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ELVs under scrutiny from ABs

Tuesday 08th July 2008

'Well, we could always use the ELVs as an excuse': Ali Williams is consoled by his coaches

The ELV laws, and the three extra laws adopted by SANZAR for the Tri-Nations, have come in for some criticism from the All Blacks coaching staff, who say that the efforts to redress some imbalances in the game have tipped the scales too far the other way.

The law that allows mauls to be collapsed has raised safety concerns after a few recent crippling injuries as a result of players being caught under piles of bodies.

All Black coach Steve Hansen has now spoken out against the law that says teams do not need to match numbers at the line-outs.

"They (IRB) have possibly made a mistake," Hansen said to the NZPA.

"The contest in the line-out has been flipped over on one side. The defending team's got an advantage."

Hansen may have been looking for a reason as to why his side's line-out against South Africa was so poor in the second half, but he also pointed to the scrappiness of South Africa's line-out, and said he will have to find a new strategy for winning that area.

"Rugby's a game where you adapt to the laws and if you can adapt well enough to win your own line-out ball when they're putting more in it then at the end of the season, I may be sitting here saying I love them," Hansen said.

"As we play more games we'll get better at exploiting them, both on attack and defence."

Graham Henry agreed with his assistant, but said he preferred the newer version of the game by and large and that the game would take more shape as the players and coaches got used to the new style.

"The guys enjoy playing the ELVs. Just forget about the two new ones," he said.

"If you ask the All Blacks what they enjoy playing most, they'd rather play with the new ELVs in place.

"They enjoy that game, it's more open. It's more athletic and so on.

"For coaches who have coached the game for a long time, we find it less structured and that creates challenges in itself.

"At the start of the Super 14, you would have thought 'this looks shambolic'.

"But in the last half of the Super 14 as we got closer to the finals there was some hell of a good rugby played."