All Shook Up With ELV's

Looking forward to the new European rugby season just around the corner?

No? Then you may as well find another blog post to read…

Yes? Then you’d better get ready for things to start to look a bit different when things kick off…

Next Friday, August 1, the Experimental Law Variations (ELV’s) will come into effect globally for a trial period, and like it or not we’re going to have to get used to it for a while.

If you want to snooze your way through the actual text of the changes you won’t find a better place than the IRB website at this link.

Sadly with us Europeans not exactly being sticklers for change, the global ELV’s aren’t anywhere near as comprehensive as they are in the southern hemisphere, where a survey showed 83% of players were satisfied with the full range of alterations.

Personally, having watched this year’s Super14 and Tri-Nations I liked the reduction in penalties brought about by the full set of ELV’s and also the rule whereby if a defending team passes the ball into its own 22 and the resulting kick goes out on the full, play is brought back to where the kicker is. That is similar to the back-pass rule in soccer and for me is a no-brainer.

But alas, the IRB settled on 13 changes to the laws and of what’s left the only one I can see being used to speed things up is at the line-out, where a quickly-taken throw does not have to be straight once it goes backwards. I can see French teams making the most from this.

Of the laws which I think will be flouted more often then not, it has to be the 5-metre offside rule at the scrums. This will either lead to controversy over non-calls, or an increase in penalty awards which the ELVs are supposedly trying to reduce.

I guess we’ll all have to wait and see when the season proper gets underway.

Update - just watched the Wallabies beat the All Blacks 34-19 and I have to say it was one of the most entertaining games of open rugby I have seen in a long time. Sure, the quality of the players was top-notch, but it's hard to argue the full set of ELV's played their part.

Would The Next Ronan O'Gara Please Stand Up

I’m so excited about the coming European rugby season that I’ve finally given in to the annual June barrage of emails from Leinster Rugby and bought myself a season ticket.

Well, that’s not strictly true – seven of us have chipped in for four tickets between us and we’re going to hopefully congregate at the pre-season friendly match against the Queensland Reds to thrash out who gets to see what match.

First order of business at said meeting will be my suggestion that we call ourselves “The Magners Seven”. But I digress.

What has me so eager for the 2008/09 campaign? Many things. The possibility of building on last year’s league triumph and possibly for once out-doing Munster in the Heineken Cup.

Plus, on the international front, there is the dawn of the Kidney era. He’s the man we all wanted, the man who has actually tasted REAL rugby success, the man who can banish all memories of the last guy and give this excellent crop of players a shot at some real silverware.

But that isn’t his only job in my book. He must also try and do what his predecessor couldn’t – nurture a squad to adequately fill the boots of the O’Driscoll generation.

And there is no greater need for new blood than at out-half. I was absolutely gob-smacked at last year’s World Cup to learn that Ronan O’Gara was all of 30 years old. I had him 25 at the oldest!

That means, of course, that he’ll be 34 the next time the Webb Ellis trophy is up for grabs. Am I the only one who thinks we may need a replacement to fill his shoes by then?

Not that 34 is over the hill in this day and age, but there’s always the possibility of injury and besides, wouldn’t someone need to be ready after he retires?

From what I can make out of the crop of players coming through, Leinster’s Johnny Sexton is next in line for the Number 10 shirt. I saw him playing in the Churchill Cup and he was quite impressive, albeit against a 3rd string Argentinian side.

My worry is that if he is to prepare for the big stage, he’s going to need some big games. How about a start against Canada in November? Let Ronan take on the All Blacks and the Pumas.

But what about week-in, week-out matches? Will he get a regular start at Leinster? Well, he will if O’Driscoll and d’Arcy follow their regular injury patterns, but what if they don’t? Would it be worth leaving Felipe on the bench having gone to so much trouble to get him here?

What would I do? Ship Sexton off to Connacht for a season, let him have a run of 18 league matches plus 6 European ones. Give him a chance to get up to speed at the highest level.

But that’s just me I guess, I have every faith that Kidney has a plan in mind.

How Will BO'D Be Remembered?

It’s a wet miserable Saturday morning here in Dublin, so there’s not much else to do but sit in and watch Southern hemisphere rugby.

As the All Blacks look to exact some retribution on the Springboks for their having the audacity to snatch the World Cup from them last year, I begin to wonder what the next European season has to offer, and only one thing springs to mind.

Since he burst onto the scene in 2000 with his famous hat-trick in Paris, we have all been waiting for Brian O’Driscoll to assume the mantle his potential demanded – the world’s greatest player. And of course, with consistent Six Nations performances (albeit with limited success), he was given the ultimate accolade when he was named captain of the touring Lions in 2005.

Captain! Of the bloody LIONS!!! It really doesn’t get better than that, does it?

Enter Tana Umaga and Keven Mealamu.

Since the infamous spear tackle in Christchurch, we have seen the odd flash of brilliance from O’Driscoll; a blistering sprint for a try here, a pinpoint crossfield pass there, and now and then what I consider his trademark, a try-stopping diving tackle out of nowhere rarely seen anywhere on the globe.

But can we say that we have seen him maximise his true potential? If we had been told back in 2000 that his achievements would amount to the Lions captaincy, a few Triple Crowns and a Meaningless League crown, would that have been enough?

I guess it challenges us to determine what we consider success. When it comes to European rugby, once you look at the success of Wales and Munster and realise that it is not all about the English and the French, the only silverware that really matters a damn is the Six Nations Championship and the Heineken Cup. Both have eluded O’Driscoll.

Not that I’m saying that it is all his own fault, and I hope the above YouTube file demonstrates that I appreciate the role injuries have played on his career.

What I’m getting at is just how important the 2008/09 European season is for the man.

In the May edition of Rugby World magazine, controversial columnist Stephen Jones picks his Lions squad for the tour next summer, and he leaves BO’D at home, favouring Shanklin, Henson, Tindall and Barkley.

Now Jones has a reputation for being a bit anti-Irish (he also excludes Paul O’Connell) but one sentence in his column hits the mark in my view...

“O’Driscoll will need to find some of the old freshness next season before the real Lions are chosen.”

You’d find it very hard to convince me that Brian has done enough in the past 12 months to guarantee him the Number 13 jersey for the first test in Durban on June 20, 2009.

And if that’s the case, then how would it look on his CV to be brought along as a replacement, or even worse, an also-ran on the midweek team having been skipper four short years earlier?

So I believe the upcoming season is crucial for BO’Ds legacy. He needs a string of outstanding performances, he needs his name regularly in the back page headlines, he needs to be the inspiration to meaningful silverware for his teams.

How will he do that? Well of course, he needs to stay fit, and that is in the lap of the Gods.

One thing that can help would be to take the captain’s armband away from him and allow him concentrate on his own game. If I were close to him I’d advise him to actually request this and make it publicly known.

Despite the risk of injury I’d also like to see him playing some role in every match throughout the season, at very least the first half of every Meaningless league encounter.

Although I have been a critic of his in the past, I still have no doubt that he has the ability to make the upcoming campaign a success, and hopefully my Leinster season ticket purchase will be worthwhile.

Interesting times ahead.