Spiro Zavos

When Steve Hansen says the laws of rugby need to be revised, modified and made easier to play, to referee, and to understand, the rugby world should take notice.

The All Blacks under Hansen’s adroit coaching are in an era even more golden than previous great eras.

They are not only playing winning rugby, they are playing rugby the way it is supposed to be played – with courage, physical strength, high skills and the intent to score tries while stopping opponents from doing so.

The Roar

My guess is that the USA Basketball side, with 63 consecutive wins and Olympic and world titles by the net-full, are the best team in international sport right now. But the All Blacks must be close behind them.

The point is that when leading New Zealand rugby men speak passionately about the need to improve the laws of rugby, the rest of the world should take notice.

There is a history in that country of profound thinking about the game that needs to be appreciated by the rugby community outside of New Zealand.

So it is disappointing to me that the ARU and Wallabies coach Ewen McKenzie haven’t caught the ball passed to them by Hansen and run with it.

The benefits of a more easily understood and playable rugby game should be obvious.

What’s more, the solution to the problem stated by Hansen is staring them in the face.

The ARU needs to form a grouping with the New Zealand Rugby Union, Argentina, France, the Pacific Island countries and any of the other European nations concerned about improving rugby as spectacle, to lobby for an implementation after the 2015 Rugby World Cup tournament of the entire Experimental Law Variations package.

The point about the ELVs is that they are a comprehensive re-writing of the laws of rugby to make them less complicated, condensed, easier to play, with the intervention of 50-50 refereeing decisions being de-powered in main to short-arm penalties.

In other words, exactly what Hansen is calling for.

After the dismal Rugby World Cup 2007 final between South Africa and England, the IRB decided to put into match play 13 0f 23 variations.

The Australian expert on the ELVs panel was Rod Macqueen, in my opinion the most thoughtful and inventive thinker about rugby the Australian rugby community has produced in the last four decades.

In 2009 the IRB approved of 10 of the 13 variations.

Unfortunately, the most important variations were excluded: the pulling down of mauls was rejected, numbers in the lineout was brought back from the ELVs proposal of as many as a team wanted to put in to the throwing side deciding, and the sanctions punishable by free kicks were abolished.

This last variation allowed for only two full-arm penalty offences at the ruck and maul (for fouls and offside) and the rest being short-arm penalties, with the scrums being subject to the same law.

The two rugby powers who were most adamant that the ELVs package be frustrated were (and is any one surprised!) England and South Africa.

Both these rugby powers see rugby as an attritional, set-piece dominated game where scoring through penalties and drop goals is somehow the point of the game, more so than scoring tries. They are wedded to rugby as a rugby football game.

It was no surprise to anyone with a smidgin of knowledge about the history of rugby that when England toured New Zealand earlier this year, they spent an eternity going into lineouts. They slowed the game down as much as possible.

Then last week, we had the sight of Richie McCaw complaining to the referee at Wellington that the Springboks were deliberately sending players down to stop the flow of play.

Bill Pulver needs to show some leadership in Australia and in world rugby.

Next year, for instance, the NRC should be played under the 13 ELVs. This would enable law-makers to evaluate them and apply them to world rugby in 2016.

So let’s see some action from the ARU. The New Zealand Rugby Union will come on board. I see nothing but a win-win situation in all of this.

Australian rugby thrives when it is energetic and full of action, qualities the ELVs rugby bring to the game. The rugby game, too, will be given a rocket boost in 2016, the year of the Olympic Sevens, as it continues its astonishing spread around the world.