And when they do make a decision, stick with it and tell the complainers tough shit.
If I hear the words "IRB Law change" and "conspiracy" in the same sentence, someone will be reading me the Riot Act shortly after.
Unfortunately, that is how it'll be portrayed in the powerful NH press.
They will proclaim that Australia is a weak in the scrum, and that this is a move instigated by Australia to erode NH scrum dominance. It doesn't matter if Australia isn't weak in the scrum: their readers and viewers will believe we are. It doesn't matter if Australia didn't instigate the ELV: their readers and viewers will believe we did. And it doesn't matter that NH scrum dominance is a myth: their readers and viewers will never accept that it is.
What is the psychology behind all this? Here's my two cents worth:
The NH is, to a varying degree, behind the SH in all facets of play. In the NH, this is elephant in the room. They must accept that SH teams consistently win in all conditions and in both hemispheres, but (for perfectly human reasons) they require a rationale for this that isn't rooted in their history and systems.
To provide that rationale, they've constructed a couple of myths.
First is the myth that NH rugby is better suited to knockout rugby. They point to England's good results and the early departure of Australia and New Zealand in 2007 as evidence of this. The fact that World Cups are running 6:1 in the SH's favour can (with discipline and willpower) be ignored.
Second is the myth that NH teams are dominant at scrum time. To bolster that myth, the NH points to changes in the laws as the cause of its current untruth. First, the ELVs de-powered scrums. Second, the breakdown convention is decreasing the relative importance of scrums. And, by the same reasoning, to remove the hit would be specifically intended to remove England's dominance over Australia.
There is no defence against these perceptions. How can facts compete with an infinitely adjustable past?
Happily, such perceptions have no effect upon future games, apart from perpetuating SH dominance by encouraging NH teams to choose the wrong tactics based on a mythological view of history.