Sunday Herald Lewis Stuart reports

NEW LAWS, new game? Not quite. A great spectacle, on a fine afternoon for handling rugby and in the end it was the traditional virtues that took Boroughmuir through to an opening win in the Scottish Hydro Electric Super Cup.

Which is not to say that the experimental laws that have suddenly given a purpose and a focus to a tournament that would otherwise have been nothing but mid-season fluff, did not play their part. How much that was the laws themselves, and how much it was two decently skilled teams reacting to the novelty, only time will tell.

The first impression is that, if introduced, the new laws will certainly achieve their goal. The match was fantastically fast, the ball in play for long periods and when you saw some of the fittest players in Scottish domestic rugby going down with cramp in the later stages you realised that the general impression of speed was fully justified by the toll it was taking on the players. Thank goodness for rolling replacements.

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They also seemed to clean up a lot of the muddle. There were hardly any penalties in the match, certainly after Rob Dickson, the referee, had established the offside parameters in the first quarter and, though in the end the kicks made the difference with each side scoring four tries, we were spared the usual routine of 15 to 20 kicks to touch in the game to set up attacking lineouts.

Let's get the caveats in though. This was Hawks against Boroughmuir, two teams that try to play fast, open rugby at the worst of times. If they had sat down to write a set of law changes to suit them, they would have come up with something remarkably similar to the 26 revisions suggested by the International Rugby Board laws committee.

Also, this was the first game under the experimental laws and the players had had one training session each to get used to them. As a result, they spent most of the game trying to work out how to take advantage of them.

Going through them in detail, it is obvious that some worked better than others.

The breakdown: this was the most controversial and the most significant. Hawks were better at getting hands to the ball, won a lot more turnover and took advantage of it as they went into the lead before half-time. Boroughmuir, however, seemed to crack the secret later in the game, the tackled player laying the ball back and getting his team-mates to drive over him and protect it. When they did, the ball was coming back with professional speed and slickness and laid the platform for their late flourish to win the game.

It still has the potential to be a muddle, with both sides wrestling for possession unless it was won quickly. When it is won fast, there is nothing to suck players in, making it even more likely than under the old laws that teams will simply string 15 players across the field in a rugby league-style defence.

The maul: It's dead, said Rob Dickson, the referee afterwards. And he may be right. There were only two attempts to set up mauls in this game and both were brought down quickly. But neither of these are great mauling teams and in reality this law was hardly tested in this game.

The lineout: No effect. Both sides called shortened lineouts and still won the ball though outnumbered. Boroughmuir were confident enough to put four men into one lineout near their goal line and throw long over the top, a move that it had been suggested the change would kill. Neither side seemed greatly inconvenienced by not being able to pass back into their 22, but these are attack-minded sides. Certainly there was a lot of attacking from deep their own 22s.

Scrum: again, the jury is out. The expectation was that by moving the offside line back, teams would call a lot more back row moves but if anything they seemed to call fewer. This will probably change as teams get more used to the new rules.

Penalties: A lot less. They did affect the result, Hawks scoring 28 points from tries and Boroughmuir only 26, but they were few and far between and all for obvious offences, the scoring ones being given for offside in the backs and failing to release after the tackle. Nor was there any great increase in cheating but again, the nature of the teams has to be taken into account.

The rest: No real effect. The touch judges seemed even more lost than Dickson in trying to implement the changes and did nothing different and the rest of the technical changes did not come into play.

Ben Fisher, the Boroughmuir No8, and one of the most experienced players on the park said afterwards that he had found the game exhausting - "Not what you want first match back after Christmas" - but great fun to play. "It was certainly faster than anything we have played so far this season," he said.

"I think, though, that when the players will get used to the changes they will also get better at pacing themselves. There was a lot of throwing the ball around and offloading simply because we were a bit worried about what would happen if we did go to ground."

For the record, it was a pulsating match, Boroughmuir going ahead with Rory Coupar, the wing, rounding the defence early with Elgan O'Donnell converting and adding a penalty.

Hawks clawed their way back with Mike Adamson popping up to take the scoring pass from Max Evans, the wing who also laid on the second try for John Fitzpatrick, the flanker. Adamson converted both to give his side the lead.

Boroughmuir got close with a Scott Hadden penalty, and edged back in front before the break, Coupar again finishing after an forward surge down the other touchline. The Edinburgh side increased their lead with Freddie Lait, the prop, battering his way over but Hawks came back as Evans took the inside flip from Murray Strang to cut cleanly through and took the lead again with Greg Francis, the No8, capitalising on a fluid piece of offloading play by his fellow forwards.

In the seesaw game, it was Boroughmuir who had the final word, Sean Hollywood, the flanker, setting up the attack and Camerson Ward, the prop, finishing after his teammates had made hard work of getting the final few yards. A thrilling finish to a thrilling game that augurs well for these rule changes.

Glasgow Hawks: R Kerr; S Gordon, J Kerr,S Duffy, M Evans; M Adamson, S Biggart; C Aghanya, J Maclay, G Mories, A Kelly, A Dale, N Caddell, J Fitzpatrick, G Francis. Subs used: M Wiseman, N Cox, M Smith, M Strang.

Boroughmuir: G Cottrell; J White, E O'Donnell, A Hadden, R Couper; S Hadden, C Cusiter; J Malakoty, N Malloy, F Lait, G Scott, G McCallum, C Capaldi, S Hollywood, B Fisher. Subss used: C Ward, J Fish, D Cuningham, S Ruddick.

Referee: R Dickson (Madras).

This article was posted on 7-Jan-2007, 09:45 by Hugh Barrow.