The SANZAR ELVs after three rounds

After Round 3 of the Super 14, being played under the Experimental Law Variations, André Watson, South Africa's manager of referees has produced some statistics. He has some data from the first three rounds of the Super 14 in 2007, played under the "old" laws and the first three groiunds of the Super 14 in 2008.

COMPARISON BETWEEN 2008 & 2007 S14 – AFTER ROUNDS 1, 2 & 3

Number of scrums
2008: 523
2007: 510

Difference: +13 (+4,4%)
Per game 2008: 24,9
Per game 2007: 24,3
difference per game: +0,6

Comment: No difference

Line-outs
2008: 502
2007: 641

Difference: -139 (-21,7%)
Per game 2008: 23,9
Per game 2007: 30,5
difference per game: -6,6

Comment: Fewer kicks for touch because of new law

Tackle/Ruck/Maul
2008: 3401
2007: 3021

Difference: +380 (+12,5%)
Per game 2008: 162
Per game 2007: 144
difference per game: +18

Comment: Much more activity by all players

Penalties & free kicks
2008: 615
2007: 437

Difference: +178 (+40%)
Per game 2008: 29,3
Per game 2007: 21
difference per game: +8.3

Comment: Because of free kicks in lieu of penalties

Ball in play time
Per match 2008: 35 minutes
Per match 2007: 31 minutes
difference per game: 4 minutes
Difference +12%

Comment: Great improvement
(BTW, does anyone know what criteria the statisticians use to define "in play"? I was watching taped games this weekend, fast forwarding any time the ball was not live and it took me about an hour to watch each game, so WTF?)

Kicks in general play
Per match 2008: 54
Per match 2007: 51
difference per game: 3

Comment: No difference.

http://www.rugby365.com/laws_referee...uss/172854.htm

nothing too major in there, personally i think the new laws are good for the game and this will be shown more so once all the teams adapt to them a bit more

I think in play would be defined as any time the ball is not considered to be dead......Dead ball would be the times when teams are able to introduce substitutions etc.....Therefore ball in play will increase as the numbers of Lineouts (and/or scrums) decrease as well as kicking for goal.

Since there has been a dramatic decrease in the number of lineouts (and possibly penalties, but there are no figures to support that) I'd suggest that is the origin of the ball in play argument!

I just can't see it being as low as 30 minutes then. Maybe someone else wants to try it - fast forward through any time that the ball is not actively being contested and see how long it takes to watch a game. As I say, I did it for the Hurricanes/Chiefs game (with all those conversions) and it took about an hour.

Andy, I assume you took into account all stoppages, including scrumdowns, penalties, from the second the whistle is blown to stop play--such as in a knock-on--till the point where the ball is reintroduced into play, ie, when the scrumhalf feeds in the ball into the scrum.

Similarly with a penalty, where if the ball is being kicked for a conversion, ball is not in play till restart (whether 22 dropout, or kickoff). Or, where penalty is being kicked out for a lineout, ball is in play when thrown in by hooker.

Yep. As you say, stop the fastforward when the scrumhalf feeds it, hooker throws it, ball gets kicked off etc. Perhaps it was just that game, but 18 scrums, 19 line-outs, 2 penalties and 9 restarts don't take 50 minutes of playing time. Maybe the ref just blew time off a lot, I don't know.

the new laws, im all for them, but the refs have to be up to the speed of the play ive seen a few instances where they got it plain wrong....