The International Rugby Board, Member Unions and key stakeholders, including players, coaches and referees, will meet in London on Monday and Tuesday to discuss the Experimental Law Variations (ELVs) that have been trailed globally over the last year.
All of those intending the conference will consider the statistical analysis of the trials conducted around the world to date and evaluate each individual Experimental Law Variation.
The key points from the conference will then be considered by the IRB Rugby Committee when they meet on 27 April to formulate recommendations for the IRB Council meeting on 13 May. Council will then decide which ELVs, if any, should be fully integrated into Law.
The genesis of the Experimental Law Variations’ programme was the Conference on the Playing of the Game, which was hosted by the IRB in Auckland, New Zealand, back in January 2004, and attended by the national coaches from participating teams at Rugby World Cup 2003 and the best Rugby minds from around the world.
Collectively the participants requested that the IRB look into the Laws of the Game and several possibilities, including teams not to match numbers at the lineout, turning penalties for technical offences into free kicks and the potential to sack the maul.
The conference in Auckland raised some interesting questions, including whether the Game as we know it is getting too technical and complicated with subjective decisions; can we improve the Game by making some adjustments to the Laws while maintaining the core values and what areas of the Game are causing the greatest concern and how can we address them?
The Laws Project Group was subsequently conceived, as were the Experimental Law Variations, on the proviso that Laws trialled should relate to the Playing Charter that recognises Rugby as being a game for all shapes and sizes.
Since 2005 the Laws Project Group has embarked on a journey that has entailed an extensive, unprecedented practical programme of trials of the Experimental Law Variations in a number of competitions at all levels of the Game around the world and has culminated with a global trial of 13 of the ELVs, which commenced on 1 August 2008, with SANZAR continuing to trial the global variants along with sanctions.
