Jones calls for end to ELVs

Jones: Outspoken

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Eddie Jones has slammed efforts by the sport's ruling body to make the game more entertaining through the introduction of ELVs.

The Saracens director of rugby and former Australia coach has warned that the law changes - such as legally being able to collapse the maul and no player restrictions at the line-outs - are in danger of trivialising the sport.

"The important thing is to improve rugby. To judge the ELVs you have to ask 'have they made the game better?"' said Jones, a highly respected figure who led the Wallabies to the World Cup final in 2003.

"Better does not necessarily mean more entertaining. If you want entertainment you watch Twenty20 cricket. We don't want rugby to be Twenty20 cricket."

Rethink

Dwindling club attendance figures in the southern hemisphere prompted a rethink by the International Rugby Board into the way the game should be played.

But while the SANZAR nations struggle to attract fans, the northern hemisphere is enjoying an unprecedented boom in popularity that runs from club to Test level.

And Jones warned that if the ELVs become permanent the new brand of rugby could start to turn fans away from the sport in Britain and Europe.

"Just have a look at what the World Cup has done in Europe. Rugby in France is big now - they had four club games with 80,000 crowds last season," he said.

"Rugby in France is going through the roof because the World Cup was so successful.

"Watch Bath against Wasps in January - it was one of the best games I've ever seen. There were unbelievable skills levels on show.

"It had everything. If a game is played well and refereed well then there is nothing wrong with it. If you play the game well then it becomes a spectacle.

"If you try to make it a spectacle first and foremost, then you get a simplistic version."

Twenty20 rugby

And Jones put forward an idea suggesting two forms of the game can run parallel, with a shortened version mirroring cricket's Twenty20.

"Now there's Test match cricket and Twenty20 cricket but we need to keep Test match rugby.

"Around the world most people want to watch Test rugby. There are pockets around the world who want to see Twenty20 cricket so let's make Twenty12 rugby.

"We could have 12 players, 20 minutes each way with no scrums or line-outs. As the game becomes more professional another form of the game could develop. Sevens hasn't been a success as entertainment.

"It might do well in Hong Kong and Wellington, but around the world. You might find another form of the game springs up eventually."