By Hwyel Rees
June 4 2008

Coaching – Point 1. A kick is only as good as its chase is more true than ever as you will see much more midfield kicking than before. The coaching will have to focus on making sure that the chasing side are able to group up in defence quickly and as a line to snuff out any counter attacks. From the receivers point of view they will need to look for mismatches in the opposition, attacking front 5 forwards where possible and exploiting any dog legs in the advancing cover. The return kick option becomes more useful as the opposition backs will be coming up fast as a line, leaving the less dynamic forwards as potential receivers. Kicking technique and awareness of space will become vital for almost ALL players as anyone could get caught out now.
Point 2. From an attacking perspective this allows the receiver some more time to make a decision than the current rules, but it does mean that they have given up more territory to do so, meaning that the gain line is now a lot further away. What we have seen a lot of is the better broken field runners will immediately look to move the ball towards midfield and attack the opposition forwards. More often than not it leads to a whole lot of kick chase as discussed above. All of this happens now but it will become more frequent, which in turn will mean greater emphasis on the skills required.

Summary – With the possible exception of the pulling down of the maul (although it could be argued that by depowering the maul we will see more rucks and therefore quicker attacks) the ELVs seem designed to keep the ball in play more and allow the attacking side more options and time than they currently have. Everything is very much biased against the defence. The consequence of this is that the players will need to be substantially fitter than they are at present. Those whose fitness levels are high will benefit markedly as the game wears on. Thankfully we haven’t been asked to go the whole hog and accept the “cheats charter” of free kicks for hands in rucks and killing the ball in the first draft (although that will appear in the elite competition), which has seen Super 14 degenerate into a mess, frankly. Furthermore, contrary to the concerns raised at outset, I believe that the scrum as an attacking option has been given a new lease of life by these rules and we will see the option taken more often than we do now. All in all we will see a more attacking style of play being developed and this may actually be a benefit across all levels of the game.

As I said at the beginning these are just a few thoughts. The more I listen to other coaches, players and supporters the more I learn and the better I can help my players, so discussion open!