Peter Bills: IRB bashers need to take look in mirror
The gnashing of teeth and loud wailing from on high among certain members of the Fourth Estate based in the northern hemisphere about the state of the game must be inducing complete bewilderment around the offices of the IRB in Dublin.
A hue and cry has started, a cause celebre begun. What have those wicked witches at the IRB done to OUR game, they wail? A try has become as rare as a full river in drought-stricken central Australia, games are being kicked to death by the fear factor.
It's all the fault of the IRB; they've done nothing, sat on their hands and just let the game descend into its current mess. Terrible, terrible people, shouldn't be in charge of a chip shop, never mind a world sport. Huff, huff...
Of course, by never letting the facts get in the way of a good story, these gentlemen of the profession are able to circumnavigate a few rather important points. In the process, they are also rewriting history.
It is now nearly nine years since a large group of people involved in rugby union went to the IRB and expressed their concerns about the game. This group included some eminent figures -- coaches of national teams, outstanding international players past and present and many others. In other words, people who ought to know what they were talking about. There were concerns expressed, for example, about too much kicking and the influence of penalty goals.
So what did the IRB do? Sit on their hands and do nothing, as was alleged this week by one critic of clearly ageing memory? Er, no. The game's ruling body set up a major conference, in New Zealand, to allow these people to air their views and concerns to a wider audience. From that, came the idea to create a group of eminent rugby people to look at how the game might be improved.
They included former international coaches Rod MacQueen, who guided Australia to their 1999 Rugby World Cup triumph, widely respected South African coach Ian McIntosh, the ex-Toulouse and French national coach Pierre Villepreux, former Scotland coach Richie Dixon and former Test match referee Paddy O'Brien, now the IRB's referee manager. None of whom knew anything about rugby, of course, in the eyes of their present-day critics.
What this group came up with was a series of ideas for experimentation. They never said every single one would work, but simply suggested they should be trialled to ascertain their effectiveness. These became known as the ELVs.
In rugby's new world, south of the equator, they plunged in, as is their way. North of the equator, in the old world, they took one look and rejected them. Oh yes, they might have asked Old Rubberduckians' 4th XV to try them out once or twice. But at the top level? You cannot be serious.
They were condemned without trial, rubbished on the basis of a few southern hemisphere games seen on TV.
In the southern hemisphere, the reaction was interesting. One or two of us took the trouble to go down to Super 14 and Tri-Nations games that year to study these ideas up close. Players like Springbok scrum-half Fourie du Preez started off by saying they were the ruination of rugby, that you couldn't play under them.
Potential
Yet 12 months later, Du Preez was one of many who had changed his mind. All Blacks coach Graham Henry and Australia's inventive coach Robbie Deans were others who welcomed some of these new ideas, saying they had the potential to create a better game.
But the diehards in the north knew better and they had the voting numbers that counted. When the most significant of the new trialled laws were thrown out, one leading southern hemisphere rugby figure told me: "Give it six months and they'll be moaning at what they've got as a product up in the north."
His words have proved spot on. By no means every ELV tried was feasible, although it was clear that after several months the initial headless-chicken syndrome had waned. Those who said it was the end of scrums were proven hopelessly wrong. But I continue to insist that within the framework they offered, a far more entertaining game was possible to procure.
So we can blame short-sighted northern hemisphere officials within the individual unions, players who carped at the experimental laws (often without having even played them) and some media commentators. But one group we can't blame is the IRB. They tried to make it a better game, but too many influential voices in this part of the world wouldn't listen. That wasn't the IRB's fault.
- Peter Bills
Irish Independent
