Getting the call right for better rugby scrums
Roar Rookie
By Mick Gold Coast QLD, 2 Mar 2010 Mick Gold Coast QLD is a Roar Rookie
- Tagged:
- referees, Rugby Union, scrum engagement, Super Rugby, Waratahs
New Wallabies prop Ben Alexander (right) with Stephen Moore (centre) and Al Baxter practice their scrum setting during a training session at Manly Oval, Sydney, Thursday, June 5, 2008. The Wallabies will play Ireland in Melbourne on June 14, 2008. AAP Image/Dean Lewins
After watching five matches this weekend, I saw a real muck up by the referees as they call “Crouch, touch, pause, engage”. This alone led to unnecessary and avoidable penalties. My solution is to dispense with “Pause”.
My adult son independently saw the same problem (both former front rowers, with the younger being eminently more talented than the elder).
In each of the matches, numerous scrums produced penalties, some announced as “early engagement”, which I believe is a result of too long a delay between “Touch” and “Engage”.
Marius Jonker, I think, actually apologised for his slow call at one stage. In his match, one of the Pretoria front rowers had sufficient time to touch twice, several times. I think he was doing that to maintain balance.
There is nearly a ton of weight in each pack bound and ready to go forward and the referees expect them to be able to hold their natural momentum for too long.
A reason individual packs bind finally only just before the engagement is to harness and exert the power just in time, without becoming unbalanced – once bound it is impossible for the front row to hold back the back 5 (who cannot see the precise moment) for any extended period.
And it is impossible to maintain balance whilst waiting. In these circumstances, the law or practice focusing on safety increases the danger of a collapse under pressure.
Effective engagement is both more likely to succeed and to be safe, if it is allowed to occur under the natural momentum and at the exact point when balance and control is at its peak moment.
That moment is immediately after “Touch”.
I reckon they need to develop a call that sounds as “Crouch, Touch-Engage” with the second word rolling straight into the third. “Crouch” and “Touch” achieves the focused moment to achieve stability in each pack – the need for safety is served.
I have a theory that the sound of “Engage” commencing with a “soft” vowel is part of the problem, being less audible than a word starting with a “hard” consonant. But that’s probably being a bit scientific for a slow former open side prop like me.
Apart from this single criticism, I cannot remember a season start that has so pleased me, even the much improved play of the perennial disappointers, NSW. The quality and pace of the rugby is excellent.
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mcxd said | March 2nd 2010 @ 6:21am | Report comment
mick, though never a front rower, ive always thought that the problem lies in the two syllable “en-gage”. Ive seen some refs penalise a pack for going on the “en” rather than waiting on the full “en-gage”.. what is the correct timing btw ?
jeznez said | March 2nd 2010 @ 11:18pm | Report comment
Good front rowers go on the first e in engage until told otherwise, the dual syllable is a shocker and always has been. If they aren’t getting pinged they’ll shift it into the pause. Its the same as getting a read on the ref’s view of the offside line, where the ‘gate’ for entry to the breakdown and in the older days what was going to be allowed in terms of slipper. The opening minutes of the game I always sought to test the referee to see where he would ping me and then adjust accordingly.
Back when the feeding team was allowed to call the engagement my team used to use ‘hit’ rather than engage using the single syllable to help timing. Although a referee did once make us change because he thought we were trying to intimidate the opposition (of course we were!)
jeznez said | March 2nd 2010 @ 11:21pm | Report comment
sorry Mick and to answer your question, although it appears to be up to the ref, I think you are meant to wait for the end of the word
CraigB said | March 2nd 2010 @ 6:54am | Report comment
playing hooker you would always move on the ‘e’. The minute you hear any sound after the pause you’re at it. I believe the pause needs to be there. If people are packing early due to the pause the solution is not to remove it to make sure your pack holds its own weight until the engage. That way you are more likely to have a stable scrum because it starts stable and everyone can see where they need to go. The word engage though does need to change for the reasons mentioned above. A simple ‘pack!’ would do it.
Working Class Rugger said | March 2nd 2010 @ 10:24am | Report comment
mxcd & CraigB
I used to play the ref’s call intially while count in my head how long it took between the ‘pause’ and ‘engage’ calls. Most of the yime it was a 2 count. So I’d count and then engage the hit. Its about anticipating the ref’s call. Really a must for a tighthead leading into a scrum.
jeznez said | March 2nd 2010 @ 11:20pm | Report comment
spot on tighthead must lead, must anticipate the refs call and should be trying to get the jump on his opponent
mitzter said | March 2nd 2010 @ 7:08am | Report comment
Go to the u19 rules where the it’s touch and hold!
Shouldn’t there be no push before the ball is in anyway?
jeznez said | March 2nd 2010 @ 11:22pm | Report comment
Not allowed any movement but you want to dominate the hit and start exerting pressure
mitzter said | March 3rd 2010 @ 6:58am | Report comment
yes and that’s unnecessary. We don’t need a big hit. They didn’t 50 years ago they packed in like a league scrum and only pushed when the ball came in
Mick Gold Coast QLD said | March 3rd 2010 @ 11:03pm | Report comment
Rubbish! Momentum and dominance in the hit is one of the fundamental purposes at engagement.
jeznez said | March 4th 2010 @ 1:05am | Report comment
completely agree Mick GC, although the law won’t let you drive off the mark before the ball comes in, winning the hit and getting that pressure on allows you to drive through once its fed.
mitzter said | March 4th 2010 @ 7:19am | Report comment
hmm maybe but wasn’t always the case. if you look at old videos they just pack in even if the ball is not even present
jeznez said | March 5th 2010 @ 1:03am | Report comment
I think you are correct and that it changed early nineties, can vaguely remember having to adjust. Once we got used to it though you still realised that you needed to win the hit and apply pressure without moving your feet and getting off the mark.
Nashi said | March 2nd 2010 @ 9:06am | Report comment
Mick,
I still reckon it is a question of rhythm. That is just make sure the sequence happens in a consistent timeframe. On a previous post I suggested the use of Crouch Hippopotamus, Touch Hippopotamus, etc. While I was being somewhat facetious you simply cannot get the orchestra to play as an orchestra if the conductor keeps changing the beat. All the refs need to practice according to a standard duration.
I also agree that the soft vowel in “engage” does not provide an accurate engagement. That’s why the Olympics use a starter’s pistol!
Grimmace said | March 2nd 2010 @ 9:31am | Report comment
Prior to the props having to touch, the call was just ” crouch n hold, engage.” Me any my mates up front had no issues with that. Why can’t we get rid of the pause as suggested above?
jeznez said | March 2nd 2010 @ 11:25pm | Report comment
the hold did the same job the pause does today. the touch was added to prevent packs getting too far apart and to bring the entire height of the scrum up. the collapses with force (which is where neck injuries tended to happen) mostly occurred on engagements where the packs were too far apart, the hit saw the shoulders below hip level and the full force of the engagement drove into the turf
Grimmace said | March 2nd 2010 @ 9:32am | Report comment
Hoy said | March 2nd 2010 @ 9:34am | Report comment
I thought in the past, opens rugby didn’t have the “pause” anyway, it was only for the younger players. Could very well be wrong.
There are so many variables in the scrum it is hard to pick one thing to blame for collapses. Some people might pack on the “en-” in engage, others might wait etc. All these lend to the scrum collapsing.
What annoys me is when the ball is at the back anyway, and the scrum collapses, and instead of allowing the ball to be cleared, the Ref pulls it up to repack the scrum. Pointless.
jeznez said | March 2nd 2010 @ 11:31pm | Report comment
all the scrum rules came from U-19′s but only some of them came to opens, the touch took a while to make its way up, thankfully the 1.5 mtr driving never did. I think that was a major contributor to the weakening of Aussie scrummaging, at the same time that Eddie Jones was devalueing scrummaging a lot of the junior props were arriving in the colts and grade ranks without having pushed a scrum more than a mtr and a half. just remembering the heady days of Link, Kearns and Daly or Noriega, Paul, Foley, Crowley, Blades and Moore warms the heart, thank goodness for Robinson, Polota Nau, Moore, Alexander and hopefully soon Palmer
a lot of calls for that but I can guarantee that if my team won the strike and were under pressure from a the opposition driving back, in a tough situation I’d collapse to just let the ball be taken away at the back of my scrum – which is something I would hate to see come into the game. In its worst extreme you could see a strike and collapse on every feed – very unsafe
mattamkII said | March 2nd 2010 @ 11:28am | Report comment
Hoy, its not really. A weak scrum can pull it down and clear the ball with ease. We saw this in the Bulls game when the Tahs had started to get on top. The Bulls collapsed it and were allowed to play it from the back – even though the ref had reset everything all day.
Also agree that the touch/pause thing is annoying especially at club level where blokes are cycled through teams, positions and grades…the confusion and timing makes it more dangerous than the old touch and hold…
Hoy said | March 2nd 2010 @ 12:21pm | Report comment
OK, so not pointless if there is a reason for the scrum going down, however if that is the case, then a penalty should be forthcoming.
You can’t have it both ways can you? If the scrum collapsed because a fellow lost his footing and the ball is out the back already, let the ball go. Ig the scrum collapsed because of illegal play by a weaker scrum, then a penalty should be forthcoming, not a reset scrum… shouldn’t it?
jeznez said | March 2nd 2010 @ 11:33pm | Report comment
ref haven’t got buckleys of working out what happened accidentally and what on purpose, he’s only standing on one side and the TA’s are just as useless at working it out, especially if its on the oppoite side of the field
Brett McKay said | March 2nd 2010 @ 11:45am | Report comment
Mick, I’d have to agree with your thoughts here. In my notes for today’s column, I noted that Craig Joubert’s scrum calls were all over the shop in the second half, and from memory there were a number of early enagement penalties against both the Stormers and Brumbies front rows. His “pause” calls were of different lengths , and quite clearly both packs struggled with his timing as a result.
Crouch-touch-pause-engage is pretty much a throwback to the old schoolboy rugby calls of my day, which was a very simple sink-touch-pause-pack. The timing of these calls was easy for the pigs as they were all one-syllable words, and a rhythm can easily be establish. It would be much harder to go early on PACK, than it would be to go early on EN-GAGE, as MCXD points out above..
Mick Gold Coast QLD said | March 3rd 2010 @ 10:26pm | Report comment
Bret,
I appreciate you taking the time to read and consider my thoughts on scrums – it is gratifying to a first time amateur when the expert writers respond.
In 40 adult years I have found front row play is a rare, lifelong passion shared by those who have been there; and that there is invariably a ready friendliness and respect amongst us when we meet by chance – the Once-were-Front-Rowers Club indeed exists. I most recently experienced that in a Wellington hotel after the last Bledisloe, yarning with NZers, when my adult son and I went over there to indulge our shared passion.
Monty said | March 2nd 2010 @ 12:43pm | Report comment
I thought there was a directive this year to the refs to mix up the timing of the engage calls so they couldnt be anticipated by the front rows? My thinking was that in doing this, there would be more stable scrums. But I could be wrong.
jeznez said | March 2nd 2010 @ 11:37pm | Report comment
if that is the thinking then the refs need shooting – that is criminal, the reason there are so many resets earlier in a game or when front rowers are substituted is it takes time for everyone to adjust and get into rythym so that both packs engage at the same time. messing with the timing to prevent anticipation is insane. Surely the ref can decide based on his cadence when he wants the packs to move and communicate with the pigs what that time is. This is the part of scrummaging that shold be easiest for refs to spot, next is that looseheads want to bore in while tightheads want to drop the loosies left shoulder – there is more to it but if ref’s just watched those three things half the props out there would have no option three in their arsenal
Mick Gold Coast QLD said | March 3rd 2010 @ 11:10pm | Report comment
If that is the case, Monty, it is simply insane – it increases the likelihood of becoming unbalanced, collapsing and increasing the danger they are attempting to minimise. The refs need shooting, as jeznez asserts.