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Fans shortchanged by scrum resets

Roar Guru
28th May, 2013
36

How silly of me to think common sense might kick in to change the way referees handle rugby’s time-consuming scrum resets.

Sadly, it seems, any attempt by whistleblowers to free up more playing time by calling “time off” while both packs re-form will be nipped in the bud.

That’s the only conclusion that can be drawn after South African referee Lourens van der Merwe’s apparent about-face on the issue during last weekend’s round of Super rugby action.

Having last week welcomed van der Merwe’s decision to call “time off” on several occasions after scrum collapses in the Hurricanes-Chiefs match in Wellington on May 17, it was disappointing, and revealing, that there wasn’t a peep out of him in that department when he had charge of the Blues-Brumbies clash in Auckland last Friday night.

Clearly someone in authority – presumably referees boss Lyndon Bray – had taken him to task.

For what?

Rugby already stands condemned in terms of ball-in-play statistics and it would be interesting to know just how much time is lost during the whole tedious scrum reset exercise.

Surely any attempt to prevent the clock being wound down unnecessarily should be applauded – and encouraged.

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