ELVs - which ones to keep?

[Langthorne]

The ELVs have been given a good run in the Southern Hemisphere now, so which ones do we want to keep? are there any new ones we'd like to try?

'Passing back into the 22' is an obvious one to keep

I like the 'numbers in the lineout'

I like the 'pass back lineout'

Apart from the potential danger, I'm OK with the 'pulling down the maul'

I'm not so sure about the short arm penalties for ruck infringements etc

I'd like to see rucking reintroduced

 

[Pfitzy]

Interesting you mention it because I've been watching a couple of different eras lately:

1) 1997 Lions tour to RSA was "old-school" mauling - you couldn't pull it down, but you didn't have that ridiculous 5-second restart bullshit. The maul was used as a tactic, not just a weapon. Teams would form mauls intermittently, make a couple of yards and then look at their options. The use-or-lose-once made mauls fast, dynamic, and a thing of beauty, to be executed with skill and genuine team work.

2) 2009 England v Baabaas which is the "new-school" mauling - take all the time you want and basically chew up whole minutes of the game with nothing resembling a contest for the ball. This was more like a sloth deciding what to have for breakfast. The Poms would laboriously go through the motions of getting all 8 fatties together and put a drive on. Funnily enough they didn't do it very often and when they did the Baabaas countered reasonably well.

It was like watching a scalpel versus a soup spoon.

I don't agree with pulling a maul down, but I tell you what its a damn sight harder to do than it looks on the field, and its a better alternative to the "new" maul

 

[Langthorne]

The reason I was for the pulling down of the maul is because it means there is one less thing for the ref to deal with (and what exactly is going on in a maul can be difficult to see from the outside).

The dynamic mauling the Waratahs did during certain periods of the S14 season worked very well, even with the opposition trying to pull it down.

As you say, pulling down a maul can be tricky, and once you find yourself on the ground trying to pull it down you have lost mobility and momentum (and will soon be removed from the equation if the maul progresses beyond you).

I am not all for change at any cost, but I think some of the changes have worked very well - and I like the idea of removing the number areas that need refereeing.