Major unions battle over rule changes

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The IRB is holding an important conference this week where the experimental law variations (ELVs) will be discussed by all the major unions around the world.

It will be the first step towards the decision on which ones remain and which go.

For the most part the ELVs are not bad.

The intention was to make the game faster but a faster game doesn't necessarily make for a more entertaining match.

A lot of the entertainment comes out of the structure and what has happened through the ELVs adopted in the southern hemisphere is the structure hasn't been adversely affected.

Looking through the Super 14, there has been a lot of criticism of forwards cluttering up the midfield and to be fair, that criticism has been going on for a long while. But the ELV that allows mauls to be pulled down has affected the game in a really bad way.

Mauling is a highly skilled activity. The best opportunity you get to do a maul is from a lineout. But because you can pull a maul down, usually the attacking team have five or six players in it who are collapsing to the ground while the defending team may only have a couple of players in it.

So right away you've got a mismatch to the advantage of the defenders. But if mauls came back because you weren't able to collapse them, it would create more space out wide.

One of the great things about rugby is it's a multi-skilled sport and there are different shaped players required. If you take the emphasis away from mauling and to a certain extent scrummaging, you end up with pretty sterile players like you have in rugby league and rugby doesn't need to go down that path.

There was concern the skill of scrummaging was going to be lost under the ELVs. But the 5m rule, which is the distance the backs have to be behind the back of the scrum, has meant teams have leant towards taking scrums when they have free kicks. With the 5m rule scrums have been empowered.

I was concerned at teams being able to choose how many players they want in lineouts. But from what I've seen teams with good lineouts have them regardless of what their numbers are.

It's going to be a massive bun fight at this conference. The ELVs have been derided by the northern hemisphere, through ignorance.

I've played through a few different rules in rugby and they all brought their own issues. Everyone is saying the midfield is clogged up with too many forwards, but they were saying that 20 years ago. Same with the breakdown.

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Dan   #1   09:59 am Apr 01 2009

It is true that some of the ELVs have not worked as intended and should be scraped. However the NH has not wanted a bar of them from the start, even before they were introduced. I believe this is simply because they are the SHs idea. Therefore they have looked down there noses at the proposals through pure arrogance as well as ignorance.

It is this ignorance and arrogance that sees the NH routinely beaten by the SH, the Lions usually tamed and the fact that the attention seeking Stephen Jones is considered one of Britain’s top rugby columnist.

ELVs or not the ignorance and arrogance will go on unabated. As will the losing.

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