Group asked for permission, an ELV ambush happened. Jones and his fellow media cronies and the union blazers in the Northern Unions choked on their warm beer at the thought of such trials and decried the ELVs as a southern conspiracy.
The continuing ELV program was cherry-picked: no breakdown ELVs were allowed to be trialled and what we ended up with was a watered down bunch of new Laws that have not really solved anything.
And now the north is belly-aching about the breakdown.
The poor old IRB must not know whether they are Arthur or Martha at present. Having seen the ELV breakdown trial derailed so early, they now see Jones blathering such absurdities as: “When is the International Rugby Board going to do something about it? (the breakdown) We have the rampaging inconsistencies and illegalities, the different interpretations by different referees, we have the cheats who go unpenalised. This stemmed from the early years of the Super 12, where continuity of possession went on for hours. It must be said again: the IRB have spent years on the barking law experiments and they have scandalously taken their eyes off the ball when it comes to refereeing and playing the game at the breakdown.”
The only scandal here is the blinkered, conservative, anti-southern hemisphere thinking by Jones and the rest of the north, which was clearly negligent in understanding the original objectives and intentions of the Law Project Group.
Not once apparently did any of the media attend the early trials or deem it appropriate to speak to the members of the Group to understand what the trials were attempting to remedy.
We all know the game has its problems as defence dominates attack, brute force is preferred to skills and players continually breaking the Laws at the breakdown. The IRB had the right intentions must revisit the breakdown ELVs.
And Jones and his cronies should put up or shut up.
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(63)
Rowdy said | October 31st 2009 @ 1:52am | Report comment
There’s some nasty, blinkered, old-fashioned anti-Northern Hemisphere writing here. If you talk to people who follow rugby, you’ll realise that not every NH supporter hates the ELVs and (this may come as a shock to you) not every SH fan loves them unconditionally. SA fans especially didn’t seem to happy about them.
I really don’t want to support Jones as you’ll then feel obliged to support Spiro and we’d get into a stupid NH – SH shouting match, but the breakdown is killing the game, and all it needs is for the refs to ref it properkly and consistently. This means, among other things, calling Ball Out when it appears at the feet of the SH, instead of allowing the little b*gger to meerkat up and down for 7 minutes while he waits for his forwards to line up ponderously either side. Yes, I’m looking at you, Harry Ellis.
Not every fault in the game has to be fixed by a rule change. Didn’t you watch the Lions games ? Were they rubbish ?
Working Class Rugger said | October 31st 2009 @ 2:09am | Report comment
I have no real qualms about the current laws of the game. Though I was a fan of the ideals behind the ELV’s. I think they should have been given more time asnd tweaked further. Currently defensive dominance, tactics employed in attack and the ugly result of these ‘cheating’ around the breakdown are spoiling the quality of the game at the moment. In both Hemisphere’s by the way. Just look at the GP and ML this year. The quality is down from previous season, the only saving grace so far has been the HEC. And let’s not mention the SH. I think some radical changes may need and could be made and still keep the essence of the game in tact.
First of all, I have come around to the argument of cutting the numbers on the field to 12. Let’s face it. Since professionalism was adopted the overall fitness and defensive capabilities have killed the free flowing attacking nature of the game. I watched highlights of the 1984 Wallabies GS yesterday and they were a joy compared to today’s game. Put simply player’s are much fitter now and defense lines have grown to become a blight on the game. Remove 6 players from the field would hopefully bring a return to the free flowing nature of Rugby.
Secondly, the advantage rule. It’s too open to individual interpretation by ref’s. Too often a team either loses it too quickly or has far too long. It slows the game and frustrates spectators. A few change’s are needed. The first. If you kick it then advantage is played, no matter the result. Second. With the help of the TMO using similar tech to the NFL broadcasting graphics (the yellow line that defines the downs) a set and defined advantage line say 5m past the offence will appear on screen. As soon as the ball crosses the TMO informs the ref and it is played.
Re-introduce the short arm for everything under professional fouls. On top of that limit the number’s in the breakdon to 3 a side not including the tackled and tackler.
I’m likely to be bombarded with reasons why these won’t work. And I’ll accept that. I’ll probably be accused of not really being a real Rugby fan and being Australian get told to watch League instead. Well, here’s the thing. I honestly believe with all conviction that Rugby is by far the superior game. A great game of Rugby is leaps and bounds ahead of a great game of League. The problem is since the adoption of Professionalism in Rugby and the high quality of training and fitness that accompanies the full time athlete the high qualioty games have become far less frequent. It may be time for some big changes to give the advantage back to attacking free flowing Rugby.
Bay35Pablo said | October 31st 2009 @ 4:59pm | Report comment
WCR, agree with all of your suggestions, at least on a trial basis to see how they work. ELV2 please!!. My only point is keep in mind they have ti be used at the lower levels, so TMO involvement must be kept to a minimum. Having said that, I think most park refs should be able to pick what a 5m advantage is.
Working Class Rugger said | October 31st 2009 @ 6:06pm | Report comment
Bay
Good point about the TMO. Perhaps at the lower levels the ‘assistant ref’s’ could move forward 5m of the penalty to set the advantage line with some sort of marker. But at the professional level they should use the TMO to inform the ref of whether or not advantage has been achieved.
hayden said | November 1st 2009 @ 8:48am | Report comment
The yellow line that defines the downs is there for tv viewers only. They still use the antiquated ten yard chain between two poles to actually mark the place where the down is placed.
Working Class Rugger said | November 2nd 2009 @ 1:46am | Report comment
Hayden
Yes, I know that. But we have a TMO who could monitor that graphic to inform the ref. So no need to have the marker’s at the elite level.
Aljay said | November 3rd 2009 @ 2:46pm | Report comment
I for one think the idea of limiting the number of players in the breakdown has merit when combined with less players on the field. Perhaps reducing the number of players pushing in the scrum might reduce the number of collapses too!
Incidentally I am also in favour of the defensive line retreating 5m behind the tackle (but not the scrumhalf), with the players immediately left & right to the breakdown allowed to breach this for the purposes of join the breakdown.
pothale said | October 31st 2009 @ 4:03am | Report comment
This is such a nonsense article.
“The North is bemoaning the Laws of the Game”. No, it’s not. The generic term of North is not represented by the view of one writer in an English newspaper. He’s one writer in one newspaper in one rugby nation in the NH. Get some perspective, chappie.
Secondly he’s not bemoaning the Laws of the Game, he’s bemoaning the state of the breakdown and that it’s not being policed properly – a point made pretty much by everyone – including Jones – over a year ago.
To attribute to Jones as being one of the architects of the destruction of the ELVs is to give him false status. No he isn’t. He argued that all of the ELVs would be turned down – he was wrong.
The union blazers in the Northern Unions didn’t choke on their warm beer – since this metaphor really only applies to English – you ignorantly forget that there are 5 other unions involved.
“and now the north is bellayching about the brakdown” Well, no it isn’t. As you point out, Stephen Jones is, And not for the first time.
“blinkered, conservative, anti-southern hemisphere thinking by Jones and the rest of the north,….” Oh please, this is schoolyard writing – give it a rest.
2 out of ten.
Next!
Knives Out said | October 31st 2009 @ 4:06am | Report comment
I always cringe at the way that Jones is perceived to represent the conservative gin swillers of England when actually he is Welsh.
kingplaymaker said | October 31st 2009 @ 5:25am | Report comment
Rugbythinker I agree with you completely. But you should remember Jones is only the violent tip of the iceberg: most of northern hemisphere rugby agrees with him on this although they express themselves more calmly and moderately.
The ELVs should have been continued and tinkered with until they were right. The game now is terrible.
I feel it’s likely the southern hemisphere will break away for their competitions and go with the ELVs though. They are in too bad a commercial situation not to. O’Neill’s silence when the laws were voted out was suggestive.
Knives Out said | October 31st 2009 @ 5:44am | Report comment
‘I feel it’s likely the southern hemisphere will break away for their competitions and go with the ELVs though. They are in too bad a commercial situation not to. O’Neill’s silence when the laws were voted out was suggestive.’
Spoken like a true blue English rugby union fan. Where are you from in England, btw? I’m really very interested. What club do you support? Do you play rugby union?
P.S. I think O’Neill was silent because he had loudly and widely proclaimed the necessity of the ELVs and how they would improve the spectacle of the game. Unfortunately for him the ELVs were a woefully constructed concept and only served to further consolidate increasingly conservative brands of rugby, with the free running Wallabies being one of the worst culprits. I think that is why O’Neill was silent, and not because he was biding his time to remove Australian rugby from contests with the NH. I mean… you must have heard that SA rugby was loudly anti-ELV despite how they voted. Did you know that, KPM?
Pothale said | October 31st 2009 @ 6:05am | Report comment
But you should remember Jones is only the violent tip of the iceberg: most of northern hemisphere rugby agrees with him on this although they express themselves more calmly and moderately.”
agree with him about what, KPM? The breakdown is a mess? This is hardly news. The relevant ELVs proposed to address this failed to do so – in SH and NH. What exactly is the iceberg that remains hidden from view?
kingplaymaker said | October 31st 2009 @ 6:07am | Report comment
Polhole I mean they agree with him about the ELVs, and with most fundmental questions concerning the game: rules, competitions etc..
My point being that he’s not that different and isolated in what he basically thinks from the rest of northern hemisphere rugby.
Knives Out said | October 31st 2009 @ 6:15am | Report comment
Who agrees with what? There is no single journalistic entity in England, and what are these fundamental questions about competitions and ‘etc’? You might not know this but Scotland was pro-ELV and SA was anti-ELV, so I’m not sure that the stereotypical NH v SH is anything but a lazy analysis in this instance.
pothale said | October 31st 2009 @ 7:20am | Report comment
No need for doubt, KO. This is lazy analysis by RugbyThinker and all his SH cronies who like to delight in NH conspiracies to hide the fact that SH rugby has been crap for the most part this year and are looking for excuses anywhere but at home.
“Violent tip of an iceberg”….. gimme a break.
It’d be serious if it wasn’t so funny.
Dean Pantio said | October 31st 2009 @ 1:57pm | Report comment
Good post pothale. If I could rep you, I would.
I’m getting sick of the ELVs and Australian Provincial Competition posts. Read one, read them all.
Bay35Pablo said | October 31st 2009 @ 5:26pm | Report comment
Dean, and here I was going to write another one about the ARC ….
I think you mean poor quality posts, or posts be newbies that haven’t read the last 10 on the same topic.. I’m sick of them too, but that’s the price of a blog. You don’t have to read them, or post on them.
Working Class Rugger said | October 31st 2009 @ 6:11pm | Report comment
Bay & Dean
They do get repetitive especially when they begin to recycle the same argument and methods from previous articles. The only thing it does say is that it seems to be what the Rugby public wants. Expect many more yet. I think its about time the Rugby Roarer’s start looking to post article’s about the game on the international scene. Those stories tend to be more interesting. I enjoy writing and reading them.
pothale said | October 31st 2009 @ 7:23am | Report comment
Hey I’m being moderated. Was it something I said?
Knives Out said | October 31st 2009 @ 7:24am | Report comment
Lighten up big man. It’s the way of the world. Next you’ll be trying to tell us that you’re not a wife beating, illiterate, drunken, tarmac laying Dub and that I’m not a sheepskin coat wearing, lager drinking, cigarette smoking, “Darhn tha booza, mate!” thieving cockney slag. There’s no way on earth that we could ever be two regular open-minded rugby union fans simply because that demographic doesn’t exist in Europe. Pull your head in man.
pothale said | October 31st 2009 @ 7:45am | Report comment
Bejaysus – aren’t you the smartass Brit – you have me down to a tee. The current Mrs Pothale has been known to use those exact words as she empties the washing machine next to the bed and feeding her 13th child of dubious parentage, whilst I look at the pictures in the Sun with my pint in my tar-stained hand each Tuesday lunchtime.
Knives Out said | October 31st 2009 @ 8:01am | Report comment
Fridge freezer in the front room… Rosary beads… I can’t even bring myself to go on.
Arsenal to win 3-1. It could be a long day at the office.
pothale said | October 31st 2009 @ 7:51am | Report comment
Moving swiftly on. Spurs 5-1 against the Arse tomorrow. Tempting. Must go and see what accumulator would put together.
Spiro Zavos said | October 31st 2009 @ 7:52am | Report comment
Rowdy, Pothale and others on this thread have demonstrated why the ELVs were not given a decent chance to show their value in the northern hemisphere. The whole idea of the Stellenbosch project was to take a holistic (sorry about the jargon) approach to the laws and instead of making piece-meal changes that often contradicted each other bring in changes that were unified and coherent.
But the Rugby Football Union (the English rugby union) particularly and the other ‘Home’ unions insisted on trialling only some aspects of the ELVs. This antagonistic approach was supported very vehemently by every senior British rugby writer. They invented the nonsense that the ELVs were an Australian plot to undermined the British game when in fact that were an IRB initiative that happens after every Rugby World Cup.
After 2007 the IRB decided to have a total look at the laws instead of adopting the piecemeal approach. Experts from the major rugby power bloc, including northern hemisphere officials, worked out a coherent re-writing of the laws to provide for an easier game to referee and to play, one that kept all the main features of rugby union with the constant struggle for possession and a game for all physical shapes.
They trialled their ideas at Stellenbosch Univeristy and took videos of all the matches played and analysed them and worked out refinements to their original reforms. Incidentally, Stellenbosch University is the cradle of South African rugby and where Danie Craven (two Ph.Ds) lectured. Craven once told me that he trialled experiments to the laws with his students. When I was shown videos of the early trials I wrote an article about them (one of the first) for the Sydney Morning Herald, and in a reference to Craven dubbed the proposed changes the Stellenbosch Laws, a tag that seems to have stuck.
The trialling of the Stellenbosch Laws was the most extensive trialling of any law changes in any sport. All grades of rugby were involved. But when it came time for the northern hemisphere part of the trialing, the rugby community there essentially rebelled and refused to take part in the project in its entirety.
Having taken this approach, the rugby community, especially the British rugby writers, then proceeded to lambast what changes were allowed in. This vehement and brain-dead opposition was effective. The IRB scrubbed the essential parts of the ELVs, kept some of them and the notion of a total package was disregarded.
Now the British rugby writers and television commentators are decrying how defensive rugby has become – the very point after the attritional Rugby World Cup final in 2007 that encouraged the IRB to put in place laws that redressed the balance between defence (favoured by the laws) and attack.
One of the points that I made during all of this argument about the ELVs is that the British rugby community has opposed EVERY innovation suggested for rugby. The northern unions were booted out of the RFU in 1895 because they wanted to pay the costs of time off work by miners and other manual workers injured in rugby game. They opposed New Zealand’s suggestion of an ‘advamntage rule’ in the 1890s but were over-ruled. They opposed changes to the points from drop goals and penalties to make tries more valuable for decades, again until they were eventually over-ruled. They opposed a Rugby World Cup, until this was forced on them by the ARU and NZRU.
From some of the fevered arguments against this very well-informed and incisive article, that merely tells the story about the ELVs as it is, we can get some of the flavour of how the rugby community in the northern hemisphere just does not get the understanding that rugby is an evolving, clever game that needs to adjust its laws to take into account bigger and faster players and new defensive tactics.
Hopefully, after the 2011 Rugby World Cup the rugby community in the northern hemisphere will be more accepting of the ELVs reforms. But for the mean-time, they will have to look to southern hemisphere countries to play the exciting and expansive rugby all of us, from the north and south, want to see and play.
Knives Out said | October 31st 2009 @ 8:19am | Report comment
Your anti-NH agenda colours everything you say, Spiro, which is unfortunate for a man with your influence, albeit quickly waning, within the Australian rugby union/NSW community.
Professional rugby is just that. Professional. Therefore it is a business which means that there are countless vested interests. The NH unions were well within their rights to demand compromise of the ELVs and they were in no way obliged to trial them. I fail to see why, therefore, resistance to change can be perceived as antagonistic. The response that they were morally obliged to trial the full set of laws is wonderfully naive. I can only presume that you have never worled for a major corporation? With all due respect your opinion is firmly rooted in the amateur era, and we see this with your constant references to the past and the conservative, convervative NH. Are you not aware of Scottish rugby and Scottish attempts at revolutionising the game over the past two decades? I doubt that you are. It is sweetly ironic that you would lambast the NH for being rooted in the past, and yet by highlighting this alleged fact you are revealing just how stuck you are in the past.
The ELVs were an embarassment to the sport. They were poorly conceived and poorly trialled and the results were terrible, with a host of misinformed journalists glibly accepting they would solve various questions that needed to be answered. You forget that the key ‘hands in the ruck’ rule was rejected by the SH, the rule which dovetailed with the short arm ruling. Thus from the very beginning the changes lacked credibility. Had the genesis of the ELVs been engineered by major and current rugby figures then perhaps they would have deserved greater attention, but they didn’t and subsequently they were the major failures that most top European coaches predicted them to be, something that figures like you and John O’Neill were unsurprisingly reticent to admit. In many ways it is likely that your excessive and melodramatic championing of the ELVs only served to reduce their credbility in the eyes of many.
As for your suggestion that rugby fans will have to watch SH rugby teams for their fix of fast and laissez faire rugby then I would be intrigued to hear your analysis of the rugby that Argentina, Australia and SA play and have been playing for the best part of 5 years. You were, much to the chagrin of the SA community, very quick to label the effective but boring Springbok brand as horrific. Conversely, you have been rather slow to acknowledge the kick inspired, defence orientated dross that the Wallabies have been serving up for the past few seasons. In light of your effusive praise about the technical ability of the Lions players then I don’t think I’m that far off in suggesting that you are the antagonostic one much the same way that you would claim Stephen Jones is. I’m not sure how you fail to recognise this, but there is no NH and SH in terms of exciting and expansive rugby. There is NZ and then Wales, Ireland and currently England. These teams like to throw the ball about. Watch a game now and then, Spiro. Try and make it a European one. That might wake you from your 3N-induced coma.
Bay35Pablo said | October 31st 2009 @ 5:04pm | Report comment
KO, “Professional rugby is just that. Professional. ” Since 1995 yes.
That explains knocking back the ELVs then. What about the 100 years before that … ?
Bay35Pablo said | October 31st 2009 @ 5:12pm | Report comment
(per KP) “The ELVs were an embarassment to the sport. They were poorly conceived and poorly trialled and the results were terrible”
vs
(per Spiro) “The trialling of the Stellenbosch Laws was the most extensive trialling of any law changes in any sport. All grades of rugby were involved”
I’m with Spiro here, KO. But maybe that’s my SH prejudices showing. From everything I have read it was a multilateral/bipartisan (ie NH & SH) attempt to test some changes to the law.
Also from memory, the ARC trialled all laws and it was some of the best rugby anyone who did see it had seen. Mind you, they didn’t have enough time to work out how to play it cynically and defensively. Which happens with every sport and rules change. League is an example – contantly tweaking. AFL similarly.
What program of development and testing for the next set of ELVs do you propose, if the last didn’t meet your high (and apparently never met to date in 150 years of the sport) standards?
Knives Out said | October 31st 2009 @ 6:39pm | Report comment
Bay, my point is that the triallling involved no current ‘greats’ and the changes were developed by no current ‘greats’. The extensive trialling is irrelevant as the changes were developed by has-beens. You might as well have funded monkeys to the tune of £50 billion.
Attacking team gets benefit of doubt. Regular ‘change and review’ sessions held with test coaches, captains and analysts. Referees have more thorough training in technical aspects = perhaps introduction of NRL 2nd ref. Drop goals worth 2 points.
Bay35Pablo said | November 1st 2009 @ 5:48pm | Report comment
KO, any current “greats” would probably too busy with being “great” I.e. their current jobs. The seasons are such that you would have trouble getting people from both NH & SH at the same time.
Further, define “great”? Does that mean former “greats” (in your opinion) weren’t involved. Or that former “greats” are good enough, only current “greats”.
Once retired, is everyone a “has been”.
This seems to be “I don’t like them therefore they are has beens”. As with any large organisation, you have to be able to delegate it out, which is what occurred. They then trialled it, etc.
I was asking what process for developing the rules you proposed as an alternative, not the actual rules. So that we don’t have people questioning the process as well as the rules.
Regular change and review sessions is a bit broad. Further, it also needs a process of bringing it all together from the different countries to work out what the feedback is.
Knives Out said | November 2nd 2009 @ 9:13am | Report comment
‘KO, any current “greats” would probably too busy with being “great” I.e. their current jobs. The seasons are such that you would have trouble getting people from both NH & SH at the same time.’
Not true at all. The genesis of the ELVs lay in a meeting which included lots of top coaches.
Let me retract the word ‘greats’ and instead specify: a test coach, captain, and player representatives (a forward and a back) from every top IRB nation, and also club/province/franchise/league representatives.
Rugby moves quickly. If you’re out of the game for any lengthy period then you’re a dinosaur. Have a look at the people in the LPG. A woeful collection of dinosaurs. If you have regular meetings with all the top coaches and players then you have regular dialogue with those who have their finger on the rugby pulse. Regular dialogue should also be stablished with fans and the appropriate representatives from that side of the game. Once it has been established what is considered problematic with the game then any new rules established should be trialled at a low level and for a period of two seasons. However, any trialling is fraught with problems simply because no low level rugby has similarities with test rugby, and so game outcomes would be different at different levels. That problem is hard to avoid but with constant dialogue with the aforementioned coaches, pros and analysts their opinion could be sought on the data and trends collected.
RugbyThinker said | November 2nd 2009 @ 8:00am | Report comment
Spot on Spiro.
My short narrative on the ELVs simply had the aim of reminding everyone that the ELV project had the major aim of sorting out the problem area of the breakdown but it was undermined badly by influential administrators and media in the north. The Game had the chance to sort out the breakdown but threw it away and we are now back to square one. And by the way I have my family roots in Europe and to say this is blinkered, old-fashioned anti-northern hemisphere writing is way off beam. To think that the northern hemisphere Unions all operate independently is a fanciful dream. Wales, Ireland, Scotland and RFU are thick as thieves when it comes to IRB Council voting. And throw in France. Sure Scotland were pro-ELV but let me tell you the my research found that the Chairman of the Law Project Group sold out to his Six Nations mates when push came to shove on the ELVs. What we really need is a change to the constitution of IRB in terms of Council representation and voting structures…..how democratic is it when the Six Nations plus AER-FIRA (the European regional association) control 12 of the 26 votes on Council…SANZAR has 6 votes……..now that is a whole new can of worms!!!
Colin N said | November 2nd 2009 @ 8:04am | Report comment
“The Game had the chance to sort out the breakdown but threw it away and we are now back to square one”
What rules that the North ‘rejected’ helped the contact area in particular?
Knives Out said | November 2nd 2009 @ 9:06am | Report comment
The ELVs were undermined by people like you, ‘RugbyThinker’.
kingplaymaker said | October 31st 2009 @ 8:17am | Report comment
Spiro the problem lies in the comfortable commercial position of rugby in Britain: whatever the rules and however boring the matches, stadiums will always be full for internationals and even club matches and so there is no outward necessity to make the game more entertaining.
As for the British press and even supporter base, the social element of the game is overwhelmingly middle-class and non-metropolitan, so essentially the most conservative group in England and this is why they are against any innovation whatsoever, even if it’s obviously in their interests.
As I said above because Jones is so vocal don’t think that he’s more conservative than the rest of them who are just as bad.
I think the southern hemisphere should play the Tri-nations and Super 14 under the ELVs. It seems unbelievable the IRB would throw them out of the World Cup for it. I don’t think the southern hemisphere can afford to wait nor should they. Besides I’m afraid it’s highly unlikely the northern hemisphere rugby community will be more open to the ELVs after 2011. So the time to act is now.
Knives Out said | October 31st 2009 @ 8:26am | Report comment
‘Spiro the problem lies in the comfortable commercial position of rugby in Britain: whatever the rules and however boring the matches, stadiums will always be full for internationals and even club matches and so there is no outward necessity to make the game more entertaining.’
Rugby union has that magic ingredient that provides a bulwark against the recession? Perhaps Gordon Brown should get in touch with the RFU. My perception is that clubs like Sale, Leeds, Saracens and Newcastle are far from comfortable. Do you know what their average attendances are? Are you aware of the balance sheets of all GP clubs?
‘As for the British press and even supporter base, the social element of the game is overwhelmingly middle-class and non-metropolitan, so essentially the most conservative group in England and this is why they are against any innovation whatsoever, even if it’s obviously in their interests.’
A comment like this requires qualification. Where are you from in England and whatrugby club are you linked with/to?I have asked you thos perhaps 5 times and you have never responded. You either have connections to the club scene in England or you don’t.
pothale said | October 31st 2009 @ 8:29am | Report comment
Can’t argue with that, Spiro. You must be right if you were there at Stellenbosch.
In the meantime, you tell us that we’ll have to look to southern hemisphere countries like Australia and South Africa to play the exciting and expansive rugby for us. I wait in hope this Autumn. So far this season, the Boks and Lions have achieved that in the SH along with a match involving NZ and one involving Australia.
I thought the plot was an Australian one to jizz up the game to counteract its falling TV viewing figures and stadia attendances with the added benefit of undermining the British game. (but not the Irish or French one, thankfully.)
One minor point. Every senior British writer does not constitute the entirety of the Northern Hemisphere rugby nations – or even the 6 Nations. An inaccurate generalism used in this “well-informed and incisive article” to paint all NH rugby and its unions as the same. A point that seems to be lost on SH commentators or who simply ignore it in their desire to have a handy moniker on which to hang all things bad about NH rugby.
Knives Out said | October 31st 2009 @ 8:33am | Report comment
We’ve already been over this you dizzy Paddy. If ‘Educating Rita’ has taught us one thing and only one thing it is that we are not meant to ever – and I mean ever – ascend from our social stereotypes.
Dan said | November 2nd 2009 @ 10:22pm | Report comment
Pothale,
You didn’t honestly think the ELVs were an “Australian plot” did you?? I thought that had been debunked ages ago…
Unconditional said | October 31st 2009 @ 10:54am | Report comment
Bring back the ruck. That will sort a few problems out.
katzilla said | October 31st 2009 @ 11:18am | Report comment
OMG like da Norf are terribad at rugby.
Da ELVs wood ave ‘elped dem to plays da gud rugby.
Me back to under da bridge now to boffer dose goats.
P.s – Stephen Jones wishes he was magnum PI with his pron moustache.
Knives Out said | October 31st 2009 @ 11:43am | Report comment
http://josephstalinfans.com/files/2008/12/joseph-stalin2.jpg
Maybe Jones has another icon, katzilla.
katzilla said | October 31st 2009 @ 1:27pm | Report comment
Jones could never have the well dressed straight lines of a communist.
I could easily imagine him cruising around Newport in a Ferrari with a a Hawaiian Tshirt on, minus the hot chicks of course.
kingplaymaker said | October 31st 2009 @ 12:30pm | Report comment
KO here’s an article you’ll love! It perfectly expresses your point of you:
http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/rugby/rugby-union/news-comment/martin-johnson-time-to-deliver-1812155.html
Knives Out said | October 31st 2009 @ 6:40pm | Report comment
?
Paul J said | October 31st 2009 @ 1:29pm | Report comment
Working Class Rugger
I really like some of your suggestions for improving the game but unfortunately as you eluded to some die hard rugby fans will not consider any change that may be considered to make the game even remotely closer to rugby league.
Rugby league moved the defence line from 5 to 10 metres and reduced the number of subs from 12 to 10 because of the very problem professionalism has given Rugby. Defences are so fit and capable that offence is suffering.
These changes you’ve suggested would not change the major difference between the codes, the contest of possession (not to mention line outs and the scrum).
Working Class Rugger said | October 31st 2009 @ 6:02pm | Report comment
Paul J
Rugby has evolved greatly in the past 14 years thanks to professionalism in terms of player conditioning and tactical analysis. The game itself hasn’t so much. The only noticable changes in my memory were the introduction of lifting in the lineout (which made them far more of a spectacle whilst remaining competitive) and the kick off. And that the major issue. Defense lines at times resemble brick wall with defenders often not committing to the breakdown in order to set up. By removing say the 2 flankers and the fullback or half back and regulating the number’s in the ruck in theory more space would be opened up for the attacking team. This doesn’t mean defence will go out the window. But a levelling of the playing field would hopefully occur.
The advantage rule really irritates me with its inconsistency. We should be using the tech available to us to define beyond interpretation when it is played and what its exactly is.
simon said | October 31st 2009 @ 5:23pm | Report comment
One things for sure, the ELV’s were not trialed properly, and therefore people cannot say they didn’t work. And here in lies the problem: the attitude of not wanting to trial them.
The fact that only some were trialled made the game look worse at times and for certain teams. This has been bad publicity for the future of the ELVs.
But it was an opportunity lost, unless a couple of teams trial all the ELV’s together, at an international level, and give them full exposure for the world to see.
pothale said | November 1st 2009 @ 1:16am | Report comment
I reflected further on Spiro’s remarks admonishing me and others in our response to this article. I recalled a number of things from earlier this year regarding his view of the ELVs prior to them being adopted, after they were adopted, and his view of their positive effect on the NH game. And contrasted this with his parting shot in his response above that:
“Hopefully, after the 2011 Rugby World Cup the rugby community in the northern hemisphere will be more accepting of the ELVs reforms. But for the mean-time, they will have to look to southern hemisphere countries to play the exciting and expansive rugby all of us, from the north and south, want to see and play.”
In a number of articles earlier this year, Spiro’s view was that the adopted ELVs would create a new rugby era. That the NH unions had seen the benefits of the ELVs – as they were trialling them (even without the sanctions ELV), and that the game in the NH had improved as a result. He cited the Ireland v Wales 6 Nations decider as a classic example of how the retained ELVs worked. Here’s two quotes from March and April this year:
“The good news is that despite the rantings and predictions of all the ELVs possibly going under from The Usual Suspect, the IRB looks set to retain the bulk of 10 of them, dish 3 and review the two most contentious ELVs, the sanctions and free kicks ELVs and the matter of infringements at the tackle/ruck area. The review will surely work out a simplified and effective system to be applied by referees at the tackle/ruck area which was the intention of the ELVs requirements. So, presuming that in May the full board of the IRB will ratify the conference recommendations and also the clarifications to the tackle/ruck and the further examination and results of the sanctions and free kicks ELVs, we can claim that most of the best ELVs, one way or another, will become part of a new era of rugby.
The enthralling and thrilling Wales – Ireland Six Nations match, which was played with the retained ELVs (aside from the maul variation) showed how vibrant rugby can be if teams are allowed by the laws to play rugby. The comparison between this fateful match, certainly Ireland’s most important since its last Grand Slam in 1948, and the dire and dreary 2007 World Cup final under the old laws, is very invidious to the case of those who have ranted against the ELVs as somehow taking ‘our game’ away from them. With minutes to play and having drop-kicked his team into the lead, Stephen Jones, under Irish pressure kicked out on the full a ball that was passed back to him inside his 22. Ireland had a lineout inside the Welsh 22 and converted their lineout possession into a match-winning Ronan O’Gara dropped goal.”
The retained ELVs will create the new rugby era – Spiro 2 April 2009.
“It’s my contention that if the ELVs had been in force at Paris in 2007 we would have seen a final as robust, challenging, unrelenting and free-flowing as the Six Nations decider. The sanction against kicking out with impunity if the ball is brought back into the 22 enables sides to keep pressure on their opponents when they have established a strong field position. There was no way that Ireland could have got themselves in position to drop kick the winning goal from 50m out. The other aspect of the ELVs is that with the ball in play for much longer than in the past, you get what I call the ‘running of the bulls‘ syndrome coming into play. The big forwards tire, and if quick backs can get match-ups on them late in the match, as Tommy Bowe did in the lead-up to Ireland’s first try, there are gaps in the defensive line for the attacking side to exploit.” Ireland, Ireland, together standing tall. Spiro, March 24 2009
When the IRB adopted 10 of the 13 ELVs, and a new ruling was brought it around the breakdown, Spiro commented in an article on the Australian squad:
“When the IRB endorsed 10 out of the 13 ELVs into the laws of the game, they also announced a “new law ruling that could help clean up the breakdown. Under the ruling, if the tackler or first person arriving to the breakdown has their hands on the ball, they are now entitled to keep their hands on the ball AFTER the ruck has been formed. This new ruling will reward players like Smith, Pocock, Hodgson, Waugh (is this why he is in the squad?), who make a lot of tackles and are fast to the rucks. They won’t have to release if the ruck is formed if they are on their feet.”
In another article commenting on the SA squad prior to the 3N, he said:
“Also, a new ruling at the tackle (which allows a tackler to keep his hands on the ball from the time of the tackle, if he stays on his feet) is going to reward players like George Smith and Richie McCaw, who get their hands first on the ball a lot and, in the past, when a ruck is formed are told to “release it.”
My issue with the article above by Rugby Writer, is that it started out with its premise that SJ represents the entire view of the NH rugby unions, and he and his colleagues in the British press are responsible for the non-adoption or failure of the ELVs, particularly at the breakdown area. It seems to me that the argument or point of attack keeps changing every time this topic comes up, but the end outcome on where to lay the blame remains the same – Stephen Jones and the British media helping to ensure that the conservative die-hards in the British rugby unions get their way. And senior British writers are constantly cited to support this view – for the most part in the person that Spiro dubs the Usual Suspect, Stephen Jones.
(It’s interesting that if you do a search on the Roar, practically the only NH journalist that seems to generate discussion on this forum is Stephen Jones, and mainly on the basis of holding up his views for scorn, derision and detraction. He obviously does his job very well.)
Leaving aside that this blithely ignores opinion formers or commentators in other rugby countries such as Scotland, Ireland, France and Italy, the notion that one writer in particular exercises Rugbywriter and Spiro so much is worth scrutiny and commentary.
Secondly, if people care to search the very good archive facility that the Roar provides, they’ll find plenty of commentary on the success or otherwise of the ELVs from SH and NH contributors. And they’ll find that it doesn’t split neatly along hemispheric lines with the NH being painted in the bad boys corner as the nay-sayers of the entire project – as this article attempts to claim.
Thirdly, Spiro’s comment that ‘in the meantime’ we’ll have to look to the SH for “the exciting and expansive rugby we want to see and play” is not borne out by the facts – certainly not in the season just gone, or in 2009 so far. And it would appear to contradict his earlier comments on the exemplar NH game cited above.
Knives Out said | November 1st 2009 @ 3:36am | Report comment
I took Spiro’s response seriously for the amount of time it took me to type my response – and then I remembered that I was 25 and don’t believe in the tooth fairy or Santa Claus. His labelling of the article as incisive and significant reveals why the Pulitzer won’t be hitting Australia any time soon. We’ve been trolled, Pothale. No man of that age, and with that experience as a rugby ‘analyst’ could surely offer such a response without a smile on his face. We’ve been tricked, Rickrolled. Either that or Spiro seriously believes what he wrote. Surely that can’t be the case?!
A lucid and intelligent response, btw.
steve said | November 1st 2009 @ 3:31am | Report comment
I Just finished watching the currie cup final, there is nothing wrong with Rugby union, only something wrong with Australian rugby union.
Viscount Crouchback said | November 1st 2009 @ 4:03am | Report comment
…………..”The whole idea of the Stellenbosch project was to take a holistic (sorry about the jargon) approach to the laws and instead of making piece-meal changes that often contradicted each other bring in changes that were unified and coherent”…………….
This was precisely the problem, Spiro. The chaps behind the ELVs were too ambitious – some would say too arrogant – from the outset. If you look around the sporting world, you will see that the most effective rule changes have nearly always been piece meal and pragmatic – e.g. the change to the back pass rule in soccer, the addition of one point for a try in rugger, etc.
And there is a very good reason for this modest approach- namely, the law of unintended consequences. Most reforms, whether in politics or in sport, bring about changes that nobody could have foreseen or predicted. For instance, in rugby, the directive against sealing at the ruck – intended to free up the contest for possession – has had the unintended consequence of making teams less keen to run the ball back, since they fear losing possession in their own half. Likewise, the five metre scrum rule often just led to the Number 8 bashing it up the middle and taking the easy territorial gain rather than spinning it wide.
To go bonkers and seek to redraw the face of rugger in one fell swoop was simply asking for trouble. There is certainly a need for reform – you are quite right about that – but it needs sober-minded northern administrators to implement it. You chaps in the south are admirably ambitious and optimistic, but your relative youth breeds a brand of optimism that too often strays into the fantastic realm of Don Quixote – tilting at windmills and trying to change everything at once instead of opting for a calm, rational, measured approach.
Do not despair. I have confidence that the chaps at HQ recognise the need for reform and are prepared to show some good faith. Do not mistake the RFU’s inherent English scepticism – the successful product of hundreds of years of moderation and pragmatism – for stubborn conservatism. A brief glance at English history would tell you that the English are perfectly happy to reform, but they do so calmly and at their own pace and in such a way that precludes violent revolution and utopian fantasy. Twickers will intervene soon enough, but in a way that builds on the best traditions of English empiricism. Better to do it modestly and to do it right than to blunder down colonial blind alleys.
Knives Out said | November 1st 2009 @ 4:15am | Report comment
‘Better to do it modestly and to do it right than to blunder down colonial blind alleys.’
Very good.
pothale said | November 1st 2009 @ 8:59am | Report comment
I simply couldn’t add to that if I tried. It’s just so quintessentially British. Or rather peculiarly English.
I wouldn’t agree about the English appetite for reform, and the need to do it in a way that precludes violent revolution, but I won’t upset the Viscount’s dinner by delving into this thorny subject at this point, suffice to say that pragmatism sometimes occurs only after some violent revolution has brought it home to someone that sitting endlessly on the fence in the hope that the status quo prevails won’t actually work.
Knives Out said | November 1st 2009 @ 9:05am | Report comment
Perversely English.
I see your football prediction came through today. Good grief.
Bay35Pablo said | November 1st 2009 @ 5:52pm | Report comment
Viscount, one certainly hopes that was tongue in cheek, or I am going to throw up.
hayden said | November 1st 2009 @ 10:12am | Report comment
Great discussion. KO and Pothale – you guys have lives outside of this blog? Prolific outpourings.
I am a SH lad born and bred, who has been watching as much [ alas, not enough ] NH rugby and reading a few blogs from the Big Wet. It has given me a respect for NH rugby and its fans, most of whom are articulate, informed and care deeply about the future of the game. Just as the proposition that the ELV’s were some monstrous conspiracy by the SH to emasculate the NH game is preposterous, so too is the notion that the NH is hell bent on a ‘heads in the sand’ policy, or that Stephen ‘Taffy’ Jones represents anything but the lunatic fringe of British rugby opinion.
I actually agree with most of what the Viscount has to say, except of course for the more fanciful claims of English penchant for reform, but his point about gradual rather than sweeping change is a valid one. All our bleating about the state of the game, one change is needed. Bring back the ruck. In a recent survey, 95% of NZ rugby players polled said that was the one change they would like to see. Plus, in a recent Guardian interview, the Aussie great Chris Latham gives a great description of the differences in approach between the old ruck laws and the new.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2009/oct/31/chris-latham-australia-england
Knives Out said | November 2nd 2009 @ 9:15pm | Report comment
I’ve been staying up far too late recently, hayden. I think it’s the Autumn internationals – pre-match tension. I’m sure that there are a lot of antagonistic fans (and particularly journalists) on both sides of the equator, and there probably is a big NH v SH divide, which is occasionally fun but too often develops into harboured grudges. But all real rugby fans don’t have any real dislike of the other side and there probably shouldn’t be a NH v SH divide, but such is life. I’ve given up far too many hungover mornings to getting up early to watch Super rugby to start getting all Mussolini on yo’ asses. The same applies to the Currie Cup. Why would a rugby fan not want to watch good rugby?
pothale said | November 2nd 2009 @ 1:40am | Report comment
From IRB 8 April 2008.
Since 2005 the LPG has embarked on a journey that has entailed an extensive, unprecedented practical programme of trials of the ELVs in a number of competitions around the world. ELV trials have taken place in France, Scotland, South Africa, Ireland, England, New Zealand and Australia at various levels of the Game.
ELV Trial Programme:
South Africa – Stellenbosch University hostel competition
Scotland – Scottish Super Cup
England – County Championship
France – Regional competition
Ireland – Under 20 Provincial competition
Australia – Sydney and Brisbane Club Championships
Australia – Australian Rugby Championship
New Zealand – Division B of the NZ provincial Championship
SANZAR – Super 14 Tournament
South Africa – Currie Cup, Vodacom Cup
“Phase Two – Scottish Super Cup
The Scottish Rugby Union approved the implementation of the full ELVs in the new Scottish senior club Super Cup. The competition involved the top 10 Scottish clubs playing in two pools in the months of January to March 2007. The top two teams from the pools met in the final with Watsonians beating Boroughmuir 35-29.
Following a review of the Stellenbosch competition the Laws Project Group acknowledged that the ELVs in the tackle area – with no specific Laws to govern the contest – had not been wholly successful in that the tackler found it too easy to kill the ball legally and win a free kick as possession was not forthcoming for the team with the ball. Therefore there was a major difference in application of ELVs at the tackle and post-tackle environment. A lineout adjustment was also made.”
pothale said | November 2nd 2009 @ 8:40am | Report comment
Was still puzzled about the timing of things as outlined in this thread’s article and in some of the specific input from Spiro. So I did a bit of fact-finding – albeit limited to the Internet, and, therefore, not immune to errors.
Spiro said: “After 2007 (RWC) the IRB decided to have a total look at the laws instead of adopting the piecemeal approach. Experts from the major rugby power bloc, including northern hemisphere officials, worked out a coherent re-writing of the laws to provide for an easier game to referee and to play, one that kept all the main features of rugby union with the constant struggle for possession and a game for all physical shapes. They trialled their ideas at Stellenbosch Univeristy and took videos of all the matches played and analysed them and worked out refinements to their original reforms. ”
As I acknowledged earlier, if Spiro wrote about Stellenbosch at the time and came up with a moniker for the ELVs, I figured he must know his onions.
I don’t claim to be an expert, so from what I’ve researched and read about the chronology, the genesis of the ELV programme occurred at the Conference on the ‘Playing of the Game’ in Auckland in January 2004, when national coaches and administrators gathered following Rugby World Cup 2003 to debate the state of the game.
The participants requested that the IRB look into the Laws of the game and mandated it to undertake a major review in areas such as the lineout, maul and sanctions, including turning penalties for technical offences into free kicks.
The Laws Project Group was subsequently conceived in 2006, as were the Experimental Law Variations with initial trials starting in 2006. This is over a year before the RWC 2007 that Spiro refers to.
The Stellenbosch trials occurred over a 6-month period during 2006. There was a review of the ELVS following this.
Rugby Writer in his article above asserts:
“The next stage was to take the trial out of the University to higher level competitions around the world. So what happened? When the Project Group asked for permission, an ELV ambush happened. Jones and his fellow media cronies and the union blazers in the Northern Unions choked on their warm beer at the thought of such trials and decried the ELVs as a southern conspiracy. The continuing ELV program was cherry-picked: no breakdown ELVs were allowed to be trialled and what we ended up with was a watered down bunch of new Laws that have not really solved anything.”
Except if you check the facts as laid out by the IRB, what actually happened was that when the LPG went to trial them at a more senior level, the Scottish RFU signed up enthusiastically to trial all of the ELVs in the Scottish Super Cup trials which occurred directly afterwards in January – March 2007. 30 ELVs in total. No cherry-picking.
That was Phase Two. As a little addendum to that about negative reporting in British newspapers, The Scotsman carried an article on the Super Cup and its coach, Welshman, Eamonn John, who coached Boroughmuir in the Scotland Super Cup and won the final with the full ELVs. He had this to say at the start of the following season in 2008:
“The ELVs were certainly a big thing for us. In my first year we just missed relegation and then at the start of 2007 we had the ‘Super Cup’ and ELVs, and that was a real launchpad for us. The squad took to the open, quicker game, and turned the year around. But people shouldn’t get carried away with the ELVs. They will take a bit of getting used to and definitely have the potential to change our game for the better, but it’s still a game of rugby – you’ve still got to be able to win the ball, keep it and use it.
What they (the ELVs] are attempting to do is open up more space and if coaches want to be creative there are more opportunities there. One particular aspect that has intrigued me watching the Tri-Nations is the kicking. There will be a lot more kicking this season, more responsibility on players knowing where they’re kicking to and why, so you need a good kicking strategy.
As with any change there will be some who embrace it straight away and others who are cautious, but over the piece I welcome them and hope they improve the game.”
Phase Three of the Trials in 2007 involved a number of countries. However, according to the IRB, “not all the ELVs will be trialled in the various competitions around the world which will allow the Law Project Group to analyse the ELVs in isolation of each other to see what impact they have on the Game.”
Thus, Australia trialled some of the ELVs in the Shute Shield in April to June 2007. They tested the Flag judges; Inside 22; scrum offside; lineout; and sanctions.
At the same time, England agreed to trial some of the ELVs in their English County Championship. Interestingly they trialled the ELVs on Inside 22, scrum offside; breakdown; and the Maul.
Ireland and France followed suit and trialled some of the ELVS in their Federation Cup and the U19/U20s cups/competitions. Interestingly, these two unions trialled the least of the ELVs including the maul, corner post and scrum offside rules.
The last big union to sign up was New Zealand in May 2007 who trialled a lot of the ELVs (Flag judges; corner post; inside 22; lineout; scrum offside; breakdown; maul; sanctions) in Div B of their NPC.
The Australia Rugby Championship trialled more of the ELVs later that year.
So Scotland trialled them first in full professional status, and trialled all of them. England trialled some of them as well, including the breakdown ELVs. And the IRB says that the piecemeal trialling by various nations was done purposely to see some of the ELVs in isolation, during 2007.
The accusation was made that senior British Rugby writers did their best to denigrate the ELVs project. There’s no doubt that some writers were against them in articles they wrote during 2008 and 2009. However, it’s interesting to read the views of the Chief Rugby Writer of Scotland’s main newspaper, The Scotsman in this regard. He wrote a piece following the RWC 2007, when the ELV experiment was already underway. http://sport.scotsman.com/rugbyworldcup2007/Rugby-missed-a-chance-to.3473162.jp
So by end of 2007, after the World Cup, there was general clamour for improving the game. A request was made to have the ELVs trialled in the Super 14 competition and it was agreed to trial them.
I presume this is the point where Stephen Jones and the entire British media must have really set to work, rather than supposedly after the Stellenbosch trials in 2006, as RugbyWriter avers.
On 1st May 2008 the IRB Council decided to trial a number of Experimental Law Variations (ELVs) in the Northern Hemisphere in the 2008/2009 season. The ELVs relating to the playing of the game cover the corner flags, taking the ball into your own 22, pulling down the maul and the offside lines at the scrum were to be included. The sanctions at the breakdown were not included for test level – 13 of the proposed 23 ELVs were put forward for Global Trial.
With Scotland having already trialled all the ELVs, Ireland, England and Wales said they would find comps to trial the sanctions law. They didn’t – the Anglo-Welsh Cup refused to trial the sanctions law during the Global Trial. Ireland didn’t have a comp either to run at the same time.
The French ran an extended 6-month trial of the Super 14 variations of the ELVs in their Espoir Championships in Sept 2008. John O’Neill was happy about the package of ELVs being adopted for trial in the Northern Hemisphere: “The ARU has made it clear we consider the sanctions a key element in the ELVs package, so we applaud this breakthrough for the IRB in the northern hemisphere,” O’Neill said. “We have no hesitation saying we believe the sanctions deliver a better game. We were disappointed when northern hemisphere unions failed to offer up competitions where the sanctions could be trialled. Let us hope others will now follow the lead of the French.”
The Global Trial began on 1 August 2008 and ended in June of this year.
Knives Out said | November 2nd 2009 @ 9:10pm | Report comment
Bloomin’ eck, lad.
sledgeandhammer said | November 2nd 2009 @ 9:06pm | Report comment
The Global ELVs trial did not include the free kick sanction and so was compromised from the start.
Interestingly prior to this Sanzar conducted a survey with 264 players from South Africa, NZ and Australia. Of the 264 players surveyed, 85% believe the free kick variation has had an overall positive impact on the game. This is of note given the refusal of the English, Welsh and Irish Union’s to trial the free kick option, and the fact it was not included in the world wide trials which started in August 2008.
Furthermore, 83% of Players surveyed believed the ELVs had either a very or somewhat positive impact of the game of rugby overall.
An insightful and hard hitting analysis of the British (and clearly from this blog Irish) opposition to the ELVs was given by Simon Roberts, of the Western Mail in Wales. It makes fascinating reading, particularly as it is not written by a lowly southern hemisphere colonial. Enjoy:
Simon Roberts Western Mail
A conference held in Auckland, after the 2003 World Cup, decreed rugby’s laws had to be looked at, tidied up and simplified to make the game more attractive to a wider audience.
The experimental law variations, as they are known, have been a long time in the making but they have finally arrived and will be seen, in all their glory, across Europe this season.
But why the change? Isn’t rugby union fine as it is and why do we need all this tinkering?
To put it simply, the changes are designed to clear up some grey areas, dilute the influence of referees, and, more importantly, widen the appeal of the game.
Rugby union has been professional for only 13 years but, like all professional sports, it needs cold, hard cash to survive and flourish.
So how do you attract more revenue? You have to have a product that attracts a wider audience and is attractive to sponsors and broadcasters.
Rugby is now in the entertainment business and has to fight for every pound, euro, dollar and rand.
Rugby’s powerbrokers, especially those in the southern hemisphere, are aware of this than more anybody else.
That is why we have these current law changes have been introduced, but it is not the only reason.
The worrying trend of the last few Rugby World Cups has certainly had a bearing.
The last three World Cups, to your average sports fan, may have been full of drama and great sporting theatre, but great entertainment?
Hardly.
In 1999, the Wallabies won thanks to a rock solid defence.
England did the same in 2003 and South Africa did the same in 2007.
In fact, the trend for success is now so obvious and conservative that the four countries – England, South Africa, France and Argentina – could have swapped jerseys and you wouldn’t have noticed the difference.
All four delivered a perfect rugby prototype – giant pack, big defence and a big kicker – and were startlingly similar in approach and style.
The ELVs are designed to open the game up and deliver greater entertainment.
That is why England’s beloved rolling maul, or the tortoise as it’s called in France, can now be pulled down.
The sight of eight men in white, with their backsides in the air, trundling up field may be one for the rugby purist but it ain’t going to sell the game in the United States.
Quite a few Welsh forwards, who have been on the end of the English steamroller, will certainly be glad to know they can now collapse a maul legally.
The introduction of a new offside line, five metres from the back of a scrum, is another law designed to encourage sides to attack and limit the all enveloping defence.
Why? Because for the rugby purists here, the game is developing quite nicely.
The argument in the north is that winning is everything and it doesn’t matter how you achieve it.
Entertainment always comes a distant second.
The south knows that winning isn’t everything and selling the game to a wider audience will be rugby’s real success.
The biggest irony of all, though, is that for all the northern hemisphere’s obsession with winning, only England have won the World Cup.
The five other winners have all come from the southern hemisphere.
Some things never change.
pothale said | November 3rd 2009 @ 2:54am | Report comment
You’re right – some things will never change.
At least the point that it was England, Wales & Ireland who didn’t trial the free-kick sanctions at all seems to have got through. Not the entire Northern Hemisphere.
the above article sounds like a eulogy to the ELVs from a British rugby writer to me. Don’t see any “insightful and hard hitting analysis of the British (and clearly from this blog Irish) opposition to the ELVs” in it at all. It’s a comment on the game at the time.
TommyM said | November 2nd 2009 @ 10:02pm | Report comment
Nice.
Just out of interest, as someone who watched a LOT of the ARC (in fact I bought a digital receiver especially for it!) I seem to recall that the hands in the ruck rule initially meant that the ball was slowed down at the ruck a lot (not as effectively as NZ managed on Saturday granted), but that as the competition progressed the pendulum swung the other way and attacking teams were getting quick ball out to the back OR there was a very rapid turnover and counter attack. Hence why the comp was so GOOD!
BTW- I wonder if the ABC might replay the ARC some time… I’m sure it would garner a captivated audience!