This Friday the Super 14 gets underway and, other than the chance to watch an inherently more entertaining brand of rugby than we have been served up over the last two weekends, they will give most of us a first chance to assess some of the IRB’s experimental law variations (or ELVs) that will be trialled throughout the competition.

Some of them will have little bearing on the face of the game, such as not being able to touch a scrum-half until his hands are on the ball at a ruck - a No.9 is seldom collared in these days of the highly policed breakdown.

Others will have an immediately obvious impact, such as no longer securing territorial gains when punting the ball directly in to touch from your 22 when it has been passed to you by a colleague standing outside the zone - the lineout will now take place parallel to where the ball was kicked.

There will probably also be more tries owing to the fact that the ball will no longer be deemed in touch if it strikes the posts adjacent to the try line and dead ball line, unless it is grounded against them - thus making those last ditch dives for the ball between desperate defender and flying winger more heavily weighted in the favour of the attacking player.

Announcing the trials of these and other experimental variations, the IRB trumpeted: “The primary aim of the ELVs is to make the game simpler to understand for players and supporters alike, and that the players dictate the outcome of matches, not referee subjectivity.”

But here’s the rub. One of the IRB’s biggest bugbears is that too many kicks at goal or kicks to touch are taken when penalties are awarded, thus making less of a spectacle than we could be treated to if that option was taken away from sides, and they became more inclined to run the ball, or at least keep it in play rather than hoofing it off the field to gain territory.

In order to achieve this, they want to reduce the number of offences punishable by the award of a penalty. So, in the Super 14, full penalties will only be given when the referee deems there to have been an infringement of the offside law, failure by a player to join a ruck or maul ‘through the gate’ or when an act of foul play, as described by Law 10 of the game’s lengthy rulebook, is committed. Every other offence will merit a free kick.

On the face of it, this sounds like a genuine attempt to encourage running rugby. But, unsurprisingly, where you find the fingerprints of the IRB all over an idea, the sweet whiff of fudge is never far behind.

One of the more enviable pleasures of this job is that one occasionally has time to peruse the laws of the game. Upon doing so to see exactly what Law 10 covers, a quick count of the offences that currently reside in this chapter reveals that they number 34.

They include various types of blocking, charging, time wasting, repeatedly offending, punching, striking, kicking, tripping, stamping, trampling, stiff arming, high tackling, tackling without the ball, late tackling, tackling players while off the ground, dangerous charging, tackling the jumper in the air, dangerous play in scrum or maul, retaliation, bad sportsmanship, misconduct while the ball is dead, late charging of a kicker, creating a flying wedge or cavalry charge.

That’s 34 separate offences, each of them still punishable by a penalty. Add those to the ‘through the gate’ offence and offside penalties and you have the best part of 40 different infringements that could still lead to a raking 60-metre touchfinder or a pot at the sticks for three points on the score board.

That quote again, from the IRB: “…to make the game simpler to understand.”