Lose the maul, kill the game?
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By Tim, 9 Jul 2008 The Crowd is a Roar Pro
- Tagged:
- England, lineout, ruck, Rugby Union, rules, Test match, wallabies
I can see the arguments against the maul, but very few team execute the strategy effectively and efficiently. If it was so easy, then why is this the case?
The last truly dominant maul I saw was by one of the better tight forward units that has played international rugby in the last 20 years: England versus Australia in 2003 at Melbourne when they moved the Wallabies back 45m.
However, despite that being a significant part of their game plan, they were unable to execute the same move again for more than 5-10 metres in the remainder of the match because Australia competed, and it’s really hard to put all the moving pieces in place to get an effective maul working.
So I fail to see that the maul removes the ability to create a contest in the reality of modern test matches.
Having coached, albeit at a low level, in Australia and seen teams scoring many tries through the maul and then through the backs when the maul forces more defenders inside, it seems to me that it can be used to open the game up. But that’s a decision for the players not the administrators.
Surely we should not be left with a game where there is only one effective strategy to win.
Rugby enjoys a number of strategies in its current rules. Not all are attractive to some but all are currently legal and make for different body shapes and skills to be successful within the game.
Much of the issue with the ruck is that it’s a static event usually involving two-three attacking players but often one defender. Therefore, the defence outweighs the offence making it hard to gain ground, set up a quick maul, breach the line and suck defenders in. The equation then moves to the attackers’ favour as the defence needs to cover the fringes in close but the offside line is moving backwards so when the wide pass is made by the half, there will be space for the outside backs to attack either one on one or cause mismatches or even possibly an overlap.
I fail to see how removing the maul will increase attacking play as there will be more defenders than
attackers, and if that continues then maybe we should remove some players to create space.
I’ll be interested to see what occurs over the next few years, but I’m sure that in five years or so we’ll be talking about too many players and no need for a scrum or a lineout.
I shall await without much optimism if this is where rugby’s administrators are taking the game with the assistance of the press, none of whom seem ready to explore the idea that there is good in the current game and its flaws are also part of its appeal to many.
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Benjamins Saunders said | July 9th 2008 @ 2:06am | Report comment
Tim, I think the ELV law relating to the maul is merely a substitute for inventive coaching and adequate refereeing. The rolling maul is hard to perfect and that is why not many teams employ it. Hopefully there will be no horrendous injuries along the way.
Jerry said | July 9th 2008 @ 4:30am | Report comment
I’m not a fan of the ELV allowing collapsing, though I do think that under the old rules the refs need to be more vigilant about attacking players joining in front of the ball carrier, especially from lineouts. Also, I think that the ball carrier should have to be fully bound – at a scrum if the number 8 lifts his head he is ruled to have detached and the scrum is over, so why is the ball carrier at a maul allowed to have his head up and only be bound by loosely holding a player in front with one arm?
Peter K said | July 9th 2008 @ 10:53am | Report comment
TIM I agree totally, I posted a similar view in response to spiro’s main article.
The main issue with the maul is when the ball is at the back and it is hard to contest possesion, since if you stop the maul they just pass it out. There are 2 ways I see to fixing this rather than pulling the maul down.
One the obvious one is that the ball has to be carried by the player in the front. The downside to this is that now a rolling maul is imposible so once again the maul is made almost redundant.
The other option is that players can join a maul from the side , not be restricted to through the gate. Thsi means the defense has a real chance of getting at the ball at the back. But since they are not opposing the mauls forward drive this tactic has the risk of allowing the maul to keep driving. Also allows a rolling maul to split and continue. This is the change I would go for, allow to join the maul from the side. Attackers cannot join in front of the ball carrier and defenders cannot join in front of their leading player.
Matt said | July 9th 2008 @ 11:30am | Report comment
To be honest I still think the maul can be an effective tool under the ELV’s. It just requires a slightly different coaching approach to see the maul as a concept of fractured parts rather than one complete whole.
You can only collapse a maul between the shoulders and hips and as a defender you can only truthfully attack a maul from front on too. So the only players who can be dragged down from the attacking side are those at the front.
Physically sacking a man is also not an overly easy task, to throw a man to the ground without grabbing him above the shoulders or on his legs. Both of these factors combine to limit the ability of the defense to instantly stop a maul.
It is not as thought you touch the leading player nad the whole maul drops like a wounded beast. Instead, defending players will wrestle with the attackers at the front of the maul and try to peel them off and throw them to the ground.
The verdict is the maul continues to make yards as both players become discards to the play. Conversely the defense can seek to crash head on into the maul and attempt to disrupt more than just one player at a time. This must be done between the shoulders and hips, so diving at the legs could be considered both dangerous and illegal and would still be penalisable.
If a team is able to stop a maul front on then the attacking team can fracture their attack a change the point of contact, as the All Blacks did in the couple of excellent mauls they executed on the weekend.
So essentially I believe the maul is still an effective attacking platform if it is coached and executed well. But the fact that players can now directly defend those men who are blocking the ball and the ball carrier makes it a far fairer contest for possesion than it was before.
I will however take back my endorsement should someone get injured as a result of this change. The maul and the methods used for sacking it still need to be rigidly managed by refs at all grades of the game.
One final interesting point comes from an interview I read of Peter Thorburn (ex AB selector, USA Eagles and North Harbour coach and the man who drafted the first playing roster for the 5 Super12 teams in 96), who had a hand in the previous changes made to the mauling rules. He devised that the maul was a great potential tool for allowing the attacking team to pressure defences in tight and to drag away players from the defensive lines. He then came up with the use it or lose it rule to stop teams from constantly holding the ball at the back of mauls. However, unfortunately, after succesfully trialling his suggested law ammendments the IRB voted to adopt his suggestions with some tweaks of their own. The main greavance he had was that they allowed the attacking team to have their maul holted twice before being forced to use it within 5-10 seconds. The original design only allowed for a single moment of static movement before the ball had to be cleared immediately. As he had feared the tweaks made allowed the maul to become a prolonged static area of the game and a tool with which the attacking team could protect the ball without having possesion directly contestable. A shame really…
Peter K said | July 9th 2008 @ 11:39am | Report comment
Matt – In practise what a player will do is legally grab between the hips and shoulders, so their head is say at their stomoach level, then they will let the rest of their body trap and entangle the legs. This will collapse the maul fairly easily, especially with a bit of jitsu or wrestling training in using legs to enable takedowns.
Spiro Zavos said | July 9th 2008 @ 9:09pm | Report comment
Someone made the point in another discussion that the argument that the maul is needed to drag in opponents so that back play can flourish is somewhat compromised by the fact that the strong mauling sides don’t play expansive back play. The point is that the maul is not being abolished. The ELVs provide a defence against a slow-plod maul. But I’m looking for teams to develop more dynamic mauls. Some South African teams played around with the concept of mid-field mauls a season or two ago. I think this concept can be revised. And also break-out mauls, a bit like flying squads, in the manner of the original French style of break-outs at the end of lineouts that NZ rugby adopted in the 1960s and called ‘Willie-aways’ after Wilson Whineray, a fine exponent of the break-out run.
Benjamin said | July 9th 2008 @ 9:27pm | Report comment
Spiro, that’s all well and good, but Whineray was not playing against uniform sized packs. There would be occasional big blokes like Moaner Van Heerden and Roger Uttley, and then skinny blokes like Mervyn Davies and Fergus Slattery. Apart from Waugh the majority of all forward packs contain identikit sized players. Therefore it is hard to create dynamic mauls if every forward is roughly the same size. How can you start a dynamic maul if a player like Burger dives onto the ankles of the ball carrier? It doesn’t matter what speed you are going at, if a player grabs your legs, end of maul.
Craig said | July 10th 2008 @ 9:52pm | Report comment
The maul died in 2003 with England perfecting the method where the player with the ball moves back as players basically side in front of him offside. There was a time when the ball had to be passed back and the players spot in the maul was fairly static, until it rolled and he came out the side and joined again from the back.
This was a really hard thing to do well. Now mauls are legalised offside. The only real option is to pull it down because you get no chance at the ball because it never moves from the back players hands. Stop this leaglised offside and collapsing it won’t be the only option.
Benjamin said | July 11th 2008 @ 1:22am | Report comment
I’m pretty sure a lot of ELVs a subsitute for bad refereeing. Why do refs still not insist on the ball being put in straight at the scrum?
Benjamin said | July 11th 2008 @ 1:23am | Report comment
Scratch that, I meant a lot of ELVs are a substitute for good refereeing.