By Greg Truman
November 15th 2009 @ 12:56am
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Set piece Samoa deserved better
There was a midweek edict from the high offices of the IRB referees panel to crack down on collapsing and resetting scrums. Fair enough, but it did seem a little funky blurting that one out on the brink of a weekend of rich fixtures between northern and southern hemisphere teams.
I mean, the northerners, despite the fact they annually get the the ruck beaten out of them by the southern heathens (with a few notable exceptions) have, regardless of the sway of conspicuous evidence, clung to the concept that ‘real’ scrummaging remains a northern art.
This has been reinforced by South Africa’s endless maligning of Australian scrum tactics — even post-Bill Young. Al Baxter was the ultimate and undeserving victim of that posturing.
Regardless, rugby does have an enormous problem with scrums. At their best, they are team wrestling matches of unmatched intensity. But for the most part they are, well, about 20 minutes out of a game of rugby.
No one wants them killed off, no one wants them to become a ‘gathering at a bus stop’ like league — but if the contest is going to be the important set piece part of the game, it should be more consistently adjudicated.
So I was intrigued to see if the ref’s panel instruction would be enacted in the first game I got to see of the weekend — Samoa v Wales.
Wales probably would have fancied their scrum against the Samoans, despite the 50lb advantage to the Pacific islanders.
But sadly scrum contests, most contests in fact, were overshadowed by the Irish ref’s panicked whistle-blowing through much of the contest.
Whatever the verdict, Samoa played for 20 minutes with 14 men, yet they remained well in the game for its entirety and in fact looked like finishing with a winning streak in the last ten minutes.
In a terrific last five minutes, the Samoans were pressing. A crucial five metre attacking scrum offered a chance for glory.
No need for play by play here, but the Welsh scrum imploded numerous times under that pressure, with the disadvantaged side of the front row collapsing inward twice. There was no penalty/free kick or penalty try.
If Samoa had been England, or if Wales had been Al Baxter, that would have turned out a lot different. And in our wannabe scrummaging hearts, we all know that to be true.
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Jerry said | November 15th 2009 @ 8:41am | Report comment
Greg – A quick point on one of my personal bugbears. People asking for a penalty try for collapsed scrums are almost always talking out of their backsides. Repeated collapses and infringements are meaningless when determining whether a penalty try should be awarded. The only time when a penalty try is awarded is if a try would probably have been scored if not for the infringement. A team can be under enormous pressure in the scrum, but not actually ever look like being shoved back 5m – eg the All Black scrum in that 10 minute stand to end the match in Milan this morning. They were collapsing and going sideways but never backwards. Dickinson would have been well within his rights to start handing out more cards, but there was not one occasion that the Italians actually looked like getting a pushover.
The sanction for repeated infringements are cards, not penalty tries.
Cattledog said | November 15th 2009 @ 12:06pm | Report comment
Agree, and Dickinson erred in not starting sooner with the cards. Of course, we would have ended with non-contested scrums with at least two out of the AB back line having to stand in. I certainly think the ending was a bit of a travesty for the Italians. I’m not saying they should have won it but the handling of the situation by Dickinson, especially considering all the press, in this case was poor.
Jerry said | November 15th 2009 @ 3:29pm | Report comment
I actually think Dickinson’s reffing of the scrum was poor all day. The Italians had the wood on the AB’s for the most part, but basically Dickinson’s method of officiating was to penalise the defensive scrum every time something went wrong.
The Italians suffered in that last 10 minutes not cause of Dickinson, but cause they had nothing other than a scrum.
Dean Pantio said | November 15th 2009 @ 1:58pm | Report comment
Agree. Keep sending people off and you’ll end up with your try anyway.
That last 10 minutes of the Italy – All Blacks match was a disgrace.
Greg said | November 15th 2009 @ 2:47pm | Report comment
Fair call Jerry. Will mention, though, there were about four scrum incidents during that one period, including one when the ref seemingly inexplicably pulled the scrum up as the Samoans moved powerfully towards the line.
Viscount Crouchback said | November 15th 2009 @ 3:07pm | Report comment
Eh?
The reason that scrums rarely look like being shunted back five metres is precisely because the weaker pack will always collapse, wheel or pop up before that happens! Why else would they bother to employ any of these tactics? If a pack is so unlikely to be shunted back 5 metres, then it has no reason to collapse. Your post lacks all logic.
Jerry said | November 15th 2009 @ 3:38pm | Report comment
Why do scrums collapse on halfway then VC?
Defensive scrums try to destabilise the opposition scrum, often through foul means. The AB’s were trying to push the Italians sideways, and on 2 occasions in that last 10 minutes they were judged to have done so illegally. On a further 9 scrums they were judged not to have done anything illegal to prevent the Italian shove (and once or twice actually shoved the Italians back) and they didn’t look like getting shoved back 5 metres in any of those scrums either.
Shahsan said | November 15th 2009 @ 3:05pm | Report comment
It has always been th case: the big nations always get teh rub of terh green from the ref. It is a human failing, the fear of being the ref at the centre of an upset. It is also patronising, the way they always use the occasion to teach the small nations the rules of the game, when players from the big nations get away with it week in and week out.
Jerry said | November 15th 2009 @ 3:31pm | Report comment
How so Shahsan? I didn’t see much favouratism.
Bear in mind that in that last period, there were 11 resets, but only 3 penalties, one of which was for Messam breaking early. There were actually only 2 penalties relating to the front rows – one for Tialata boring in, and one for Crockett for standing up. The only way you could possibly say the AB’s were favoured was that Crockett wasn’t carded but that’s by no means cut and dried.
Shahsan said | November 15th 2009 @ 5:54pm | Report comment
I was making a general point.
But just go speak to any top player from any small nation and ask them what they they think about their treatment by refs when they play big nations. I have, and their answers are always the same.
Shahsan said | November 15th 2009 @ 6:00pm | Report comment
And never forget the decision Paddy O’brien made for France against Fiji in 1999. Similar situation. But i doubt he would have made teh same call the other way.
Jerry said | November 15th 2009 @ 6:07pm | Report comment
Is that the match where Paddy has admitted he basically ballsed things up? Two wrongs don’t make a right.
Shahsan said | November 15th 2009 @ 6:17pm | Report comment
It was more about the call. My point is that refs tend to make calls more easily for big nations even when these decisions are wrong.
Some of the big hits the Samoans made against Wales, or indeed their postions at breakdowns etc, would not have raised an eyebrow if those same Samoans happened to be wearing black, or yellow and green.
Or refs show their imaptience much more clealry. For eg, that South African ref who did Aus vs NZ showed his impatience with the video refs and yet I have seen video refs take much longer in othere matches. It is a human flaw, nothing more.
True Tah said | November 15th 2009 @ 3:35pm | Report comment
Was impressed with the Samoans, who was their no.8, he was one big unit, and he was in a team of big units!! I was also impressed by Lemi, the winger…hardly a giant winger as is the Islander mould, but elusive and great positional play.
If they had time to get together as a team, I can see them going somewhere beyond the pool stages in 2011.
Shahsan said | November 15th 2009 @ 6:25pm | Report comment
Samoa has made it out of the pool stages twice, I beleive. But we’ve been saying for years that they, Fiji and Tonga will be major contenders, but it will never happen. Those countries don’t have the money or the market.
Only the big nations can afford to pay players to be on contract with them (and even they can’t make all their best players stay.
Until then, the small countreis will always play second fiddle to the clubs, who pay the players’ wages, and will never get to have them for weeks on end for training and development. It will always be last minute and if onlys …
stillmissit said | November 15th 2009 @ 4:37pm | Report comment
This was one of the worst reffing displays I have seen in an international for a very long time. If I was Samoa I would feel robbed by this young Irishman Fitzgibbon.
Matt said | November 16th 2009 @ 8:07am | Report comment
Reffing isn’t exactly an easy job and it’s often hard to say who deserves what or who is transgressing (especially in the scrums). The AB’s certainly got a workout against Italy, but it’s hard to argue that Dickinson was intimidated in not penalising the Italians there when he seemed to allow them a rulebook of their own in defense and the breakdown for the first 20mins.
It is something quite new I believe to have rugby referees in such a cauldron as the San Siro in front of 80,000. It mush be quite a tense time for a guy like Dickinson where he’s reffing a match only speaking English etc. Rugby still has a way to go I believe in being comfortable with the multinational reffing of test matches, especially on big occasions. The Japan Bledisloe was another example, with the need for the Touch Judge to translate the TMO’s calls (and the ref just ended up making the call himself in the end).
Reffing will always have some degree of bias (for want of a better word) about it. Bias for the home team, bias for the bigger team etc. That’s just part of sport. It is also admirable that Dickinson didn’t get flustered out there in such a difficult refereeing situation. Surely it takes a lot of guts to reset the scrum multiple times, yellow card a player and give that many penalties WITHOUT giving up and taking the easy penalty try option? Some refs would lose their cool in that situation I reckon, it must be hard to manage 16 pumped up players like that!
stillmissit said | November 16th 2009 @ 8:20am | Report comment
Matt this is a very kind assessment of the ref’s difficulties but; they are full time paid employees and they train for one aim and that is ensuring the refereeing is professional. Sometimes I think they are training to try to ensure that the game is a spectacle if that was the case they should just not show up then we would have a spectacle all right.
The end result of a poor professional ref was Samoa losing to Wales, they were all over them and apart from some childlike decisions from the ref in the last 10mins would have won.
Didn’t see the Italy game and Ohtani’s Jacket said Dickinson had a dreadful game and he normally doesn’t hand out that kind of comment without some basis. Kaplan was his pedantic self in the Ireland game but for once didn’t control the outcome.
This is just not good enough from our top level ref’s.
Jerry said | November 16th 2009 @ 8:42am | Report comment
It was actually only 3 penalties Matt, and the first was for breaking early rather than anything to do with the scrum engagement.
Shahsan said | November 16th 2009 @ 9:06am | Report comment
I watched the last 10 minutes again last night, and yes, there were 3 or 4 penalties, only one of which were for early break. But when a team knows the other has slight advantage at the push and is going for the pushover, and nothing more, the crafty and sneaky thing to do is to not allow the scrum to be steady or to stay up. ie prevent the other team from capitalisingt on that superiority. It’s called gamesmanship.
And i have seen many examples, where refrees, in such cases, know which team has the upper hand and wants to go for the pushover and other will do anything to prevent the likely try. Isn’t that grounds for a penalty try? If that team on the line was Japan or Fiji or Samoa, I am certain Dickinson would have given the penalty try.
MarkR said | November 16th 2009 @ 9:15am | Report comment
As an AB fan I was glad Dickinson carded Tialata, the Italian scrum were dominant at that point, so yes a penalty try is a over the top, but imagine if he’d carded 2 of the 3 front rowers, the ABs are then 2 down in defence. That’s enough of an advantage I would’ve thought even with granny scrums, & wasn’t Meesam bound by his arm (does it need to be shoulder as well as not many 6’s do that for the whole scrum ? )
Jerry said | November 16th 2009 @ 10:09am | Report comment
That would be grounds for a penalty try, but Italy – while showing they had the better scrum – hadn’t actually looked like shoving the AB’s back 5 metres. That’s the crucial thing that people seem to be missing. The scrums were going sideways and folding (and only 2 of those were judged to be illegal remember) which leaves 9 scrums (including the one where Messam was pinged) that either came up, went down or ended with the ball coming out without Italy getting any type of shove on.
Shahsan said | November 16th 2009 @ 10:13am | Report comment
They never could because the AB forwards collapsed it every chance they got. With the ABs. it’s called gamesmanship and experience; with most others, it’s called a scrum that could not stay up.
Jerry said | November 16th 2009 @ 10:17am | Report comment
But they didn’t ‘collapse it every chance they got’ that’s the point. In fact, about 4 or 5 didn’t collapse at all. And even the ones that did collapse didn’t go down straight away. Italy did not get any meaningful drive going before any of the scrums were blown up or collapsed.
Ian Noble said | November 16th 2009 @ 10:32pm | Report comment
I thought the Samoans played well and probably could have got closer to Wales. As for their scrummaging, the majority of their pack play in either the GP and the Top 14. They receive quality coaching and play a major role in their club sides. There is also a pipe line of players coming through as an example at Quins we have Census Johnson’s brother James who is 23 and nearly 19 stone plays prop and in his first year at Quins. He is coming along very nicely. Competition in the squad at prop will make him better as there a number of young English props in the squad who have junior rep honours pushing for starts in the next year or so.
I suppose the moral is never underestimate any PI side as they can call on players who are playing at the top level in the NH and pose a real threat when they play together and as proven in RWC2007 when they have significant time together they are very dangerous, remember Fiji, Tonga and Samoa. On their day they can beat anybody.