Whole new maul game as laws take effect

Scrum on down: The new laws are likely to lead to more tries being scored from scrums and a general speeding up of the game

THE SCOTTISH club rugby season kicks off next Saturday and at least no one needs fret over the traditional August problems of shin splints and blistered feet. Instead the start of the season is heralded by waterlogged pitches and the biggest law changes for a generation.

There are 13 of the so-called Experimental Law Variations being trialled in total. The most important have been illustrated (see diagrams) but a full list can be found at www.irb.com/ELVs. The laws apply throughout the Northern Hemisphere at all age groups and, according to the IRB, are due to come in on September 1, although Scottish clubs will obviously be using them two days earlier.

The most contentious of the ELVs trialled recently by the Southern Hemisphere has not been adopted here; the awarding of free kicks for a host of infringements that have previously merited a penalty did not make it on to the books. However, the northern half of the globe will adopt one important law that the southern half of the rugby world has not been using; players will now be able to collapse a maul. This is probably the single biggest change to the game’s dynamic because big, powerful teams will no longer have the ability to stick the ball up their jumper and inch their way inexorably towards the opposition line. Wet-weather rugby will never be quite the same again.

Over the next 12 months the IRB will monitor the twin experiments from both the north and south and collate a brand new set of laws to be adopted universally from next season (2009/10) onwards. There is sure to be much wailing and gnashing of teeth before the final outcome is eventually thrashed out.

Until the Northern Hemisphere ELVs are implemented it is difficult to predict the full impact they will have but at least one club coach pointed out “it’s still a game of rugby” and the general consensus is that too much focus on the law changes will only have a detrimental effect elsewhere. Still there is plenty of scope for innovative teams to exploit: in particular the new lineout and scrum laws.

Coaches who master the nuances of the ELVs will steal a jump on the opposition, which is exactly what Boroughmuir did last season, albeit with no help from the laws. The men from Meggetland won the title with almost embarrassing ease losing just twice along the way and finishing 21 points ahead of their nearest rivals.

It was another triumph for a city side after success for Hawks and Currie in recent years. (Malleny Park may be outside the city limits but it is an Edinburgh club in all but name). It’s a dangerous trend with Edinburgh now boasting five clubs in Premier One, as is the demise of top flight rugby in the north with the relegation of Dundee last year following Aberdeen Grammar School FP’s fall from grace the season before that. The black hole of the central belt threatens to hoover up every player in the country so it’s a relief to see Selkirk promoted, giving the Borders three representatives in the top flight once again.

Still last season’s divide was more about quality than geography, with Boroughmuir in a class of one. This year the rugby playing field looks a lot more level with the most obvious split being along financial fault lines, between the haves and the have-nots of the club game. The draft of professional players was supposed to even things out but most of them will never appear in club colours.

On one side of the equation sit Watsonians and Heriot’s, who have spent the summer actively recruiting, with players flocking to Myreside and Goldenacre from other Scottish clubs as well as the English professional ranks and abroad. At the opposite end of the scale are the newcomers, Selkirk, who live by a “don’t pay, don’t poach” motto and wouldn’t reward their players even if they had the means to do so. All others clubs lie somewhere between the two.

Such is the dilemma at the top of Scottish club rugby, which finds itself caught between the elite and social sides of the game and can’t decide what side of the fence they want to sit although the expansion to a 12-team league was always going to drag the overall standards lower.

Some clubs would prefer a smaller, elite, semi-professional league with close links to the pro-teams. Others are very much like the clubs of old and see themselves more a part of the social side of things or “community game” as the SRU would have it. Until the Premier One clubs themselves agree upon the reason for their existence, this split personality will continue to bedevil the top-flight clubs.

So it speaks volumes for the hard work going into the club game that the schizophrenic nature of Premier One has not prevented numerous players from using it as a springboard to greater things, with the recent promotion of Marc Teague just the latest in a long line. At the age of 27, the Heriot’s winger has won himself a six-month contract with Edinburgh. It is no more than the opportunity to show what he can do but it is like a winning lottery ticket for a man who has always fancied that he has had everything it takes to play pro rugby except the opportunity to prove it.

Now he will find out the truth and Teague can take comfort from the example of another Goldenacre old boy in John Houston who made the switch to the professional ranks last year and ended up winning Edinburgh’s newcomer award.

While some players make the step up to pro rugby, the likes of Teague, James Thompson and Bruce McNeil will all get a crack at Magners rugby this season, others have made the double jump to international honours in quick time. Scottish midfielders Ben Cairns and Nick de Luca were playing in the club ranks just a short couple of years ago.

They would not have done what they have done without the support of the academy structure but to claim that playing club rugby actively harms players, as at least one highly-placed professional coach in Scotland did, is a complete nonsense.