Steve Deane, writing in The New Zealand Herald, sees similarities in the current ELV debate to those which spawned rugby league in 1895.
"We've seen it before, this fundamental philosophical divide over the future of rugby. We didn't see it first-hand last time, of course, because none of us were alive in 1895, when 22 northern English clubs took their balls home and went off to form what is now league.
"But rugby has certainly experienced the same geographically based, economically driven divide we are seeing today.In 1895, the dispute was over player payments and the formation of competitive leagues. Battle lines were drawn along a north-south divide and along class lines. Almost 114 years later, not a lot has changed.
"This time it is the south, in the form of the Southern Hemisphere, that is being driven by economic necessity to push for changes to the game; to back the adoption of the experimental law variations (ELVs). It may be the north that is resisting but, with the Northern Hemisphere lobby headquartered squarely in London, it's really just a recycled version of the 1895 southern toffs who are doing their damnedest to fend off change."
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