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Recently, former England coach Clive Woodward issued a blunt assessment of the Wallaby scrum.
“Out of the three southern hemisphere countries the Achilles heel for Australia is the scrum, that’s what we all think. Nothing’s changed moving into this World Cup. Australia has to arrive at Twickenham with a scrum or we’ll munch them again, there’s no doubt that will happen.”
Arrogant? Probably. True? Definitely.
Whatever Australian rugby may think of Woodward, England, or the RFU, there’s little real controversy here. All Woodward has really done is to say out loud what the rugby world is thinking and that is that Australia has a soft underbelly at scrum time.
The intriguing question obviously is, what does Michael Cheika do about it? There has been much talk about the need for a scrum coach and dire predictions of what will happen if one is not appointed soon.
The problem with focusing on the scrum coach issue is that it reinforces the incorrect belief that the edge is to be found in scrummaging skills. That is partly correct, but only to the degree that all other things are roughly equal.
A good small scrummager will hold his own with a poor big scrummager. But a good big scrummager will generally beat a good small scrummager. It’s not desire, or technique, but simple physics.
Weight under the force of levers generally exerts a force greater than the weight alone – which is a fancy way of saying that a big man who uses his levers well is not just a bit harder to scrum against. He is exponentially harder to beat.
This brings us back to the building blocks of any good scrum, which is size. A coach must start with size, because it is one of the three main building blocks of any good scrum. The other two are technique and desire.
This line of course invites the pedants to wheel out every successful small prop in history – the Mighty Mouse defence. But we’re not really talking about props. The prop is the channel. The shove comes from further back.
This is where the ‘Aussie Assumption’ cripples so many Wallaby teams before they take the field. Perhaps it’s the subliminal influence of rugby league. Whatever it is, the Assumption holds that ball skills are more important than power.
In this sense most Australian selectors have it the wrong way round. Faced with two tight forwards, one who is a fraction light with excellent hands and one who is heavy and powerful, but with lesser skills, Australians have a tendency to overvalue skills and undervalue bulk.
If the balance was tipped a few ounces in the other direction, the Wallabies may well find that scrum dominance, and indeed forward dominance, comes much more easily. Bulk doesn’t only count in the scrum, but at the cleanout, on the carry and in defence.
A smaller side generally fatigues earlier and fatigue affects skills, defence and decision making.
So we can argue that a good scrum is firstly a selection issue. It is no accident that most successful coaches are good selectors. In this sense current Wallaby coach Michael Cheika may manage a half-decent scrum for the Rugby World Cup simply because he has shown that he is prepared to make some hard calls.
Selectors also need to consider tournament rugby. The World Cup is not a time or a place where players will gain weight. In most cases, they will fight to maintain it. The weeks of training, playing travel and general circus take their toll. It is a draining and emotional time. We can at least guarantee that most players will, if anything, finish lighter than they started.
The Wallabies need players that aren’t fighting to keep weight on – rather they must select naturally big men.
Many would read this argument and assume that I am talking about props. In fact, I think the focus is unfairly on the front rowers in this respect. The scrum is an eight-man concern and the most neglected contributors when the scrum is discussed are the backrow.
Backrowers are where a scrum can gain an edge. Selectors often favour lightweight running and fetching players over scrummaging backrowers. Given this, if a coach is willing to select for scrum weight, it is not out of the question for a scrum to have an edge of half a human in the backrow alone.
Consider a backrow of Liam Gill, Jake Schatz and Stephen Hoiles versus a backrow of David Pocock, Wycliffe Palu and Lopeti Timani. The Pocock/Palu/Timani backrow gives an immediate 40kg advantage to their scrum which is huge, particularly if they add dedication and good scrum technique into the equation.
There’s little to choose from among the locks, being as they are, all between 113 and 117 kilograms, with Will Skelton the standout at around 140kg. The argument here for selectors is not so much to pick the biggest, but to avoid the lightest. In this case, locks like Rob Simmons and Dean Mumm are on the outer when we are selecting for scrummaging.
Up front, there’s not so much a lack of variety (although there is that), as a lack of sheer size. Although the front row depends on weight coming through from the five players behind, some sheer bulk never hurts and the Wallabies will be confronting players like Charlie Faumuina (NZ, 127kg) and Coenie Oosthuizen (SA, 127kg).
To paraphrase Jimmy Malone in The Untouchables, “Isn’t it just like the Wallabies…bringin’ a knife, to a gun fight!”.
The simple point is that if Australian rugby is going to go on a worldwide search for a scrum coach, they might as well give him some ammunition to work with. And given the short lead-up, there’s no sense in throwing out one third of the scrummaging advantage by picking a lightweight scrum. Remember, size, technique, desire. A good big one will always beat a good medium one.
The number one scrum I would send to the Rugby World Cup? Scott Sio, Stephen Moore, Sekope Kepu, Sam Carter, Will Skelton, Luke Jones, David Pocock and Lopeti Timani.
The critics will knock each other down in the rush, and of course it isn’t the most balanced team around. However, imagine for a moment if you will, the Wallabies going into a Test match with a scrum guaranteed to dominate and a backline better than any in the competition.
Doesn’t that make your mouth water just a little?