Should the ELVs be abandoned?
An article in The Sunday Times yesterday suggested that a decision at this week’s IRB meeting will confine the majority of the Experimental Law Variations to the bin.
The major rugby unions are meeting in London to decide whether to retain the new rules that have brought about some fairly horrendous rugby matches over the last year and a half, and should they be abolished, I imagine the news will be met with some relief, judging by previous debate on The Rugby Blog.
I have my fingers crossed, and long for the day when I can watch a driving maul rumbling towards the opposition line, drawing in defenders and creating space for the wide men, listening to the roar of the crowd and marvelling at the skill and strength of the players.
The rule that allows the driving maul to be collapsed was derided from the outset due to the potential injuries that can occur. Whilst I’ve heard some stories of broken legs and twisted knees, opposition to this law now seems to stem from the effects that it’s having on the game. Defending teams can commit two or three people to bring the maul to a halt whilst everyone else fans out waiting to absorb the next wave of attack.
The ’sanctions’ law is also likely to be withdrawn after its trial in the Southern Hemisphere only. With most penalty offences only punished with a free kick, defences can again commit a small number of players to slow the ball down whilst everyone else spreads out to stifle any sort of interesting play.
With these laws favouring the defending sides, players have been unwilling to try their luck in counter-attacking from inside their own half and the scourge of today’s game at nearly every level is the seemingly endless spells of kicking. Watching the back three booting the ball to each other is only enjoyable if you look at the bemused faces of the forwards running back and forth in the middle of the park.
So what is the verdict? Should every rule be abandoned? How about the 5 metre rule at the scrum? Have we given the ELVs a fair trial?
March 30th, 2009 at 5:52 pm
Speaking strictly as a hooker, you understand. Are you now telling me that there are rules in rugby? Are there things that should not be done? Oh NO! Can you no longer swing on your props shoulders and try and retrieve the ball from the oppositions No. 8 with your feet. You’ll be telling me you cannot grab the loose heads balls next, to put him off his stroke. Rules are for the obeyance of fools and but only for the guidance of wise men and hookers.
March 30th, 2009 at 6:17 pm
Abandon the pass back to your own 22 and you can’t kick direct to touch one immediately in fact make it retrospective replay the last 5 mins of Wales v Ireland and give us back our triple crown
In fact that one rule rather than making people run more appears to have contributed the most to the aerial ping pong infesting the game.
March 30th, 2009 at 6:19 pm
Fakey I’m glad I never faced you , not that I got anywhere near the front row players even in open play if I could help it
March 30th, 2009 at 6:36 pm
Pontylad I tried and I tried to get out of the front row, as you will see in the “One for Pontylad” on my site.
They just wouldn’t have it. once a hooker always a hooker and it is just one hell of a job to get off the game. Trouble is stuck in that front row you ain’t got a clue whats going on, by the time you get up. I should have been a fly half as you will see when you read all about my attempts to get off the game. Mind you I was fifty before I found out that pubs sold halves and singles too!!
March 30th, 2009 at 7:00 pm
The maul definately needs to be brought back a.s.a.p. for the reasons stated above. As far as the ping-pong stuff that can easily be arridicated by making the kcker or anybody beind the kicker having to run the rest of their team on-side as it used to be. That would quickly alleviate any f that nonsence as the receiver of the kick will have far more time and space to counter-attack, where at the moment all the forwards have to do is be the 10 yards back.
March 30th, 2009 at 10:34 pm
Pontylad I was a pussycat, honestly, by comparison to some of the animals I came across in the front row, but that is the strange thing about the game. One of my pals who played 1st XV rugby all his days was quite simply the niceswt guy you could ever meet, until he pulled a rugby shirt on and he became something and someone else, little more than bloody evil. Don’t get me wrong I never played anything to lose, but I could never get quite that worked up, at the level I played at, whilst some of ‘em took it so seriously you would have thought their life depended on a game of rugby. Oh! and just for the record, getting back to the thread. I agree with everything that you and paynie have said, with the exception of you lot having your crown back, until you win it undeer the rules of the house at time of playing. NEXT YEAR? Who knows? Maybe, maybe not
April 4th, 2009 at 9:40 am
Fakey can you post the link to your site I seem to have lost it , I did have it in work(I do some now and then in the off season ! ) but they cleared off a lot of non work related stuff because of huge rumours of some April 1st internet virus that was going to crash the system -it never turned up in fact.
-ta
July 15th, 2009 at 10:49 am
dam it it is simply why cant the northern hemisphere fat cats figure it out. Keep the good biff the bad. we no witch ones work(dont we)