Why didn't the RFU endorse the ELVs if they really want expansive rugby?

The Rugby Football Union (the English rugby union) has announced that it wants the IRB to look at the tackled ball laws to see if there is a way of ensuring that the complexities involving this part of the game can be simplified to help attacking rugby.

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When I read that I could hardly restrain my frustration at the hypocrisy involved with this suggestion. My guess, too, is that similar feelings are being felt by New Zealand and Australian officials, although they will be discreet in public about their feelings on this.

Not so discreet has been the IRB's chief executive, Mike Miller. He was quoted in the UK Daily Telegraph as suggesting that England's problems with the tackled ball laws and with the lack of tries in international rugby may be due to a 'mindset' found only in English rugby. He went on to put the boot into the RFU (correctly in my opinion) by noting: 'I think you'll find the views that tend to come out of England wouldn't necessarily be shared elsewhere in the world.'

The RFU's chairman, Martyn Thomas, justifies his call for changes to the way the tackled ball area is ruled and his expectation that other unions will follow England with the comment: 'The RFU has a pretty good record for lobbying. We dealt with the ELVs ...'

It is this condesencing comment that is most annoying, and hypocritical. The part of the ELVs that the RFU 'dealt with' by insisting they were not played on a trial basis in Europe (thereby killing them) was the reform of the tackled ball area. Under the ELVs, only three infringements at the tackled ball area warranted a full-arm penalty: foul play, offside play and not coming through the gate into the ruck/maul.

This reform removed over 30 other ways full-arm penalties could be imposed. Referees were not longer deciding the outcomes of matches by trying to work out who to penalise in the massed confusion of piled bodies in the rucks and mauls. There was far more open play. Far fewer penalties. The games flowed. And tries were scored.

But the RFU effectively killed off this reform. They were helped by a gaggle of influential British rugby journalists who did not understand the ELVs, even though it was explained to them in some detail by the authorities. The RFU and the British rugby journalists insisted that the ELVs was an Australian plot designed to cover up a weak Australian scrum.

The nonsense of this argument lies in the fact that the ELVs were developed and trialled by the IRB (hence, I suggest, Mike Millar's rather cool appraisal of the RFU's current complaints). More importantly, by having short-arm penalties for most of the ruck and maul infringements, there was far more scope for teams to unleash their powerful scrums, if they had them, than under the current laws. Instead of tapping and running, a team could ask for a scrum.

This season we've had the England side booed by its supporters for its duller than ditch-water rugby. We've had the British rugby journalists, the same 'experts' who damned the ELVs ruck and maul regulations, complain about how clueless English rugby is. Now they want changes to the ruck and maul laws to open up play, changes the ELVs actually delivered.

When the IRB Council meets at Dublin next week I want Mike Millar to challenge the RFU about implementing the full ELVs. If the RFU is fair-dinkum about wanting to free up the tackle ball area for attacking sides, then it should be honest enough to admit it got matters totally wrong in opposing the ELVs reforms on the tackle ball without actually seeing them trialled.

I'd also like the IRB Council to make a ruling to the effect that the benefit of the doubt goes to the attacking side. The Wallabies crossed Scotland's line three times last weekend. All three times the Wallabies the benefit of the doubt on whether a try was scored or not went to Scotland. This change, in itself, would increase the number of tries being scored. Right now if a side gets enough bodies around a player going over the tryline that side will generally be rewarded with a no-try decision.

Another series of changes I'd like to see brought in relates to the scrums.

1. Halfbacks should be required to feed the scrums immediately, and not hold on to the ball for many seconds as the Italian halfback did against the All Blacks.

2. The call should be shortened to : 'Crouch' 'Touch' 'Scrum'. The word 'engage' is a ridiculous word to use in this context for the obvious reason that it is two syllables. Packs instinctively move forward when they hear the 'en' sound. But referees don't want them to engage until they sound out the full word, en-GAGE! There is no such problem with the one syllable word 'scrum.' The word also denotes what the packs are going to do.

3. The referee should have his hands placed on the backs of two of the opposing props and when he calls out 'scrum' should bring the packs together. Jonathan Kaplan did this in the England - New Zealand Test at Twickenham and we had hardly any collapsed scrums and real contests.

Someone needs to tell the RFU, too, that since 1895 they have opposed every attempt to make rugby a popular, skilful and expansive running game. The RFU was true to form with its opposition to the ELVs. The chickens have come home to roost. It's time for the RFU to start listening to the other rugby communities who have consistently played attractive and winning rugby.