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Sheridan concerned by rugby experiment

Exclusive by Jenny Dixon
30/ 7/2008

TOP England prop Andrew Sheridan is worried that new laws, being trialled in the Premiership this season, could spoil rugby union.

The experimental law variations (ELVs) are set to make the game faster, and therefore less conducive to the forwards’ play of 6ft 5ins strongmen like Sheridan.

He explained: "I think they are messing about with the game a bit.

"I’ll have to see how they go and just adapt to it but I hope it doesn’t change the game too much.

"Personally, I think it’s quite good that we’ve got all different shapes and sizes in rugby but you can see it going the route of everyone having to conform to a certain size if the rules keep progressing as they are."

On Tuesday, referee David Pearson visited Sharks’ training base, and refereed a rugby session, to help the team get to grips with the changes.

Thirteen ELVs are being tested this season in the league including: defending players have to be five metres away from the back of a scrum, a team can use as many players as they wish to defend a line-out and players are allowed to bring down a maul.

Sharks’ head coach Kingsley Jones has been teaching the players the new laws and is remaining positive about their implementation.

He explained: "There’s no point being unhappy, they are here until next November, those coaches who are negative will get left behind.

"It’s a new opportunity. You have to look at it positively and try new things. I think we’ve got players who will excel under these new laws."

Jones recently attended the Six Nations conference in Rome, on behalf of the Welsh Rugby Union, where the topic of the experimental laws was discussed in detail, giving him a better insight into what to expect.

"I think it will be a really interesting challenge from a coaching point of view. It’s a big change in the rules," said Jones.

"The line-out will be very different, the defence can put as many players as they want in the line-out and what has been found so far is the attacking team is struggling to win possession.

"This year the line-out will be different for everybody and the coaches who find ways to adapt have got a head start.

"You can now collapse the maul as long as it’s done legally - we did that very well last year and conceded the least yards in the Premiership from driving mauls. It will also be very difficult to defend a scrum 10-metres from the tryline. But it’s early days - these are just my predictions - we’ll see what happens."