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Were the Wallabies really that bad at the scrum?

Roar Rookie
8th July, 2013
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The Lions pack down a scrum. (Photo: Paul Barkley/LookPro)
Roar Rookie
8th July, 2013
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2521 Reads

Over the last ten years I seem to have lost my passion for rugby. There was a time when a loss was a gut-wrenching experience and a win an elixir to get me through the next week.

Then we became a product that lacked that x-factor.

Losses no longer became gut-wrenching. Scotland twice. Water off a duck’s back.

Samoa for the first time. Had to happen.

Wins. Well we had to have a few. But on Saturday night the gut wrenching came back. It hurt. I felt humiliated. I was, for the first time since Pretoria in 2008, angry.

The criticism has come thick and fast. For the team and the coach. And obviously much of it justified.

But on reflection is all the criticism justified?

For the purposes of this article let us look at the scrum. Much has been made of how the Lions disintegrated our scrum.

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Let me declare a bias. Ben Alexander was a teammate of my son at school. I have been delighted to watch and enjoy his progress.

He is a good footballer. Whether he is the best loose head or tight head prop in the country or not does not matter for the purposes of this article.

Alexander was sin binned after 25 minutes of the game after a scrum on our feed.

This was no red zone cynical breach of the rules.

If there were two defining moments in the first 25 minutes of this Test it was the Kane Douglas- Will Genia kick-off confusion and the Alexander sin-binning.

The momentum this gave the Lions psychologically cannot be underestimated.

The first scrum penalty in the match was a half-arm for an early engagement.

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Rule 20.1(g) provides that the engage signal is not a command. A team engages when ready.

It is not difficult for a team therefore to hold off engaging giving the appearance that the other team has engaged early.

All referees fall for this one. Whichever way you look at it an offence of this type does not go into the little black book of misdemeanours leading to a sin-binning.

The next penalty (and bear in mind I was watching on TV and did not have the benefit of the ref’s call) appeared to be against Ben Robinson who seemed to be lifted out of the scrum by Jones.

Rule 20.3(i) provides that if a player is lifted in the air or forced upwards the referee must blow his whistle. Nothing about a penalty.

Clause 20.8(g) provides for a penalty against a player twisting dipping or collapsing or doing anything that is likely to collapse the scrum.

Rule 20.8(h) provides for a penalty against any player who intentionally collapses a scrum.

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Rule 20.8(i) provides for a penalty against a player who lifts his opponent in the air or forces him upwards out of the scrum.
Why was the penalty against Robinson.

There then followed a scrum on a Lions feed when Alexander appeared initially to be square and having the better of Corbisiero.

Corbisiero then forced Alexander into the air. This was let go and play continued. Next – and I may have the order wrong – were two scrums in which Alexander was penalised.

One for going up, and the other where he was forced flat on the ground.

In the first case the penalty should have been against Corbisiero (for the same reasons as for Benn Robinson) and again in the second case the penalty should have gone against Corbisiero.

Rule 20.1(f) provides that the front rower’s head and shoulders must be no lower than their hips. Hence what we call hinging.

Corbisiero in the second case clearly hinged.

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The next penalty was Alexander’s demise. Again Corbisiero hinged. In addition he packed, as he had in earlier scrums, at an angle falling foul of Rule 20.8(h).

And off went a clearly dismayed Alexander. And as if to prove the point Kepu and Robinson continued with problems exacerbated by poor refereeing and possibly poor assistance from the linesmen.

I do not suggest that in any number of matches we have not also been the recipient of inconsistent and poor scrum refereeing.

Which simply highlights what a blight on the game scrums have become. This is not the time to suggest in-depth solutions.

One must surely be to take the hit out of the engage and simply have the scrum bind and allow the push only as the ball leaves the halfback’s hands.

Which incidentally should leave his hands into the middle of the scrum!

Soon after Alexander’s sin binning the score was 19-3 and although we appeared to narrow the gap and have a sniff at 19-16 the reality is that the damage had been done.

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Of course we may have lost in any event. The Lions played with too much purpose for the Wallabies on the night.

And there are too many positional and I suspect cultural issues in this team to allow it to perform consistently and well.

So there will be a reappraisal of playing stocks. But in that reappraisal let us examine the real deficiencies and not those that have been foisted upon us.

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