'No more experimentation Gareth'
There are not many occasions where I’d agree with Stephen Jones, The Times doyen of rugby writers, but this is one of them.
The ELV ’short arm’ sanctions were not adopted by the IRB this season after a vociferous campaign by the northern unions and journo fellow travellers like Mick Cleary and Brian Moore from the Daily Telegraph.
They did their job well. Finally, a good decision by the IRB ‘old farts’. I wholeheartedly agree with them and good riddance to this load of old bollocks.
If I had wanted to watch a more ’simplified’ game, one without a contest in some aspects of play, I’d go down to Shark Park and be bored out of my wits looking at one dimensional hit ups by forwards who wouldn’t know how to spell ‘experimental’ and whose bail conditions have yet to be revoked…..
The dumping of the ELV free kick sanctions is a positive move in my opinion. Many of you will not concur with those sentiments but like global warming, there are skeptics abound who think that Australian rugby is better off without them.
Did we miss the ELV ‘free kick’ sanctions during the just past Wallaby Spring Tour? Not that I can recall.
Did anyone say how poorly entertained we were during this tour because the ELV sanctions weren’t in place? Not that I can recall.
If I remember rightly, most of the games were a real contest with tries scored and generally plenty of excitement.
The only thing we were moaning about was how inconsistent the Wallabies were and a few ‘what ifs’; like what if we scored a couple more points we could have won the Grand Slam.
In fact, the Wallaby v Wales match was one of the best we’d seen in the past few years, a feast of expansive rugby.
Not forgetting that the All Blacks v France match on the same weekend took running rugby to another level. I didn’t hear people whingeing about how stilted it was or how little time the ball was in play?
I really like scrums. I really like lineouts. I really like mauls. They’re the fabric of the game. And I really like watching George Smith and co fight for possession at the breakdown.
Sure, there are continuing issues with the breakdown but in my view these have been going on for years and are not insurmountable.
The leather patch brigade would say ‘bring back rucking’. Yes, that would sort it out but sadly today’s soft-c*ck society couldn’t cope with it.
Little Johnnie’s mum couldn’t bear the thought of a few tags on his back. Maybe they could bring back rucking at U19 level and above….nah, forget it!
Re-setting scrums can become a bit of a bore and slows up play a bit but referees have just got to grasp the mettle and penalise the wrong-doers.
Maybe, in addition to Stu Dickinson, all referees could all be sent to scrum ‘re-education camps’ to be tutored in the ‘dark arts’.
The biggest bane on the game at the moment is the bloody endless and aimless kicking we see every week. And the fact of the matter is that it’s not going to be fixed up by introducing the ELV sanctions.
I really don’t believe that the team that’s strong enough to win possession and is going forward should be penalised (short arm) because they haven’t recycled the ball from the breakdown within 5 seconds. It’s ridiculous and counter productive.
Constant turnovers don’t necessarily make for a better spectacle. How can you really build pressure under these circumstances? It’s just style over substance.
I don’t mind watching the odd game of Sevens rugby but this sort of fluff is not the sort of thing I want to see week in and week out.
I think the ELVs that were adopted were fairly sensible (i.e. 5m behind scrums, pass into 22m kick out rule) and there seemed to be a consensus by most unions about them.
I can understand northern unions opposing the ‘pulling the maul down’ provision as it weakens one of their main strengths and is probably a bit dangerous as well.
I note that they are now re-focussing more on the ‘truck and trailer’ obstruction aspects of the maul and appear to be tightening up on this.
I don’t see anything substantially wrong with the style of rugby that is played under the currently adopted laws. You know, if the Wallabies had won the Tri-Nations and the Bledisloe Cup nobody would give a shit about the ELV sanctions.
The reason crowd numbers are dropping off is because we’ve been losing all the time. We came last in the Super 14, last in the Tri-Nations and last in the Bledisloe. It’s self perpetuating.
Style can be a factor – just ask the Waratahs. However, the reality is start winning games and you’ll win the crowd.
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teams cant go on being satisfied by kicking for 80 minutes. i think eventually players will change their tactics themselves and that will bring more exciting rugby. well… i hope so anyway.
OK I dissent. I think they are a great solution to scrum fuck-ups like we still see too often (and not particularly from Stu Dickinson).
My main reason for liking them is a bad one, though: I don’t think referees have the balls to call the penalties in the scrum and breakdown and I think that too often when they do they get it wrong.
So I guess I see them as a band-aid for inadequate refeering (or more charitably as an adaptation to poor rules). But I think we need the band-aid!
Well as we’ve seen this year, referees when refereeing the All Blacks are afraid to blow up on 50/50 calls after the Milan fiasco. After Joubert’s performance earlier in the year, be rest assured that you will be able to do whatever you want at scrum time with Australian teams, as we don’t have a coach who will appraise referees and that seems like the only way to get a result. Eg NZ coaching staff in Milan, and Wales and the Dan Carter high tackle.
Now I’m glad short arms are gone, there were far too many teams going off their feet causing the rucks to be too much like league. The real problem is teams are taking too long to realise that all the ruck infringements they do will cost them 3 points. That being said, we don’t want referees being all precise on us. We don’t want referees to be penalizing us for diving over when we accidentally leave our feet or go over the top of a player low. Let the referees use more preventive strategies, like tell them they must immediately get out and furthermore stay, however to contradict my statement we don’t want players like McCaw taking advantage of that. Referees must realise if the player is slowing down the ball its a penalty. If the player is diving over the ball or having trouble rolling away let the game continually flow.
excuse me if a lot of that doesn’t make sense.
You said: “I really don’t believe that the team that’s strong enough to win possession and is going forward should be penalised (short arm) because they haven’t recycled the ball from the breakdown within 5 seconds.”
So what are you suggesting? That they should be penalised with a long arm penalty instead? Your argument is ridiculous and contradictory.
The idea of the short arms in the ELVs isn’t to add more stoppages, it is to replace some of the long arms with short arms, thus reducing the number of kicks for goal, and increasing the number of quick tap and runs. And thus, due to decreased risk of giving away 3 points, a team has more incentive to run it from their own half rather than kicking for field position.
The ELV short arms were awesome. Since their removal, who and what has dominated world rugby? South Africa and its kicking game.
You’ve also confused the issue by talking about some of the other ELV rules in the same article, rather than sticking purely to a critique of the short arm penalty ELV.
Let me spell it out for you because you clearly don’t understand what that particular law was about. The attacking team received a free kick against them if they didn’t clear the ball within a short period of time from a ruck (they ‘deemed’ it unplayable). It was usually about 5 seconds or so under these ridiculous ELV sanctions.
What I’m saying is they shouldn’t have been penalised at all! They haven’t done anything wrong. It was some sort of confected protocol to try and make the game ‘faster’. More often than not it was the opposition who were trying to slow it down. It was bullshit and counter productive.
The really good news is that’s its been thrown into the dustbin of history where it belongs. A win for the true believers.
I agree that 5 seconds to win a ruck is a stupid, and you are right that I clearly did not understand that that was an ELV.
I agree that getting rid of that 5 second rule is good. But getting rid of all the short arms that replaced the long arms? Are you serious?
Or was this one long article ripping into the entire ELVs based on one single variation sucking?
Funnily enough this article in The Telegraph about a month ago was whinging about all the kicking in the current game. Oh what a shame they campaigned so hard to ditch the ELVs.
Completely agree!
2009 was the worst year for refereeing that I can remember.
There are just so many arguments against your position it’s hard to know where to begin. The clearest one is that in the ARC, sides infringing in the red zone were often punished with a quick 7 pointer under the posts through a quick tap and a properly refereed 10m + yellow. Scrums, lineouts? Give me a break! The ELVs didn’t “depower the scrum” or any other of the Stephen Jones myths.
Poor show Lance.
I’m not sure that I said that the ELVs depowered the scrum Scarfie? I think this was introduced at a time when Australia’s scrum was shambolic and there were suspicions it was an attempt to ‘bring us back to the pack’ by watering down scrum time. You probably can’t blame them for that? We were abysmal in that facet of play.
The supposed ‘aim’ of the ELVs was to keep the ball in play for lengthier periods of time (perhaps so that the teams could kick the ball more often – which they seemed to?).
If the ball is in play more often then there would necessarily be fewer lineouts in particular. I think there were concerns that the ELVs would reduce the number of scrums in a game. That may have been the case if you had a weak scrum – you could elect to tap instead of having to scrummage. But that was a decision for the captain.
That was I think a of concern to the northern unions. I like the international rules and I like the way the game is played in France and the UK – its the style of rugby that suits their conditions but you can be expansive if you so choose (apart from too much aimless kicking – but that’s infected us as well).
I was surprised that we didn’t see more taps and drop goals attempted by the attacking side?
Good to see common sense has prevailed overall – hopefully the ‘fluff’ has gone forever.
PS Now that our scrum is one of the strongest around I think the ‘old laws’ would be more suitable. Just ask Kearnsey!
Point of order: ELVs were designed to make the laws easier to understgand, play and referee.
“Fluff”? Please explain.
One law I would like to see ‘re-introduced’ is the entry at last feet one for the ruck/maul. I think when the refs were enforcing this one the game seemed to be heading in the right direction.
Entering from the gate is still applicable UG. Even under the ELVs entry from the side was a long arm penalty.
Understand but rarely see it being ‘enforced’.
Scarfie’s onto something when he talks about refereeing standards. We certainly saw a degree of inconsistency this year. I would think part of that must have been the two different sets of laws international referees had to operate from (between the north and the south)?
Hopefully now we’re all operating from the same song sheet it will improve. That said, some of the interpretations were a bit lame. Each referee seemed to concentrate on different areas of play, especially at scrum and breakdown time. I think we just want more consistency?
Incorrect entry was a long arm because it was a form of offside.
Bryce Lawrence is probably the only referee who enforces the incorrect entry law correctly. I said correctly and not consistently. However we don’t want the referees to be ’skitzing ‘out about how far off their entry was. If the incorrect entry will have a negative result on the ruck play then it shouldn’t be inforced. However that is when the rugby public becomes naive, and talks about inconsistent referees. The good thing about some of them is that they don’t penalize minor ruck infringements unless they have a ‘negative’ outcome on that ruck.
So really I think the players should only be penalised for ruck infringements if;
1) It has a negative outcome on the ruck
2) If the ball is slowed down which in some ways affiliate with point 1.
3) If the player repeatedly does it, even if the ruck doesn’t have a negative outcome.
4) If your wearing a black jersey with #7 on the back of it and your name starts with an “R”
In ways, that’s what we should probably admire about Jonathan Kaplan and Wayne Barnes they penalise if the outcome is negative, because they endorse ‘positive’ play. They want the game to flow. Barnes enforces it really well, he doesn’t penalise for the little issues, it’s the major ones he does it for. Notice how Barnes usually has his games ‘freed’ up, and entertaining ones. He does this without leaving consistency behind, because he let’s the players know, if you have a negative outcome or do it constantly he will penalize you and yellow card you. I don’t think many can argue against that Wayne Barnes is the best referee out there.
If players continually infringe at rucks then more referees should yellow card the player. A yellow carding of a player for 10 minutes will probably discourage ruck infringements. Anyone could point out to us that if you offend and you get yellow carded constantly you will stop it, well for that game at least, as will the teams.
I’ll bring up Goddard’s refereeing where he dished out 6 yellow cards. It took about 40 minutes for the players to get the message. 40 minutes and 4 yellow cards, finally they got the message and the game continued. Obviously because they were told they couldn’t get away with anything.
Here’s a tip get the referees to set the standards early. ELV’s or not, I’m not too fussed, but as far as I’m concerned ELV’s had both a good and a bad side, the good being that it was a promotion for free play, the bad being that players abused the small sanction, while referees ignored their pockets (IN THE SUPER 14)
“I don’t think many can argue against that Wayne Barnes is the best referee out there.”
Chief, not necessarily against what you say, but jump on 606 after Barnes has refereed a match and listen to the bile dished out about his performances. He and Kaplan are probably the two most disliked and probably despised referees doing the rounds. Struggle to find something good to say about Kaplan myself.
Hear, hear – agree wholeheartedly about accentuating the positive, eliminating the negative!
I also reckon Barnes is one of the best. I’ve always like Steve Walsh’s sober judgment as well…..
Grumby- Yes you may be right they are despised. But Kaplan is still a good referee despite some of his performances with Australian teams. Barnes is disliked by mainly Kiwi’s and South African’s. But his games are always freed up. Walsh is a great referee too, hopefully he brings some class to the current list of Super 14 referees.
The referees are the sole judge, and Australia in particular need to find a way to counter that.
The ARC ELV’s were very good, I must say compared to the one’s used at S 14 level. Maybe it was how they were refereed, and how the referees made the contest fair. I don’t know but I will agree and disagree some ELV’s were beneficial for the game.
I wasn’t taking you to task Chief but more making the point I suppose that the referee’s create a lot of controversy themselves and there is such inconsistency between different referee’s. Clearly in many games the players are so bemused themselves and can’t comprehend or adapt to what the referee of the day wants. The same happens to the people who pay to attend or watch.
It is a cop out when the response to the obvious differing interpretation from referee to referee is that players should adapt to the referee of the day. There should be no need for this to any great extent and players should not have to radically change the way they play from game to game dependent on which referee is officiating.
Personally I think too many referee to the letter of the law, often selectively focusing on narrow areas of technical play rather than perhaps the intent of the laws and this is probably more to do with how they as a group are being managed and directed by the IRB rather than their general competence or otherwise.
On the other point I agree that Steve Walsh is an excellent referee and the games where he officiates are usually free flowing.
Are we talking the laws of their sport, or the laws of our society..? Because it seems the Mungos have little grasp of those either…
The Laws of the Game don’t tell you how you can play the game; only how you can NOT play the game. You can play with vision and ambition, under any laws, if you’ve got ‘balls’ and ability.
The Waratahs, for example, scored more than double the number of tries before the elv’s than they managed after their introduction.
Bob.
Do you interpret this stat for the Waratahs as happening because they lacked the ability or intelligence to play to the ELV’s or is it the way they have been coached or is there some other reason for this happening?
Taking this point a bit further it seemed that few teams knew how to play with ambition and vision against the Springboks simplistic percentage Rugby style this year (leaving aside their poor Northern Tour where they were probably their own worst enemy). Do you think that the Wallabies V’s Wales game and the AB’s V’s France game might have been the turning point in heading us back to a more expansive ball in hand style of play allied with perhaps sharper tactical kicking?
But you have to do something with the balls that you get and on an amazing number of times during the 09 season, the WBs didn’t have the ability to do anything with them, either their own balls or anyone elses.
Hopefully the Wales test was the swan song of that crap and corruption.
I must disagree in part.
IMO scrum penalties should result in a short arm free kick rather than full penalties.
In many cases scrum infringements are so difficult to determine many referees just get it wrong.
I’d also restrict the ability to kixk penalties from outside the first 40 metres.
If you talk to Fred Allen (one of the most successful ABs and AB coaches of all time) he will tell you that perfection of the 3 Ps – POSITION, POSSESSION and PACE will beat any team under any set of laws.
You disregard these principles as being old fashioned at your peril, but when you think about it, it’s what makes the Crusaders a huge challenge for any other S14 team, because they are masters of the 3 Ps.
Robbie Deans hasn’t quite got there with the Wallabies yet, but there are positive signs that we are starting to understand the mixied dynamics on defence and attack of POSITION, the absolute imperative of retaining POSSESSION of our own ball and contesting for possession on the opposition ball and moving it around at PACE.
Love your thinking Robson. Goes into the book of wisdom.
Robbo – I’m not sure there are too many of today’s Wallabies that could mix it with Brian Lochore, Colin Meads, Waka Nathan, Kel Tremain, Ken Gray, Chris Laidlaw, Grahame Thorne, Earl Kirton, Ian MaCrae, Bill Davis, Fergie McCormick, Bill Birtwistle, Ian Kirkpatrick, Bruce McLeod etc.
They had a world beating team with the ability to implement that policy. The philosophy is sound but you need the cattle to get it done…..
On that note I doubt if many of the current Blacks would be able to mix it with that lot either.
A good post as it brings up some good points. Bob D. comments that the laws say what players cannot do. So in search of what players can do Robson points to the mantra of Position, Possession and Pace (3 P’s). I’m particularly interested in ‘Possesion’. Aside from being raised on it as a school boy and not really knowing its significance because it seems obvious that to win you need the ball in hand.
It seems in todays game ‘possession’ is expressed through excessive (10+) phases and recycling which is often predictable to opposing teams and becomming easy to defend against.
Lance, was it actually written that the attacking side was to be penalised if the ball did not emerge in approx 5 seconds? Or was this an unwritten interpretation? In the inevitable rush to secure possession no side is willing to release the ball (or stop competing for it) even when both players are off feet. In the scenario you mentioned I understood that the defending side was being penalised for not allowing quicker release and, because it occured so often, the short arm prevented excessive kicks to the uprights and hence final score lines with no trys apeice.
It was an unwritten interpretation. You had to clear the ball quickly otherwise it was deemed unplayable and you’d lose it via a free kick to the defending side. Indicatively you had about five seconds to do this……