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S14 Elvs?

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Lee Grant

John Eales (66)
Staff member
Nod - I wrote this on another thread:

Lee Grant said:
From memory, this year the ELV differences for the Super14 are:


In for 2009 Super14

- maul can be pulled down (but only after gripping upper body first)

- no numbers in lineout

- receiver at lineout must be 2M back

- opponent to throwing hooker at lineouts must stand in tramtrack and must be 2 metres away from lineout.


Out from 2008 Super14

- offside line at the tackle (though coming in the side of a tackle is still a PK)



Extra ELVs in 2009 Super14 compared to Global ELVs as used in the NH in 2008-09:

- if the ball becomes unplayable at a tackle, ruck or maul a FK is awarded to the team not taking the ball in to them.

- FKs awarded for all infringements other than offside, coming into the side of a tackle, and Law 10 Foul Play.


It will be interesting to see some of the changes to the ELVs in the Super14 this year.

Even the trialling of the maul ELV is a good thing because I am sure that SH players and fans will add their censure to those of everybody else and we can get rid of it globally from August 2009.

As for the offside line at the tackle used in the 2008 Super14: I was getting used to that and had a minority opinion that it was OK.

Under standard law, players in the tackle area can't get in the way or participate, but players away from the tackle area can remain on the attacker's side of it, or move there. They can get into likely areas to stop a quick clearance before a ruck is formed and I think it is better for them to retire to their side of the tackle.

It was also easier for the ref in the 2008 S14 because he didn't have to form an opinion as to whether it was a tackle only, or had formed into a ruck. It was offside in either instance.

It will be interesting to hear Super14 coaches comments on the no numbers in lineouts ELV, which is new in the S14, and compare them to the whinges we have heard from EJ (Eddie Jones) and other NH coaches in their season.

Coaches of S14 teams can afford to be a bit more pragmatic, as their professional players are, on average, a bit more mobile and versatile than those of their NH counterparts. I suspect that EJ (Eddie Jones) coaching the Reds in a parallel universe would make different comments on ELVs compared to EJ (Eddie Jones) the Sarries coach.

I never saw any problem with no lineout numbers in the 2007 semi-pro ARC competition and one didn't miss the referee blowing his whistle for numbers not matching up. Let's see how it goes at a higher level with our players.

As for the FK sanctions: I think the NH is nuts for not wanting to use them. Amongst other things this ELV prepared our players better to play under the global ELVs in the autumn tests, which didn't have the sanctions. If the South African teams do better in the Super14 this year I think that SANZAR will keep the FK sanctions whatever the IRB says.
 

ACT Crusader

Jim Lenehan (48)
disco said:
Yep it seems they have brought that rule in, what a shame.

A shame for who? The players feedback seems to be reflected in these changes. I know the offside tackle one was very confusing to players and wasn't policed well given players still got away with doing what was always done prior to the ELV.

From a viewing POV I don't think the maul ELV makes a huge difference because good mauls will still be used and as we saw in the tests they are still tough to defend.
 

naza

Alan Cameron (40)
The maul ELV has resulted in mauls being as rare as a Queenslands Reds win. A travesty (the law, not the Reds that is).
 

Lee Grant

John Eales (66)
Staff member
Interestingly it is still in the Munster arsenal. They don't use it as often as in the good old days but is a kind of surprise move since teams aren't expecting it.

The Ireland team used it against France in 6N on Sunday which was no surprise; for the whole tight five is of the Red Tide of Munster.

I noted something a couple of times early in the game that the referee did not: the French were grabbing Ireland guys in the maul around their legs to bring them to ground, and got away scott free. The ELV requires that maulers have to be pulled down by defenders grasping between shoulders and hips.

If refs ping this infringement, which you can see in a reasonable percentage of mauls in European rugby, to the letter of the law, then the maul may have a chance to survive in some form if the ELV becomes standard law.

It has no chance if defenders are allowed to tackle maulers.

And PS - the ELV has to be changed so that maul spoilers cannot pull down their own players to trip up attackers when a dominant maul pushes over him. There's a lot of that going on.
 
P

PhucNgo

Guest
We're asking a lot of the poor refs here, they're still having a hard time trying to police offside at the ruck (is anyone ever onside these days) and players going off their feet at the ruck. Meanwhile, back at the maul. As I recall Wasps recently turned on a high speed maul (and I mean they were really motoring) in a HC match recently to great effect. They'd gone about 25 metres before anyone realised what they were doing and then there was no way anyone was going to bring it down. Fantastic tactic, but great skill levels required. So as Lee says there's life left in the maul after all.
 

Thomond78

Colin Windon (37)
Lee Grant said:
Interestingly it is still in the Munster arsenal. They don't use it as often as in the good old days but is a kind of surprise move since teams aren't expecting it.

The Ireland team used it against France in 6N on Sunday which was no surprise; for the whole tight five is of the Red Tide of Munster.

I noted something a couple of times early in the game that the referee did not: the French were grabbing Ireland guys in the maul around their legs to bring them to ground, and got away scott free. The ELV requires that maulers have to be pulled down by defenders grasping between shoulders and hips.

If refs ping this infringement, which you can see in a reasonable percentage of mauls in European rugby, to the letter of the law, then the maul may have a chance to survive in some form if the ELV becomes standard law.

It has no chance if defenders are allowed to tackle maulers.

And PS - the ELV has to be changed so that maul spoilers cannot pull down their own players to trip up attackers when a dominant maul pushes over him. There's a lot of that going on.

Lee, I've heard refs yelling, "Not on the legs"; I've heard a lot more players, especially our guys yelling, "Going for the legs"; but I've yet to see a penalty for going for the legs, even when it's as blatant as was the French one on Saturday, or the Montauban or Sale ones in the HEC.

We can do it to some extent, because we're farking good at it; but even then, people are being allowed pull it down from the legs, and that's dangerous as well as illegal.

Simply, it's unenforceable, and should be binned. The most annoying thing was, you could see on Saturday in the Ireland-France game just how positive a good maul can be for a game. :angryfire:
 

Lee Grant

John Eales (66)
Staff member
Amen.

Of course the argument for the maul ELV is that the maul goes against the dictum that there should be a fair contest for the ball in any rugby activity, and there is not a contest if the ball is secured by Neil Backs at the rear of a human tank and you can't go around the tank to get it at the rear.

But if they are so obsessed about getting contests why don't they have the refs make sure the ball is put in straight for the scrum contest? Why is the attacking scrummie allowed to kneel down and dig the ball out of the ruck like a ball miner and defenders aren't?

Yarda, yarda. The mantra of fair ball contesting fails throughout the game so why are we depreciating just one element of our sport which incidentally, just happens to be a survivor from the olden times of rugby?



Going back to infractions of the maul ELV. Tackling the legs is one, but another is (bravely) collapsing oneself or pulling one's own players down, to make the attacking team stumble.
 

Thomond78

Colin Windon (37)
Jesus, Lee, an even more blatant question - there's supposed to be a world-wide crackdown on people going off their feet. I'm all in favour of it. Of late, I've seen some proper old-school rucks - guys binding on going in, bent double on their feet and driving clean over the ball. We did it for a turn-over at a tackle in Montauban, and it was beautiful, just beautiful. The speed of such clean ball was just glorious.

So, at the same time, what do we do? That's right. We decide we'll allow the ball to get trapped under a dangerous mass pile-up of forwards to slow the ball right down at the same time that we make sure defenders can no longer be sucked in. And then we expect running rugby.

Nice one, fucktards du l'IRB. Bin the maul ELV. :angryfire:
 

fatprop

George Gregan (70)
Staff member
Lee Grant said:
Amen.

Of course the argument for the maul ELV is that the maul goes against the dictum that there should be a fair contest for the ball in any rugby activity, and there is not a contest if the ball is secured by Neil Backs at the rear of a human tank and you can't go around the tank to get it at the rear.

But if they are so obsessed about getting contests why don't they have the refs make sure the ball is put in straight for the scrum contest? Why is the attacking scrummie allowed to kneel down and dig the ball out of the ruck like a ball miner and defenders aren't?

Yarda, yarda. The mantra of fair ball contesting fails throughout the game so why are we depreciating just one element of our sport which incidentally, just happens to be a survivor from the olden times of rugby?

Going back to infractions of the maul ELV. Tackling the legs is one, but another is (bravely) collapsing oneself or pulling one's own players down, to make the attacking team stumble.

I found the driving maul had become incredibly negative rugby, it evolved into just a penalty collection tool.

Sure it could suck in forwards, but it was incredible rare for a side to unleash the backline from a maul that had any momentum as the attacking backrow was usually also stuck in the maul.
 
R

rugbywhisperer

Guest
In the process of packing to move house I came across my very first Law book - 1968.
Wow - what a wonderful thing, a fraction of the size we have now, so simple, uncluttered and not so technical.
i am now startting the Official 'Return to 68' campaign when rucking was rucking, everyone understood the laws and the game was fun for all - even the refs.
 

Lee Grant

John Eales (66)
Staff member
T78

Yes staying on feet and driving over is a glorious thing, and before your time the ruck moving up the field after the driving though, like a maul with the ball on the ground, and as though the ball had been put into a scrum, was even more salutary. No wonder Doc Craven called it a loose scrummage.

You could do it then because players were on their feet as the law required them to be.

Invented by Vic Cavanagh Jr for his famous Otago team after WWII and spreading over the world it became a great weapon in the days when you were not allowed to pick up the ball after a tackle, without touching it with your foot first.

The tackled ball law which had been around since the early days at the Rugby School was revoked in 1958 and it had the most significant impact on the game of any law change since WWII.

The game became a lot faster but with it came the death of the moving ruck and and the start of players going off feet to get the ball first - and of the ugly convention of referees to allow it more and more as the decades rolled on.

When those referees retired they had a smug satisfaction that they had helped to speed the game up, but what they did was to encourage their successors to be even more modern and allow players to go off feet more than their fuddy duddy referee forbears did.

Meantime the laws requiring players to stay on feet had never changed.

But I digress - the IRB protocol for referees to enforce the law of staying on feet?

Most refs started the season well in the various Euro domestic tournaments in their efforts to follow the 'feet' protocol, but I have found that the French refs in the Top 14 are forgetting it now or wilfully ignoring it. The Super12 refs started well 7-8 years ago in one IRB 'feet' crackdown and kept it up for only 3 weeks. The GP refs are the best at obeying the protocol and the ML guys somewhere in between.

I was all for the ELVs because I knew, or thought I knew that, after the Super12 crackdown failed to get referees to enforce just one law in the lawbook, that referees were incapable of mending their ways. So why not something else that may make it easier for them to use, something that had no historical baggage with it, no log book of referees' conventions?

At the beginning of the season I was chuffed that the players were changing their ways, though it took some time. I was thinking: why didn't they have these protocols first? The protocols were having a bigger affect on the game than the global ELVs were; so why not have the ELVs later?

My jury is still out on that earlier opinion but if the referees get corrupted by wanting a softer job on the park I will change it.
 

Thomond78

Colin Windon (37)
I'm sorry to have to say, Lee, that on the evidence of this weekend just gone, it was the SH ref, Lawrence, who was softest on going off the feet. Rolland and Owens did stop people doing it, and did hand out penalties on more than one occasion for it. Net result, people stayed up and the rugby was much better.

I'm in favour of the crackdown on staying up, all in favour. Even in lower level training, we're now back to committing two men, bound on, blasting over and past every ruck, and then two guys coming in behind, on their feet, sealing it off against the counter-ruckers. It's giving much faster ball, much better ball, and I remember it as being how it was done from fifteen, twenty years ago. And it's how it should be done, no question at all.
 
S

Spook

Guest
Owens was apalling on the weekend - is there a bigger home town ref?? As George Hook said "If this had been an Italian Soccer match, an investigation would have been done".
 
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