Wynne Gray: ELVs have had their fun but don't deserve fairytale ending

Rugby lost its way and a fair chunk of its soul when rucking was eliminated.

The dynamic attacking action which encouraged continuity was considered too dangerous, both for players caught lying near the ball and in the battle for parental approval.

The game became even more emasculated when the ELVs arrived and with them an obsessive desire to speed the game up with free kicks. Some ideas had merit like the 5m gap behind scrums and players not being allowed to kick the ball out on the full outside the 22m line.

However, the greatest crime was reducing rucks to some sort of scrabblefest while the referee resembled someone blindfolded at a children's party trying to pin the tail on the donkey. Add to that approval for a minority of defenders to pull down rolling mauls and the game quickly lost its mojo and many of the facets which delivered its uniqueness.

When the ELVs appeared after work by the laws project group at the International Rugby Board, they came bearing gold-plated objectives about creating greater clarity for spectators, players and match officials.

The motives were genuine, the outcome spectacularly unsuccessful. The intentions were worthy but the consequences were probably ill-fated.

Until rucking is reinstated, mauls allowed to prosper and free kicks dispensed with, rugby will remain a beep test with tedious episodes of aerial ping-pong. Under the current laws, rugby has been sterilised, it has lost its difference, it has shed its essence.

The IRB has trialled a mix of 30-odd law changes in differing quantities in competitions north and south of the equator. Talk about a recipe for increased bickering which is the background to this week's meeting of international delegates in the UK.

Noise from the north is not always reliable but hopefully, the rising rumbles about the rejection of most of the ELVs prove correct, that a majority dispense with their politicking and dropkick the ELVs out the door of the Lensbury club in London.

Asking them to reinstate rucking though will be as likely as Grizz Wyllie coaching the All Blacks again.

Those who defend the ELVs will flood the room with statistics, slide shows and data to support their views about the merits of having the ball in play more. That detail may be right but how much time is spent watching rivals indulge in a private forceback duel.

Administrators should also ask themselves if they like the way ELVs have removed the old adage that rugby is a game for all shapes and sizes.

If the IRB delivers a red card to the ELVs, they should then direct their attention to another of the game's pressing problems.

They need to identify young, quality international referees who will administer the laws of the game strictly without giving a coaching seminar. If they find those officials can't govern the game clearly, they should ask them, not the administrative theorists, how to clarify the laws in time for the 2011 World Cup.

These are global rugby issues and it is time the hemispheres were in a concerted rather than points-scoring mode.