Paranoid androids up north have got it all wrong on the new laws
Paranoid androids up north have got it all wrong on the new laws
Phil Wilkins | April 30, 2008
IT IS springtime in England and the land's rugby union correspondents have spent too much time strolling among the daffodils, for collective madness has set in along Fleet Street with their rantings about the imminent death and destruction of the game.
Now, according to Paul Ackford, the once mighty England second-rower and eminent Telegraph rugby writer, the Experimental Law Variations (ELVs) will bring the world to an end.
"Armageddon comes wrapped in revolution," he pontificated in Monday's Herald. The International Rugby Board's high priests sit in judgment on Thursday about introducing some or all of the ELVs on a 12-month probationary period, or scrapping them.
The Australian Rugby Union's John O'Neill is in London, treading on egg shells so as not to alienate allies and sympathisers with outspoken comments about the worth of the proposed laws, unwilling to re-create the furore which flared into a blazing inferno with his tongue-in-cheek remark before last year's World Cup that "whether it's cricket, rugby league or rugby union, we do all hate England". A humorous comment became the torch and inspiration for England's powerful, scrum-driven 12-10 defeat of Australia in the quarter-final in Marseille.
Despite the evidence and analysis of every game from last year's Australian Rugby Championship, a Stellenbosch University competition in South Africa and a second-tier New Zealand tournament, and without one worthy experimentation in a tournament in Europe, the game's hierarchy is about to adjudicate on the fate of the ELVs. Consider the Super 14 now being played under the ELVs by the leading provinces of Australia, New Zealand South Africa, and the rugby public's willingness to understand and embrace the law refinements.
Declining crowd attendances, loss of revenue and criticism of the game for the perception it was boring were the overwhelming forces behind the IRB's decision to install a 10-man panel - including Australia's World Cup-winning coach, Rod Macqueen, and ex-New Zealand Test captain, Graham Mourie - to examine the game and make radical changes where they believed necessary. Hence, the ELVs.
Even Ackford conceded there has been widespread approval for making it unacceptable to pass the ball back into the 22 for a kick into touch on the full, for quick lineout throws - not forward - and a five-metre offside line for backs at the scrum. But, as an old, cauliflower-eared second-rower, Ackford has continued singing from the northern hymn sheet that ELVs spell the end of the scrum. Nonsense. Evidence from the Super 14 says teams with strong scrums are implementing it as a potent weapon rather than taking the optional tap kick and running the ball.
The tragedy is that SANZAR, the organisation running the Super 14, did not apply all of the ELVs, such as the "hands in the ruck" experiment, which provided ferocious rugby in the ARC and led to even quicker service from the breakdown. Likewise, the right to collapse a maul was jettisoned, although evidence says no greater number of injuries occurred with the practice.
The IRB wanted to see all the ELVs used in the Super 14. It appears that the English critics were rounded up for a briefing by the Rugby Football Union, warned of the approaching Black Death, provided with a drink, given a pat on the head and sent off to sympathetic laptops. Ackford uses the term "an alliance of condemnation against the proposed changes" at a British level among officials, referees and club directors. He omitted to mention journalists, conveniently overlooking their once much-vaunted sense of independence.
He talks of "the most successful World Cup ever". He obviously did not talk to the disillusioned public who turned away in droves. And then, horror of horrors, he talks of the "cheats' charter" where "if a ball is unplayable at the breakdown, the side that did not take the ball into contact will receive a free kick" and "for all offences other than offside, not entering through the gate and foul play, the sanction is a free kick".
This is the end of the game - Armageddon? What a sin that rugby is faster - with tries being scored - and not being dominated by giants slothfully tramping from scrum to lineout and back, camping in the opposition quarter and waiting for Jonny Wilkinson to kick penalty goals.
Ackford has had his commitments with England and the Six Nations tournament. What a shame he didn't find time to come down and watch the Waratahs belt the Sharks on Saturday night.
Paranoid androids up north have got it all wrong on the new laws
