Dave’s Football Blog

So the Super 14, the Southern Hemisphere’s top club competition for rugby union, gets under way this weekend, and while most folks are looking forward to seeing some thrilling Bryan Habana tries, others are looking forward to the new Experimental Law Variations (ELVs) that will be adopted for the competition, which will hopefully prevent situations like we saw in the Rugby World Cup, where the ball got kicked into touch about 300 times in 80 minutes. (And y’all complain about NFL games stopping and starting too much? Please.)

Anyway, the new ELVs are now called the Stellenbosch Laws, as they were first tested at Stellenbosch University in South Africa two years ago. The Super 14 decided to adopt some, but not all of the Stellenbosch Laws for this season. According to Wikipedia, here’s what we’ll see:

• The corner posts are moved so that they are outside the junction of the touchline and goal-line. A player will also not be in touch if they are touching the corner post unless they are also touching either the touchline, or ground over the touchline.
• A ball can be thrown backwards on a quick throw-in rather than having to be thrown straight.
• The offside line will now occur immediately once a tackle is made.
• At the breakdown the scrum-half (half-back) cannot be touched unless they are touching the ball.
• During a scrum, with the exception of forwards in the scrum, and each team’s scrum-half, the offside line will now be 5 metres behind the hindmost foot of a scrum.
• With the exception of offside, not entering the breakdown through the gate, and foul-play, the punishment will be a free kick.

The idea behind these ELVs is to create a faster, more exciting game to watch. The ball spends more time in play, more free kicks are taken on the fly, less time is spent setting up lineouts, and we see more of the short kicking game — which, at its best, can resemble a good short passing game in American football. Imagine for a moment the rugby union equivalent of the West Coast Offense. That might be fun, no?

If you want to get a glimpse of the future of rugby union, Setanta Sports will air three Super 14 matches this Saturday:

1.) Blues v. Chiefs, 1:30 AM ET (Live)
2.) Reds v. Highlanders, 7:30 AM ET
3.) Cheetahs v. Lions, 7:45 PM ET

Bryan Habana and the Bulls will get their first run on Setanta on Friday, February 22, at 1:00 PM ET, for a live match against New Zealand club the Crusaders. Set your DVRs accordingly.

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