One of Britain’s top rugby writers, Mike Cleary, shares his thoughts on the new ELV’s:

“When you want a miserable bugger, you can’t find one anywhere. According to my highly reliable sources in Bath on Saturday, there was not a whingeing, whining, grumpy soul to be found in and around the Recreation Ground. Well, apart from those Bath fans so wrapped up in their own misery at seeing their side’s first home defeat in many moons that they couldn’t recognise the bigger picture.

Wasps’ 42-34 victory over Bath was not just a newsworthy return to form for the European champions. That, too, was of significance only to the partisan. What should engage us all is the fact that this was a game to rank alongside the finest that have been produced in the Premiership. For its sweep, its majesty, its crunching competitiveness, its dramatic shifts of narrative, its ambition, its technical accomplishments and its sheer exuberance.

And if the set of laws in place at the Rec were good enough to produce Saturday’s tour de force, why are we going to such lengths to think about changing them? Barmy.

If rugby is still a game for all shapes and sizes, it is also a game of all shades and nuances. Some matches are wonderful. Some matches are rubbish. That’s one of the reasons people keep turning up. You never quite know what you’re going to get.

It seems to me, though, that one of the underlying reasons for the promotion of the experimental law variations, which came into use in Super 14 for the first time at the weekend, is that there is a drive from some quarters to make the sport more uniform.”

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