Introduction of Experimental Law Variations
See also: Playing rugby unionThe 2008 competition is currently the highest level competition to trial any of the International Rugby Board's (IRB) Experimental law variations (ELVs). The laws had been trialled in various competitions in both the Northern and Southern Hemisphere. The highest level competition the laws had previsouly been introduced to was the 2007 Australian Rugby Championship. The introduction of the laws for the 2008 season was approved by the competition's governing body, SANZAR, at a meeting on 4 December 2007.
SANZAR decided not to adopt all the ELVs, and decided to adopt the following:
- 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.
Read more about this topic: 2008 Super 14 Season
Famous quotes containing the words introduction of, introduction, experimental, law and/or variations:
“For the introduction of a new kind of music must be shunned as imperiling the whole state; since styles of music are never disturbed without affecting the most important political institutions.”
—Plato (c. 427–347 B.C.)
“Such is oftenest the young man’s introduction to the forest, and the most original part of himself. He goes thither at first as a hunter and fisher, until at last, if he has the seeds of a better life in him, he distinguishes his proper objects, as a poet or naturalist it may be, and leaves the gun and fish-pole behind. The mass of men are still and always young in this respect.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“When we run over libraries persuaded of these principles, what havoc must we make? If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames; for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)
“It will be seen that we contemplate a time when man’s will shall be law to the physical world, and he shall no longer be deterred by such abstractions as time and space, height and depth, weight and hardness, but shall indeed be the lord of creation.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I may be able to spot arrowheads on the desert but a refrigerator is a jungle in which I am easily lost. My wife, however, will unerringly point out that the cheese or the leftover roast is hiding right in front of my eyes. Hundreds of such experiences convince me that men and women often inhabit quite different visual worlds. These are differences which cannot be attributed to variations in visual acuity. Man and women simply have learned to use their eyes in very different ways.”
—Edward T. Hall (b. 1914)