Ah! Kids in a sweet shop. How touching. On Thursday, it was decided that many
of the controversial experimental law variations (ELVs) that the
International Rugby Board (IRB) has been trialling around the world will be
used in the Super 14 of 2008, for which all the teams are now preparing.
The team websites have been oozing drool. The Super 14 coaches in New Zealand
and Australia have been falling over themselves to see who can give them the
warmest welcome. They just can’t wait to get out there for a good old
frolic.
What’s happening?
THE SUPER 14 will not feature one of the most controversial experiments – that
you can handle the ball in the ruck. Nor will there be a problem with some
of the sound ancillary ideas – that touch judges can flag for offside, for
example. There will be more controversy over the ELVs that allow the quick
throw-in not to be straight, that set the defensive lines at scrums five
metres back (instead of at the rear feet), that dramatically reduce the
number of full penalty offences and others that appear to change the game’s
character. The new laws, so one Kiwi coach said, “are meant to speed up the
game as well as reduce the number of penalties and emphasise back play”. He
is quite wrong, but more of that later.
There has also been excited chatter that if the ELVs are applied, the ball
will be in play longer. Let’s not wipe the cheesy grins off their southern
hemisphere faces by pointing out that nobody has ever established that
faster rugby is better rugby. If they had, then the Keystone Cops would be
world champions and we may as well play in running spikes (that would stop
people lying on the ball, I suppose). And in rugby, as in life, if you
reduce the number of penalties, all you do is increase the number of
offences.
I cannot think of anything more fatuously bogus than some anorak with a
stopwatch telling us how long the ball is in play. How long was the ball in
play in last season’s thunderous Munster-Leicester match? About 10 seconds,
it felt like, but it was a classy, compelling wonderful game. Ball in play?
When teams labour horribly with those dullard six-inch pick-and-drives
around the fringes, the ball is in play all right. It is what happens
when the ball is in play that counts.
The most excited coach of all is the Australian Ewen McKenzie, of the
Waratahs. Reflecting on the past decade, he said: “We very much pioneered
some new directions of the game and actually pushed the limits . . . in
terms of laws. Then there was a conscious decision three or four years ago
to actually realign and make sure that we [were] lining up with the world
game.” God bless him. Stalin paid people millions to rewrite history like
that. McKenzie’s so-called “pushing the limits” is a reference to a
desperate period from 1996, when the Super 12, pushed by Australia, decided
to chase false gods of entertainment by telling referees to ignore laws they
deemed inconvenient and produced a sickly, gaudy, one-dimensional brand of
nothing. It had around 20 tries per match, which ignored practically all the
key phases of forward play.
And the “realignment?” That came when they realised the shambles they had
created. It cost New Zealand World Cups and it caused Australia years of
forward humiliation, right up to the World Cup quarter-final of October 2007
when England’s Andrew Sheridan and Phil Vickery demolished the Wallaby pack.
The Australian props, children of the sickly era, would not have been good
enough to play in English regional leagues.
It is, therefore, amazing how similar are the excited noises this week. Even
now, people cannot see that the best way to free your back divisions is to
power up your forward pack. When Australia played England, their back-line
was menacing. Chris Latham, Stirling Mortlock and Matt Giteau were two
classes above anything England had to offer. Yet they never had a chance.
They were killed, not so much by Sheridan and company but by their own
technocrats and marketeers, who ruined their forward play. Clearly, too,
Australia and probably New Zealand see the ELVs as a way of depowering the
packs of England, France and Argentina.
Who’s afraid of Sheridan and his ilk? They are.
The view from Down Under
THE AUSTRALIAN view of the ELVs is not altruistic. It was summed up by John
Mitchell, the Kiwi coach of Perth’s Western Force. “It is essential . . .
for us in Australia, where we are competing with the other contact sports,
and it is important that the game is a lot more free-flowing.” In other
words, they think they have to compete with rugby league.
Again, the myopia is staggering. Admittedly, Australia is the one place on
earth that has to compete with rugby league in this way on domestic levels,
even though not at Test level, where the hurtling decline of the Kiwi team
reduces the ever-shrinking world of true Test teams in rugby league to two.
All other parts of the world have decided that far from patronising
followers with simplicity and “free-flowing rugby”, they will retain each
and every distinguishing feature – and then some – and also burnish rugby’s
sacred claim to be a sport for all shapes and sizes.
In any case, the laws are meant to apply to all 115 countries where rugby
union is played, and played in all climates, on all surfaces, with all the
national peculiarities and historical strengths and mindsets, all the myriad
different philosophies of coaches and appetites of spectators and television
audiences, played by the pros and the sixth XV, in all the frustrating and
magnificent panoply of the game. Not because the Aus-sies have a local
difficulty. Thank god that synchronized swimming isn’t huge in Australia, or
they would be demanding that we all play rugby in waterproof make-up with
our feet in the air.
The official line
EARLIER this year I sat down with Paddy O’Brien, the IRB referees manager, and
Greg Thomas, head of communications. Both had redefined their roles by their
own excellence. We spoke about the advent of the ELVs. They explained the
setting up of the Laws Project Group (LPG), led by Rod Macqueen of (you’ve
guessed it) Australia.
I wrote at the time that while the group, for me, had too many dreamers and
too few professional hard-nuts, at least they were trying. The IRB men
emphasised that any law change adopted must conform to the IRB charter,
which sets down that rugby must remain a game for people of “different
physiques” and also must maintain a full contest for possession in the
forwards – neither concept would survive an onslaught from the southern
droolers.
We spoke for over an hour on the ELVs. Not once during the conversation did
either IRB man talk about chasing entertainment or about the ball in play,
or about “emphasising back play”. I am not saying they did not wish for a
better game, of course they did, but the role they see for the ELVs seems
profoundly different from the way they are being seen in the 2008 Super 14.
As O’Brien said, he wanted to “take the referee out of the equation”. In other
words, for the ELVs to simplify not the game but rugby’s laws, so many of
which depend on the individual whim of the referee. Thomas on Friday
restated the idea of “simplifying the game for the referee and the players”.
But two things worry me. First, the latest report from the ELV trials held to
date, and written by the LPG (reporting on their own work), lists no
evidence that any of the experiments (some radical, others bizarre) in 15
areas of the law have failed. That suggests they are moving towards
recommending a blanket application of the whole lot. That disturbs me. To be
fair, they conclude that the ELVs do not, necessarily, depower forward
phases, and can augment them. There will be a raft of free kicks under them,
but you can opt for a raft of scrums.
But what also disturbs me is the unholy, if unwitting, alliance the IRB are
striking. The gushing reaction of the south to the ELVs is, in many ways, a
hijack of the IRB’s original concept. But once those laws have had a full
season in the Super 14 (and last week, the idea that they be applied also to
the 2008 TriNations was being openly and publicly aired), then they become
the status quo and there is nothing so difficult to shift. In my
investigations round the major European unions, I found in some cases a
remarkable lack of grasp of the whole ELV process. Some unions do not even
have a technical department to talk about them, or to stand against a
railroading process by the south, which may well happen.
Thomas insists that “there is no cajoling . . . the IRB wants to get it right.
With Sanzar choosing not to test all ELVs in the 2008 Super 14, the IRB will
look at other tournaments in 2008 to complete testing. Complete trial
information . . . will be provided to the IRB Council”. The council has the
final vote.
A northern perspective
OTHER coaches are a lot less excited. Shaun Edwards of Wasps warns that rugby
could be “reaping a whirlwind created by those who make a habit of tinkering
when it’s unnecessary”. He also makes an even more salient point. “If it’s
not bust, don’t mend it.” As I have said several times recently, I cannot
remember a time when rugby was in such a boom period. It is eating up
countries all over the world, it is outgrowing English and French stadiums.
There is a rush of youngsters, women players, spectators, burgeoning
television deals. We have just had a World Cup which, until it reached the
final, was brilliant. We certainly have a game that can be brilliant in
different styles (and poor in any style, of course). Why are we talking
radical change?
And finally, are the IRB ignoring their own history? It is full of law changes
that proved wildly counterproductive. Syd Millar, the outgoing IRB chairman,
said to me in 1997: “Rugby law should be left to evolve. We must never force
it.”
The World Cup final was a kick-fest. Thomas reveals that the ball was kicked
91 times, a grim statistic. But perhaps here is one reason. Not so long ago,
the IRB asked that players isolated when caught in possession should be
ruthlessly penalised if they hold on to the ball. As ever, referees
overreacted to new measures. These days, you get pinged to high heaven just
for being isolated, even if you have released. When it comes to a massive
occasion, teams are in living dread of the turnover, of being penalised by
the referee. I sensed that same fear in the World Cup final, and it was a
fear that led to the kicking barrage. Just one IRB measure, made with good
intentions, having the opposite effect. Beware.
The final word
Some of the ELVs are excellent, particularly the procedural ones. But I will
need all the evidence in the world to acclaim the radical ones and I refuse
entirely to accept that they should be applied in total. I also reject the
idea that law changes must ever be forced, and reject the idea that, at
present, they are needed anyway.
Finally, I have the nagging fear that below the equator, we are again going to
be told what true entertainment is and that we are not going to be in the
least entertained by it; and that once again, rugby is going to go flouncing
down a blind alley. Australia and New Zealand will be the losers, of course.
But so will rugby.
Lawless laws
Far too often, the International Rugby Board has changed laws to improve the
game only to find that the changes have been counterproductive
- Use it or lose it The IRB wanted to prevent the ball being trapped in
mauls, so they brought in the use-it-or-lose-it law. Previously, possession
after indeterminate mauls had been given to the team going forward, but the
new law gave possession to the team which had not taken the ball in.
Forwards were no longer needed to commit to driving the maul forward, so
they scattered across the field, cluttering it and changing the face of the
game. They are still there
- Replacements tide Because there was so much skulduggery afoot when
replacements could only be used to replace injured players, the IRB acted to
allow replacements at any time. However, this measure has dynamited the
closing stages of matches, with inferior teams able to bring on an army of
reinforcements
- Beware the turnover The IRB demanded that all players isolated in a
tackle should be penalised if they failed to release the ball. This is so
strictly adhered to by referees that players are terrifi ed of being caught
in possession and resort to kicking as a safer option
- Moving the corner post The corner flag is moved back two metres, and
provided players are not grounded on or over the sideline as they touch
down, they will now be awarded a try. At present, if they strike the flag
before touchdown, the score is ruled out
Experimental laws
These are the main areas for experimental laws
Breakdown: There will be a new offside line at the tackle. Defenders
have to track back to enter the tackle area from their own side. If the ball
is unplayable at a breakdown, the side that did not take the ball in to
contact receive a free-kick. There are only three penalty offences at the
breakdown. These involve offside and players on the ground preventing
release
Maul: Defending players can pull down the maul. If a maul becomes
unplayable, the team not in possession at the start receives a free-kick
Scrum: The offside line for players not in the scrum and who are not
the scrum-half is fi ve metres behind the hindmost foot of the scrum
Touch judges: Can indicate offside at the tackle
Quick throw: At a lineout, the ball can be thrown straight or
backwards if the lineout is not already formed
