Final verdict on elvs may cause major split
It may be Christmas but Irish internationals Ronan O'Gara, Rory Best, and Paul O'Connell are already looking forward to the start of the Summer Bud Light Tag season. The 23 venues for the Tag season were announced yesterday which will see over 1,000 teams and 12,000 players take to the field from May to August in the non-contact version of the game.
Once upon a time in rugby, it was the JPRs, the AJFs and the CMHs who made the headlines. Today, one set of initials dominates our game and it has nothing whatsoever to do with union greats from a bygone age.
Over the past 12 months the ELVs have entered our consciousness. The Experimental Law Variations are what they say on the tin and, as one who supports their trialling, long may the International Rugby Board be proactive in its thinking.
Unless any governing body is prepared to move and change with the times whatever it oversees is doomed to eventual failure. If, on the back of the trials in the respective hemispheres, mutually agreed changes become globally agreed law, then it can only be good for the game. Quite how many will succeed, of the 13 being tried, I'm not too sure.
There is no doubt having to retreat an extra five metres behind the scrum, the ability to have quick line-outs and the inability to kick directly to touch from ball passed back into the 22 have all been widely accepted as positives. These will come rigidly into place when the IRB sets up court in the spring.
Regret
Beyond that, I regret to say, I'm not so sure. I say regret because, as a former back, my take on certain ELVs -- specifically the maul -- would be at odds with most, if not all, of my forward-playing colleagues.
Even within this parish two rugby writers would offer two very different points of view. To Hugh Farrelly (former Dolphin second-row) the maul is "a beautiful thing. A symmetrical, scientific organism that required skill and determination in its conception and execution with equal measures of organised ardour needed for its disruption".
To this former pretty-boy back, the maul represented a long-established evil whereby the donkeys (forwards) exhausted every last ounce and every last inch until they could go no further before releasing it to the fairies (backs), who got pulverised on receipt of cul-de-sac ball.
To forwards it has long represented a thing of beauty, despite the legalised obstruction so central to it.
By contrast, dare a midfield back run a decoy line -- without any meaningful contact -- and invariably he gets pinged. Where is the consistency in application of the law?
For that fundamental reason I have supported the notion of minimising the power of the maul, allowing the opposition pull it down as the first form of defence.
Unfortunately, at this mid-point in the season, I concede the knock-on impact has been dire. It is the beauty of the trial process that we quickly get to see what works and what doesn't. So while the maul is still some way akin in excitement to watching paint dry, it is a necessary evil which must remain.
The alternative is what we are now witnessing week in, week out, whereby less bodies committed at the breakdown represents increased traffic across the park. Welcome to the world of aerial ping-pong.
I never thought I would say it but give me the essential property of a maul before the nonsensical kicking dirge now tearing the heart and soul out of the game. I would qualify that somewhat by pointing a very definite finger at the abysmally poor standard of tactical kicking being accepted by coaches.
Save for pumping iron in state of the art gyms, what are these full-time rugby professionals doing 24/7?
From the time I was knee-high to a grasshopper I was brought up on the principle that, aside from clearing your own lines to touch, when you kicked away possession it was with the sole purpose and intention of winning it back. So much of today's kicking from hand is aimless and purposeless. Right now, rugby union is in danger of becoming an abject bore.
Just this week, Stade Francais coach and former Waratahs mentor Ewen McKenzie joined the debate when criticising the northern hemisphere nations for not going the full hog in ELV implementation. In his opinion, without changing penalties to free-kicks the northern hemisphere experiment is largely a sham.
It is his belief that if you convert most penalties into free-kicks you get a different game; one that would make less stress for referees.
"It would mean less stress for the referee because he is not giving the game away by handing over three points every time. He can be more severe, so you do get some more discipline in a game if you need that."
It is a view I do not share and, in common with administrators in this part of the world, I believe McEwen's take on differential penalties should be avoided at all cost. Far from getting more discipline it would have quite the reverse effect, with teams committing infringements ad nauseam safe in the knowledge that the three-point penalty won't follow.
Severe
If he means by "being more severe" the referee can use the yellow and red cards more, then why not simply go the same road as rugby league in reducing the numbers on each team by two, thereby creating that much-needed space in one fell swoop.
I am not suggesting we go that way but if you are to take that line to its logical conclusion then rugby union must take its lead from league in that worldwide search for bums on seats.
Introduction of the ELVs was never set to be black or white but, in using them competitively, we are finding out pretty definitively those that work and those that don't.
As of now the jury remains out, but if it is the desire of the southern hemisphere to see these through close to their entirety, then there could be a seriously damaging split when the final verdict is returned come May.
(By the way, for the younger brigade, JPR is the great JPR Williams, AJF is the legendary Sir Anthony O'Reilly and CMH is the one and only Mike Gibson).
Golden opportunity for club rugby lost
Granted it is the last weekend before Christmas, but could someone please explain why we have a near complete Senior blackout on the club scene? And yes, I know the Munster Senior Challenge Cup semi-finals are taking place.
At a time when they are crying out for media coverage and a decent fighting chance, there is not an AIL fixture in sight.
Instead, as highlighted time and again, come Heineken Cup and, indeed, Magners League time, Dublin, in particular, is littered with AIL games running parallel to and within a half-decent punt of the main D4 event.
In fairness to Munster, they at least took a step in the right direction last weekend when, with Clermont Auvergne at Thomond Park on the Saturday, Dolphin, Shannon and UL Bohemians all host-ed Division 1 games and Bruff entertained Highfield in Division 2 a day later.
I know I risk the wrath of women-folk everywhere, but surely today's blank card represents a golden oppor-tunity for club rugby lost.
- Tony Ward
