BBC RUGBY NEWS
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NZ HERALD RUGBY NEWS
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ELVs: Experimental Law Variations SEND TO FACEBOOK

Maul Back to Prominence Next Season?

[ed. comments below]
posted April 1 2009

The rugby world awaits the decision on the ELVs, will they be kept or scrapped, some laws kept, others discarded. The latest information seems to indicate the maul may return in force with take downs reverting to illegal status, but that's next season.

Just from my point of view, the short-arm free kicks used in the southern hemisphere don't seem to work. Without sufficient penalty deterrents the breakdowns have become a nightmare, come in from the side, what's the worst that can happen, give up a free kick? Big deal! Until the referee gets annoyed and then the long-arm penalties take effect.

Here is an article from the Telegraph UK with the headline "Maulling is to be restored at the heart of rugby union following an International Rugby Board conference that rejected the key elements of this season's Experimental Law Variations (ELV's)."


ELVs Scheduled for August 1 2008: Effect on Fall BC Leagues?

[ed. send your comments to editor@bcrugbynews.com for publication. The full ELV document can be downloaded here in .pdf format.]
posted June 12 2008

According to iRB documents the ELV (Experimental Law Variations) will go into a “global trial” period starting on August 1st. Unless I grossly misread the document that means it will impact the 2008 Fall leagues in BC. Some areas of the southern hemisphere have already been playing these ELV rules but it won’t apparently impact the Northern Hemisphere nations until this fall. There are 13 law variations but until we hear from the referee associations that these will all be applied in the Fall leagues in BC we won’t go into detail. There are two that I’ll mention now, one for the backs and one for the forwards.

For the forwards the most obvious is the law about pulling down a maul. This is ELV #3. It states:

Players are able to defend a maul by pulling it down.

A defending team may pull the maul to the ground. To do this, the defender must grasp an opposing player in the maul anywhere between the shoulders and the hips and then pull that player to the ground. If the maul is brought down by any other action it is regarded as a collapse which remains illegal.

So grabbing the front player(s) in a maul by the shoulders and throwing him(them) to the ground will be legal to disrupt the maul but submarining a maul by sacrificing your body going low (below the hips) still appears to be illegal, and dangerous, and not fun as those who have had a maul fall on them realize. This seems sensible enough and will reduce the effectiveness of the maul as a strategy from a 5 metre lineout. If you have thoughts on this email editor@bcrugbynews.com and we’ll publish them.

For the backs is ELV #11 which states:

Introduction of an offside line 5 metres behind the hindmost feet of the scrum.

At the scrum, both back lines (all non-participants in the scrum) must be back 5 metres from the hindmost feet of the scrum. This Experimental Law Variation is designed to increase the space available to the team who wins the ball at the scrum. By having all the forwards committed at the scrum itself and 10 metres between the back lines, significant space is created in which to build an attack.

The first time I heard about this I envisioned a 5 metre buffer at the rucks as well which would have been really interesting but it’s only at the scrums so that shouldn’t be too much of a problem as defending teams are already going back 10 metres at the lineouts. I think we’ll see attacking teams taking advantage of that buffer with more lateral passing from the scrum and not worrying about getting as deep in the backs. Just looking at the Junior All Blacks at the World Championships I was amazed at some of the flat passes from set pieces.

Again if you have some thoughts on this ELV or any others drop us a line at editor@bcrugbynews.com and we’ll see what sort of discussion we get going.
 
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