ELVs will pull up the grassroots

Wednesday 30th April 2008

There is an air of aggression and expectancy building in Europe, and not just because of the pending climax of the Guinness Premiership, Top 14 and Heineken Cup.

The IRB council meets on Thursday to vote on the Experimental Law Variations. Given the recent positive feedback from the Super 14 coaches, it seems likely that the global trial of the full family of laws may be ushered in for the start of the next European season after all - the initial date for a decision had been set for November, meaning a trial only in the 2009/10 season.

Opposition in the north is stiff.

"The WRU is firmly of the view that it is not in the best interests of the game that these laws are introduced en masse at the start of next season," said WRU Chief Roger Lewis. "Moreover, some members of our group have been surprised by the apparent commercial reasons behind why these critically important issues have been driven through so relentlessly. The WRU sincerely hopes that good sense will prevail and that the integrity of the game is upheld."

In England - or Wales, depending on the time of year - Wasps and Wales coach Shaun Edwards also raised his qualms.

"I like the contrast in rugby union. There is beauty in slow parts of the game. A maul, for example, is one of the most technically difficult things to do. It might be static, but it's skilful. I'm very wary of these proposals."

In England, the RFU and Guinness Premiership clubs have already registered their non-confidence in the new laws, and with the critical meeting looming, are now setting up a website - www.rfusurvey.co.uk - to garner opinions from fans and grassroots players alike - the lifeblood of the game that will end up being the most confused and damaged by the storm-force wind of change.

"One of the key messages delivered to the Six Nations representatives on the ELVs is that the basic fabric of the game has remained unchanged, " read a statement released by the IRB recently.

"The data collected clearly shows that the set piece and contest for the ball, which define the game, remain important elements. Indeed, there is a greater contest for the ball and a better chance to force turnovers."

The new laws are supposed to speed up the game, and make decisions more simple for referees. That's all very well for those who have rugby as a job, but the evident confusion means that the unseen hobbyist levels are suffering greatly.

As a coach of an age-group team in one of the countries trialling the new laws, it has been a very trying time. I have usually relied upon tactics similar to Munster's: basically several successive close-quarter rucks to suck in the defence and keep the ball, followed by a backs move to exploit the created space. I have a decent set of backs and a tough but not huge pack, therefore the need to keep the ball close and controlled is paramount if I am to be able to give my backs a bit of space to strut their stuff in. It takes time and patience for my team to be able to do it, and it ain't always pretty, but under the old laws it was eminently possible.

But the new laws do not allow for such tactical variances or control. Allowing hands in the ruck has killed the possibility of setting up quick ruck balls where the opposition could not steal the ball or slow it down while they steam-roller their tall timber in and over. Free kicks simply give the biggest guys a chance to wade in time and time again. Collapsing the mauls means all the time spent coaxing my forwards into the necessary communication and co-ordination required to roll a maul on an inexorable path to the tryline has been wasted.

We've scored some cracking tries - exactly the kind of thing the IRB thinks the new laws would usher in - but most of the time we end up physically bludgeoned. There is no scope for smaller teams under the new laws, a catastrophic waste of talent at age-group level. More and more teams are playing a similar style: basically, 15 players running straight lines into contact, or to put it another way: rugby league. It's all about big runners now, very one-dimensional, no room to think your way out. And not a game for all shapes and sizes any more.

It is also more about fitness. Smaller teams cannot withstand a battering at grassroots level every week. Again, it's all very good for the pros who can train to counter such disadvantages, but what of the amateurs who sacrifice an awful lot just to get to training once or twice a week and play on the weekends? Where can they slot in?

Then there is the refereeing. One referee I have had twice recently does a decent job, and it is not our place to criticise him - it's not like he is a pro - but the muddle in his mind over when hands are allowed and when they are not, what is a free-kick and what is a penalty, where the 'gate' is for entry to a ruck, where the offside line is etc etc is evident to all watching, merely by the semaphore-like signals he makes during game-time decisions. The fans behind are screaming for offsides and hands in the ruck where there are none and not screaming when there blatantly are, which does nothing for his psyche, and you can't expect every referee to be a stubborn, crowd-deaf, Kaplan. Nobody really knows what's going on - least of all the players, who can't play with their heart at the moment because their head is too confused. For amateurs putting life and limb on the line every weekend, that is a crying shame.

"I'm concerned about the process by which this is happening and the fact that with these laws we might produce only one type of rugby. What we've got now is variety. Players can make choices. Those choices will go out of the window," said Wasps coach Ian McGeechan, one of the most knowledgeable tactical analysts of the game around. He is correct - it gets more obvious the further away from the highest level you get.

Where I coach, the new laws are now in - there seems to be no turning back right now. But the north still has a chance to veto the global shift, and Lewis gave a couple of excellent reasons for doing so.

"We need to interpret the laws we've currently got consistently. Let's do that first and foremost," he said. "The ELVs seem to be a knee-jerk reaction to the World Cup where there was a lot of kicking. On the other hand South Africa won the tournament and they were the best-balanced side and played some of the best rugby as well as kicking a lot. Wales kicked more than they've ever done in the Six Nations yet scored some of the most breathtaking tries and were deservedly champions. Apparently the ELVs are intended to increase ball-in-play time, but the ball-in-play time in Wales' games in one half alone was around 33 minutes. How much ball-in-play time do you need?"

And on the other side of the coin? Of the pros who play the new laws? Here's Bryan Habana's view: "It has created a game which is closer to rugby league. Defences are much stronger and there is less space. It has created more kicking in the game, there is more time in play, but it is very much like rugby league, stop-start, stop-start."

It has created more kicking at the highest level, and at the levels below, it has changed the nature of the game, the essence of the game. The tactical chess element where a mixture of courage and brains could grab an unlikely win is gone, now it is just a free-for-all, where only the physically biggest survive. It is this tactical essence, the ability to use one of two facets of a wonderfully multi-faceted game to your own specific advantage, that those in the north are striving to protect and that the new laws have seriously undermined. It is this tactical essence that makes our game so fascinating. May 1 could see rugby change forever.

By Danny Stephens