KEY POINTS:
It was Plato who first noted that necessity was the mother of invention. Chances are the Greek philosopher didn't watch a lot of rugby.
In rugby, necessity somehow tends to end up being the mother of all evil. Evil, that is, if your vision of how the game
should be played doesn't involve an endless series of aimless punts, kicks for touch and massed defensive lines waiting to snuff out any hint of creativity.
In other words, Northern Hemisphere rugby. Aerial ping pong. Kick and clap.
Just last year, coach Graham Henry declared the All Blacks would rather not win the World Cup at all than adopt that boring, kicking style of game.
Henry argued that, even if he favoured a forward-oriented, territory-based game, it wouldn't suit the natural abilities of New Zealand's players. They would probably become bored just chasing kicks.
How times have changed.
This week, All Blacks backline guru Wayne Smith, one of the great innovators of the modern game, conceded the All Blacks would take a safety-first approach based on kicking for territory into tomorrow night's Tri-Nations decider against the Wallabies in Brisbane.
The reason?
Necessity.
The All Blacks' hands - and boots - have been forced by the impact of the game's experimental laws. Well, two of them actually.
More than a touch ironically, it is the two law changes rejected even for trial by the Northern Hemisphere - the legal pulling down of mauls and the awarding of free kicks instead of penalties at the breakdown - that have ushered in the era of kick and clap downunder.
It was the potential for those two ELVs to take the game too far away from its fundamentals, to make it too much like league or sevens, that saw them viewed as beyond the pale in the north.
The ELVs in question were designed to make the game more open, attacking and fluent. In reality, the exact opposite has occurred.
"The ELVs have created the game where territory's important, where you don't want to be caught too often behind your gain line or in your own territory," Smith said."Someone's going to get a free kick which could create momentum for the other team.
"I'm sure it wasn't the reason for putting those laws in. The vision was that teams would have to run it out from their 22."
The All Blacks learned the hard way that that wasn't the right approach, slumping to a 19-34 defeat in Sydney in July. Smith conceded he had been out-coached by Robbie Deans, who had had the benefit of coaching a full season of Super 14 under the ELVs.
Since that defeat the All Blacks have altered their approach and the results have followed. Results, though, aren't everything.
The level of dissatisfaction at the direction the game is taking under the ELVs is growing.
Blues coach Pat Lam, for one, can't stand it.
"When I went to the UK in 1996-97 [to play] I remember telling my mates and my family 'you won't believe this - you're on attack, someone kicks it for the corner and it goes out and everyone claps'," Lam says.
"They were applauding people who kick the ball out - and we've actually got to that now. You just have to watch the All Blacks games. When a player kicks the ball out in a corner or kicks it out full stop, they get applause.
"It is the [new] rules that have brought that on."
It is not just at international level that the rule changes are having such a pronounced effect.
The amount of kicking in this year's provincial championship is up 30 to 35 per cent on the past two seasons, says rugby statistician Paul Neazor.
Third-placed Bay of Plenty, for instance, have already put in more kicks this season than they did for last year's entire campaign.
But the percentage of kicks finding touch has dropped from roughly 50 to 30 per cent and the ratio of kicks being regathered has also dropped.
"What this says is that teams are kicking longer and often just to get rid of the ball to avoid being caught behind the gain line," Neazor says.
Lam, who coached a struggling Auckland side for the first five rounds of the national championship, agrees the standard of kicking has been poor.
"The reason we have got aimless kicking is that so many guys aren't good at it," he says.
"Look at the All Blacks. If you take Dan Carter out of there - who is one of the best tactical kickers around - I would say the All Blacks would be in big trouble as well."
Lam actually supports many of the ELVs, such as the new offside line at scrums and the move to limit kicking out of the 22.
But after enjoying success with Auckland using a game plan based on ball retention and committing opposition defenders to create space, Lam has watched the changes to the maul and the breakdown laws render that approach untenable.
"The problem with [the maul law] is that it is clogging up the defences from the lineouts," he says.
"After a lineout you can just sack [the maul] and the rest just push out and the whole backline is there, so it restricts your space. And when there is no space there the only option is to kick it."
The breakdown has been turned into a lottery, with the balance of power shifting to defenders who no longer face a strong disincentive to intentionally slow down opposition ball.
"The problem with the rules always comes back to who is officiating and, unfortunately, in the NPC the quality of the officiating at the breakdown has been very inconsistent," says Lam.
"You just have to watch how many times when you take the ball in and there are three or four guys on attack coming to the breakdown and only two guys from the opposition, who will go off their feet or try to slow it down because the rules encourage that, and the referees are giving the free kick.
"Everyone thinks with a quick tap-and-go the ball is still in play but the risk and reward is turned around. Effectively you can't trust the referee to make that decision because it changes from week-to-week.
"[Auckland] can't do what we did last year. Last year you could guarantee that if you go wide or wanted to have a go and get numbers to the breakdown you are at least going to get the scrum or get the ball back."
Now, with referees often awarding free kicks to defending teams, attacking teams are finding themselves conceding possession in poor field position and getting caught short of numbers on defence.
The result is that attacking from deep has become just too risky. Kicking is the first - and, quite often, the only - option.
At the Blues, skills programmes are being altered to reflect the increased emphasis on kicking if the two most contentious experimental laws are adopted for good.
But Lam still holds out hope they will be shelved when the trial period ends.
"I think [the IRB] needs to look at what sort of game we are trying to create here. It is unfortunate that a game comes down to how well you can kick a ball.
"The ironic thing for the Northern Hemisphere is that it suits their game. But it is going to be very difficult for the IRB to bring them in if the northern hemisphere aren't using them. So that is actually a positive.
"You certainly want kicking but the game has always been about the destination being the try-line."
At least in the Southern Hemisphere, it has.
