Australian Rugby Union's High Performance Unit General Manager David Nucifora says he is reasonably pleased with the outcome of a two-day conference in London to discuss the Experimental Law Variations (ELVs).

The International Rugby Board (IRB) meeting recommended that 10 of the 13 ELVs currently being trialled in the southern hemisphere should be permanently incorporated into the sport's rule book.

However, it jettisoned a rule allowing mauls to be pulled down and another allowing teams to select their own numbers in lineouts.

There was also no agreement on the most contentious proposal - penalising most offences with a free-kick instead of a penalty - and it will be reviewed further.

"We were pleased with the outcome .. if someone had offered us 10 of the 13 global ELVs up front, you'd have to be pretty happy with that," Nucifora said.

"The ones that we felt were important did get across the line."

But Nucifora said he was disappointed with some of the attitudes towards any changes to the game by the sport's northern hemisphere heavyweights.

"It's fair to say the hardcore of the Six Nations countries were the ones that really struggled to get their heads around it but there are other countries in the north that are a bit more open-minded about them," he said.

The maul issue was one of the biggest bugbears the northern hemisphere teams had with the ELVs.

But Nucifora denied it had disappeared from the game in the south.

"The frustration from our point of view was that the maul was never gone, and part of the charter of the game is for there to be a contest for possession and the maul in it's old form, from our view, is an obvious obstruction whereas being able to pull the maul down makes it a contest," he said.

"It doesn't mean the maul is dead and that is what they have missed up there.

"If they let things evolve as we have down here, they will see the maul is coming into the game more and more as people get their head around the skills to create a maul now, and it will only become more prominent in a game as teams adjust."

Although Nucifora admitted the conference was a "robust" affair at times, he said relations between the two hemispheres are not strained.

"Everyone is committed with what the result ends up being we are all not happy with the process that it's gone through and the way it's been managed," he said.

"But when the final decision is made in the middle of May through to 2011, then we will just accept it and get on with it.

"The important thing to understand from this meeting is that it is only a recommendation onto the next level and it doesn't guarantee anything either in or out."

The current laws being used in the Super 14 competition will be implemented in this year's Tri Nations tournament with the new laws to come into force.

The final recommendations will be drawn up by the Rugby Committee and then sanctioned by the IRB next month. They will come in to force from January 1 next year in the southern hemisphere and on August 31, 2010 in the north.

This means the forthcoming Tri Nations will be played under the current ELVs being used in this year's Super 14 competition.

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