Middlesex Rugby
ELVs
Middlesex tackle ELVs head on
August 1, 2008
Much of the summer chatter has been about the implementation of the experimental law variations on August 1, and Middlesex RFU tackled the issue head-on with a series of presentations to discuss the changes.
Around 160 coaches, players and referees in Middlesex attended three evening sessions at London Welsh, Ealing and Saracens Amateurs rugby clubs. There was an explanation of the 13 ELVs being trialled in England in the next year but the onus was on discussing ways in which to embrace them and benefit from them. The worldwide debate as to whether they were merited in the first place was deliberately put to one side.
Bob Lawless, chairman of the Middlesex RFU coaching committee, said: “The idea came from an RDP meeting, we were aware the ELVs were coming online and I thought there was a need to get out and discuss them. It mirrored similar meetings all around the country.
“Clubs, schools, colleges and universities received invitations and considering it was holiday time there was a great turn-out, so much so we were thinking of putting on an extra evening in August.”
The meeting at London Welsh broke out into coaching mini-workshops in which the host club’s director of coaching, Martin Jones, and his counterparts from Rosslyn Park and other local sides chewed over ways to deal with the law variations. The get-together at Ealing was targeted primarily at those coaching under-19 level, and there were 80 attendees.
Coaches from clubs in the north of the county were joined by 20 players on their pre-season training night at Saracens Amateurs to watch video clips of the ELVs in action. They had presentations from Ed Turnill, refeee development officer for London & South East, and Chris Cuthbertson, who in addition to being a Middlesex member on the RFU Council is chair of the RFU’s ELVs implementation task group.
Tony Robinson, coach development officer for London North, was also on hand for a lively debate over such matters as the scrum half’s choice of positioning at scrum and line-out, and the techniques likely to be deployed by players collapsing the maul.
