Rugby's lawmakers are in town this weekend. Armed with a pile of statistics, they hope to win a few converts to the experimental law variations that have been in force up here since the start of the season. I can't say I wish them luck – and I don't know many who do.

During the Six Nations, some well-respected coaches had their say and all were negative. Most important, I guess, was Ireland's coach, Declan Kidney, the man who plotted his way through the new laws to win the competition at his first time of asking.

According to Kidney, a winner and therefore not a coach with a grudge, the ELVs were introduced to encourage attacking play, but are having the opposite effect. Doing away with the rolling maul, he says, has left the field cluttered where previously defenders were sucked in. Likewise the ruck, where four players are now needed to secure your own ball while the defence can get away with committing no more than two, leaving men spare to stretch across the field.

Kidney's analysis is that a large percentage of the game is now in favour of the defence and that recognition helped Ireland to win their first – and well deserved – grand slam for 61 years. Their defence, coached by the Australian Les Kiss, was the best in the tournament, as was their kicking game, which twice lead directly to tries when Ireland beat Wales in the final game of the tournament.

Their kickers, with a background of Gaelic football, coped best with the bouts of aerial ping-pong that Kidney sees as a natural consequence of the experimental rules.

He was well supported by the Italy coach, Nick Mallett, a man with a notable CV, which includes club success in Europe with Stade Français of Paris and a record run of Test wins with the Springboks. The ELVs neutered Italy, taking away the lineout catch and drive by their big forwards and in doing so went a long way to making the competition less of a spectacle.

With Kidney's predecessor, Eddie O'Sullivan, suggesting that the full raft of ELVs currently being used in the Super 14 were turning that competition into a "dud", it's pretty fair to say those members of the International Board who support the new regulations have not been winning many friends in the northern hemisphere and might, in fact, be starting to lose out even in the south.

O'Sullivan was speaking during a podcast that also included Kiss. He said he had become so disappointed with Super 14 as a spectacle that he found he was recording games, but not watching them. The game in the southern hemisphere was a hybrid, said O'Sullivan, that had lost its dynamic. In short, the laws had done what we feared and created an homogenised game without texture.

The southern hemisphere guys who are in London this weekend will no doubt produce figures that show the ball is in play longer since the introduction of the ELVs. What they won't show is the time it spends in mid-air or buried under a pile of bodies and there are signs of such growing dissatisfaction that a move to throw the whole lot on the rubbish tip could be brewing with England, Wales and Ireland leading the way and South Africa, never a total convert, putting a little distance between themselves and the main supporters, Australia and New Zealand.

As I understand it, this weekend is the start of formal skirmishes, so while they are in the mood, I'd like the lawmakers to consider another change.

One of the great delights for the armchair football fan is watching the emotional gymnastics in the technical area – that box on the halfway line into which football managers are allowed. There is nothing better than seeing Sir Alex Ferguson, Arsène Wenger, Jose Mourinho and Co stalk the area, pointing and jabbing. It's entertaining and it's enlightening, but not allowed in Test rugby or the Heineken Cup for that matter. Test coaches have their allotted places in the stands and that's where they have to stay – and the fans are missing out.

Allowing them to prowl would reveal so much about the stresses and tensions of the game. Think Ireland v England and Martin Johnson's face when he drove his fist into his leg.

The expression told us more about the England manager's feelings regarding Danny Care than any of the thousands of words subsequently reported.