Paddy O'Brien Explains the ELVs

daveirl

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Amz

These make an awful lot of sense.

tHE vAGGABOND

Interesting..

I like the any numbers you like in the linout rule - makes a lot of sense

marco_polo

I was a little sceptical of these new changes, however that video makes it clear that each change has a very rational idea behind it.

Probably the thing I was most concerned about was the breakdown becoming a wrestling match, but the IRB seem to be satisfied from their initial tests that the ball will come out quicker.

Also I like mauls, I hope that colapsing them will not eradicate them from the game. However perhaps keeping a maul up will become a new skill in itself.

All thing consider the changes are well worth trying out and will surely be a positive for the game even if only a handful of them ever make it into the offical rule book.

Also will the removal of the corner flag lead to some contentious decisions about whether the ball has the ball gone into touch or the in goal area? Surely it would be better to keep the flags and just say if a player touches it in mid air it is still a try?

Will be interesting to see how the professional trials turn out. I believe the first one scheduled is the new Australian Rugby Championship (equilievent to the Air New Zealand Cup and SA Currie cups) . Anyone hear any feedback on this tournament?

On a final note those poor club players in Scotland 59% ball in play. :eek:

**Edit ** Looked this up and the ARC has already completed. The general feeling about the competion was that the first couple of games were pretty scrappy especially at the breakdown as teams adjusted to the new rules. However after this the rugby played was of a very high quality indeed.

daveirl

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dub_skav

A lot of good stuff there, but I'm still not convinced that these rule proposals won't diminish the role of the scrum.

Free kicks for held up in maul and crooked lineout will make the scrum far less important.

That said, the ruling may take everything else and leave the sanctions as they are, it will be interesting to see.

Stev_o

The whole introduction off a offside line on a tackles baffles me really. I mean surely thats more encouraging teams to find the fattest bloke they can and tell him to run straight.

Also Mauls as well im not too keen on the rules that they can be pulled down its dangerous as it when they collapse the fact that now you can be rolling suddenly have a whole team purposely pull you down and you end up smacking your face doesnt seem too inviting. Backs will also hate the fact that you can know truck and trailer at will means everytime the teams is camped on the 5meter line you ll see them get a try from it or a penalty.

Wonder what the story is for club level [ie at u-20 u-18 u-16] level with touch judges im presuming that they will just do what they have always did and just indicate touch.


Also its kinda sad too see not releasing as a penalty offense any more as a flanker that was the one thing i took pride in as i knew that alot of times i could get my kicker in a position to get 3 points or put us 30 so yards down the field and still retain possession.

My guess now is that when opted with the free kick inside the opposition 22 the no10 is going to drop into the pocket and take a drop goal now that he wont get as many chances with kicks at goal

nacho libre

Stev_o wrote: »

The whole introduction off a offside line on a tackles baffles me really. I mean surely thats more encouraging teams to find the fattest bloke they can and tell him to run straight.

Also Mauls as well im not too keen on the rules that they can be pulled down its dangerous as it when they collapse the fact that now you can be rolling suddenly have a whole team purposely pull you down and you end up smacking your face doesnt seem too inviting. Backs will also hate the fact that you can know truck and trailer at will means everytime the teams is camped on the 5meter line you ll see them get a try from it or a penalty.

Wonder what the story is for club level [ie at u-20 u-18 u-16] level with touch judges im presuming that they will just do what they have always did and just indicate touch.


Also its kinda sad too see not releasing as a penalty offense any more as a flanker that was the one thing i took pride in as i knew that alot of times i could get my kicker in a position to get 3 points or put us 30 so yards down the field and still retain possession.

Those rule changes would be dreadful. I hope they don't make it pass the experimental stage

daveirl

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gjim

As a former sceptic, I found that very convincing. Paddy explains the justification for everything very well. In fact I'm looking forward to seeing the changes being applied having seen that.

My only fear is that getting rid of most penalty offences will encourage negative play on the part of the defending team. While this seems to be covered by the "penalty for persistent fouling" rule, that reintroduces some of the subjectivity back into the ref's rulings. I'm wondering whether it will admit players "taking turns" to offend knowing that they are only risking a free kick.

Sandwich

Very interesting in general (but are mauls such a problem that they need a 'solution' of legalising pulling them down?).

My main concern would be that scores would go up. They have already increased greatly over the last 50 years. A great advantage of rugby over other field games is that the best team on the day tends to win the game (soccer being the other extreme).

But if the effect of increased game time, less stops for set pieces, increased player fatigue, more quick free kicks, less penalty attempts etc, while each having their merits, is to have a team that today has a comfortable victory of say 30-9, instead winning by 70-25. What we gain in scoring and action is lost in the early ending of a match as a contest. It is a balance of course, 50 years ago, 12-0 was a comprehensive victory, I feal comparable to the 25-6 victory approx 20 years ago, and more like 45-15 today. While we all want to see the best team win, do we really want it all over and done with after 20 mins?

Trojan

Pulling down the mauls is the only one I'd disagree with after watching that.

Blisterman

I'd say removing a lot of penalty offenses will have a big impact on England, and their poster child, Johnny Wilkinson.

MooseJam

yea same here they all look good apart from pulling down the maul, it'll be the death of the maul

ThomasH

The hands in the ruck, bringing down of a maul and 5 metres offside from the scrum will be interesting. It will create a real fight for the ball and produce some good running rugby at the same time.

daveirl

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Aesop

daveirl

Is allowing hands in the ruck not going to mean teams will, where possible, avoid taking the ball into contact because unless you have enough support turnovers will be easier? I know there are benefits for enforcing rules but do you think this moves the game closer to rugby union where pick and drive and big lumbering forwards taking the ball into contact are a thing of the past?

Only asking?

daveirl

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Aesop

daveirl wrote: »

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But it is more difficult to protect the ball if you bring it in to contact and the defense can counter-ruck and use their hands? At the moment one guy on your tail is enough to provide protection but that is unlikely to be the case when these rules are brought in. At the very least quick ball will be very hard to get when the ball is in contact?

Is it true that if you bring it into a ruck situation and you can't get it back because of hands in the ruck then you get penalized?

daveirl wrote: »

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Isn't that what a lot of the centers do? Kevin Maggs did it for Ireland, d'arcy does it, Halstead did it for Munster. Take on tacklers and suck players in and open up midfield a little or offload in the tackle?

daveirl wrote: »

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You're not one of those thieving numbers 7's are you

daveirl

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is_that_so

I thought it was extremely interesting. I like the idea of more free kicks and anything that can get the ball out of tackles quicker has to be good. I think the reduction of penalty infringements is positive not just to avoid it being "our kicker against your kicker" but it also adds to the spectator's enjoyment by simplifying it a bit more.

P_1

I can see drop goals becoming more prevelant if these rules come in. Think about it, Team A gets awarded a free in a position that would be considered kickable. Instead of tap + go, team A's 9 taps then passes to 10 who is in position for DG. What do the rest of you think?

legspin

pithater1 wrote: »

I can see drop goals becoming more prevelant if these rules come in. Think about it, Team A gets awarded a free in a position that would be considered kickable. Instead of tap + go, team A's 9 taps then passes to 10 who is in position for DG. What do the rest of you think?

I thought the semi-direct drop goal from a free kick hasn't been allowed for quite awile now.

daveirl

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Snickers Man

I'm sure it's all done with the best of intentions but I can see these turning out to be a disaster. We can see clearly where this will go. It will be to turn this great game into rugby ****ing league.

And what's wrong with that?

Everything.

Rugby league is a ****e game. It's the product of a split. It's the "bastard war child of Britain's 19th century class struggle". There's only one country in the bloody world that thinks league is a good game and that's Australia. God knows why.

League is a one dimensional bore fest. It's a training exercise for backs. Making it a sport is akin to replacing the soccer world cup with a tournament of keepy uppy.

The key feature about rugby union is variety; different shapes and different skills for different positions.

The key feature of league is uniformity; everybody does the same thing. And I don't mean as in "total football" I mean as in "total bollocks"

With the variety of union there are a number of different ways you can play the game depending on your strengths. The battle becomes, in the first instance, a contest of strategy: how do you play the game to maximise your strengths and over come those of your opponent. It's a thinking man's game.

League is a bosh fest. The more powerful guy running at the right angle to squeeze/power his way through a line of defenders always wins.

Why are these rules going to make rugby more like league?

Take the lineout law. You can have any number of guys in the lineout. All this will lead to is two strings of people strung across the pitch. Like league, only worse as there are now 15 per team instead of 13.

Union was all about concentrating the forwards into tight spaces leaving more space for the backs. Now we'll just have two chain gangs strung out across the field like in league.

Changes at ruck/maul breakdown. This will lead to more free kicks ie tapped penalties and fewer scrums. Again more occasions when players are cluttered about the pitch instead of forwards being concentrated in the scrum.

No doubt there are some good things. A clarification and simplification of the tackle laws is always good. But I fear the game played to these laws is going to be indistinguishable from league.

No more room for the big wobbling hippopotamoses that used to be in the front row. Or the fast little guys on teh wing. No, from now on it will only be a game for those 6ft plus and 15stone or more.

Great eye candy for the girls. But I want my old game back.

Teg Veece

Don't like the idea of deciding numbers in the lineout. It'll just result in the defending team stringing men across the pitch and pulling down whatever maul the attacking side try to form.

That average of 9 tries per game is also a bit worrying. That's almost double the 6 nations average. More tries doesn't mean more excitement. Compare when someone scores a goal in soccer to when someone gets a basket in basketball.
Also, will this mean that the bonus point for try count will have to be increased to 7 or something?

One rule that I would like to see included however is the reduction of the drop goal's value from 3 points to 2.

MooseJam

why ? they are rarely scored

Snickers Man

Teg Veece wrote: »

One rule that I would like to see included however is the reduction of the drop goal's value from 3 points to 2.

Here's a little research I did earlier. It's a plot of the average number of points scored per game in 5 and 6 nations matches since WWII. (I hope it comes out properly)

As you can see there is a general increase in the number of points per match since the 1960s on. Remember that the value of the try wasn't increased from 3 to 4 points until 1972. And it was another twenty years before it went from 4 to 5.

I reckon that the explanation is that people were beginning to kick more points more accurately from the 1960s on. For various reasons. They were practicing more and also the ball was getting steadily better, more water resistance, less easy to bash out of shape etc etc.

I don't have figures for numbers of tries scored but I reckon there is no correlation between number of tries scored and points value. Otherwise there would have been a spike in points in the early 70s and early 90s. There isn't.

What causes spikes is ****e teams. In 1997, the points goes shooting up because France and England were so much better than the Celtic nations that year. England put at least 30 points on all three of us, including a record hammering against Ireland.

Also in 2000, the points jumps up again because Italy came on the scene. Even we put 60 points on them that year.

daveirl

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ThomasH

Originally Posted by Teg Veece
One rule that I would like to see included however is the reduction of the drop goal's value from 3 points to 2.

That would not be great tbh. Drop goal is a skill and not something that are easy to acomplish. Ask the boks, in their last 12 attempts for drop goals they could not get one

You can already pull down a maul from a lineout and people still manage to do it so what makes you think it'll happen in the future with even less defenders. You'd want to be insane to string defenders across the pitch on a 5m lineout and allow the other team have an unopposed lineout with 8 v 3 or something like that.

Aus is good at this sort of thing. As soon as the opposition catches the ball and their feet lands on the ground they pull them down, which is legally of course.

daveirl

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Goodluck2me

so when are these coming in?

Snickers Man

with a bit of luck never.

E is for experimental.

remus808

goodluck2me wrote: »

so when are these coming in?

AFAIK they'll be used in this years Super 14

toomevara

Bring 'em on, I'm all for it. Union is fast becoming an unrefereeable mess. The breakdown is currently ungovernable, open to vastly differing and wildly inconsistent refereeing interpretations. Many of the games core laws are honoured only in the breach, straight throw ins at line out, put ins at scrum time anyone?..cant remember the last time I saw one..a joke. Off side is no longer applied except in the most flagrant cases and the forward pass is common place. I reckon the ELV's will revolutionise the game.

marco_polo

toomevara wrote: »

Bring 'em on, I'm all for it. Union is fast becoming an unrefereeable mess. The breakdown is currently ungovernable, open to vastly differing and wildly inconsistent refereeing interpretations. Many of the games core laws are honoured only in the breach, straight throw ins at line out, put ins at scrum time anyone?..cant remember the last time I saw one..a joke. Off side is no longer applied except in the most flagrant cases and the forward pass is common place. I reckon the ELV's will revolutionise the game.

I fail to see how the introduction of new laws will improve the refereeing of existing laws that are in place already and are not being changed, such as a crooked scrum put in / lineout throw, offsides and forward passes?

toomevara

marco_polo wrote: »

I fail to see how the introduction of new laws will improve the refereeing of existing laws that are in place already and are not being changed, such as a crooked scrum put in / lineout throw, offsides and forward passes?

Wont go into it as its all been gone into here before, but if you check out the proposed ELVs in detail you'll see that all these areas are addressed to a greater or lesser extent....

They also make refereeing a much easier and less complex prospect, thus lessening the impossible sensory overload that top level referees have to deal with

Stev_o

toomevara wrote: »

Bring 'em on, I'm all for it. Union is fast becoming an unrefereeable mess. The breakdown is currently ungovernable, open to vastly differing and wildly inconsistent refereeing interpretations. Many of the games core laws are honoured only in the breach, straight throw ins at line out, put ins at scrum time anyone?..cant remember the last time I saw one..a joke. Off side is no longer applied except in the most flagrant cases and the forward pass is common place. I reckon the ELV's will revolutionise the game.

True about the break down all you have to do is watch some of the current reffing at the moment and listening when a rucks formed how god damn awfull they go about policing it. Ref's are now calling release and have the time looking at the defender trying to rip the ball rather then the attack releasing the ball it absolutely confuses the hell out of me. Then you have a number of ref's who will give extremely inconsistent time for a attack to hold onto the ball. In my experience its been around 3 seconds watching some of the matches on the weekend the ref's were giving 6 to 7 + seconds for the attack to still retain the ball in his hands on the ground.

The cutting down of penalty offences is going to really really suffocate the minows as the majority of these teams will almost always try go for posts.

Lastly about pulling down mauls. If anyone watched any of the matches during the weekend you would have noticed that ALOT of the teams are now combating mauls in driving and turning it 90 rather then pulling it down. Now given its not done 100% put still

toomevara

Stev_o wrote: »

Lastly about pulling down mauls. If anyone watched any of the matches during the weekend you would have noticed that ALOT of the teams are now combating mauls in driving and turning it 90 rather then pulling it down. Now given its not done 100% put still

Excellent point....

marco_polo

toomevara wrote: »

Wont go into it as its all been gone into here before, but if you check out the proposed ELVs in detail you'll see that all these areas are addressed to a greater or lesser extent....

They also make refereeing a much easier and less complex prospect, thus lessening the impossible sensory overload that top level referees have to deal with

I have seen the video and am totally in favour of the majority of the new laws.

My main point was that there are existing laws with regard to putting the ball in straight to the set piece that are not changing in any way shape or form. However most referees will probably still choose not to see those crooked feeds, thrown ins etc.

It is not like these are exceptionally hard for referees to spot at the moment in fairness, and there is no good reason not to clamp down on these offences now if the will was there, so I am just sceptical that anything will change when these new laws are introduced in that regard.

Also as the new laws ought to have have the effect of speeding up the game, could it not make forward passes even more difficult to spot?

I will be watching the S14 with a keen interest this year all the same.

toomevara

marco_polo wrote: »

Also as the new laws ought to have have the effect of speeding up the game, could it not make forward passes even more difficult to spot?

I will be watching the S14 with a keen interest this year all the same.

You may well be right there, but I'm happy to take the punt, dont reckon we've got much to loose. I'll be glued to the s14 too, should be fascinating.

daveharnett

dub_skav wrote: »

A lot of good stuff there, but I'm still not convinced that these rule proposals won't diminish the role of the scrum.

Free kicks for held up in maul and crooked lineout will make the scrum far less important.

I would argue that the new offside line at the scrum will make them more important - more space for attacking backs to do their thing. I reckon most teams would choose a scrum over a tap kick. There will be the same space as a tap kick, but with 8 defenders tied into a scrum.

toomevara

daveharnett wrote: »

I would argue that the new offside line at the scrum will make them more important - more space for attacking backs to do their thing. I reckon most teams would choose a scrum over a tap kick. There will be the same space as a tap kick, but with 8 defenders tied into a scrum.

Spot on, my interpretation too. Can only be good for strong scrummaging teams.

daveharnett

First of all, well said. We all want to keep variety in the game. I would question a couple of points however.

Snickers Man wrote: »

Union was all about concentrating the forwards into tight spaces leaving more space for the backs. Now we'll just have two chain gangs strung out across the field like in league.

Weren't the defending team always allowed have fewer players in the lineout?

Snickers Man wrote: »

Changes at ruck/maul breakdown. This will lead to more free kicks ie tapped penalties and fewer scrums. Again more occasions when players are cluttered about the pitch instead of forwards being concentrated in the scrum.

The new offside line at the scrum will make them much more valuable IMO. I could imagine any side with a decent scrum opting for scrums instead of tap kicks when frees are awarded. This will tie in the forwards and allow lots more space for pacy backs to do their thing.

I think that new zeland and japan played the most attractive rugby in the last world cup. The common factor between them was the availability of fast ball. The root cause of the sh*teness of league is that it takes 10 seconds to recycle a ball, giving the defense ample time to reform. I think the new rules will make it much more difficultt for a defending team to disrupt/slow down a team with forward momentum. This is the primary way in which the space the game needs will be maintained.

daveharnett

A small change that i don't think came up on the videos is that quick lineouts may go straight or backwards, just not forwards.

Not a big deal - refs don't seem to be too fussy about them being arrow-straight anyway.