The New Zealand All Blacks. Photo AAP.
The renowned “scrum doctor”, Mike Cron, has re-signed with the NZRU, and he will continue to work with the All Blacks and New Zealand teams to ensure continued success in their set piece.
The former police detective is widely recognised as arguably the greatest scrum technician in world rugby, and his relationship with Graham Henry is one of the key reasons for the All Blacks recent modern rugby dominance.
It is difficult to award a particular scrum as being the strongest in the world in a set piece that can be widely difficult to interpret. But the reality is that the All Blacks in this area are regarded as being the best in the world – or at least in the top three.
While he is considered amicable and a “nice chap”, when it comes to the scrum, he takes no prisoners, and is known as being notoriously hard to please – exacting meticulous standards from his charges.
Indeed, Cron has been known to make frontrowers wear bra devices with chains and boxing gloves to prevent incorrect bindings.
He has taken apart what was previously regarded as just a single aspect of the game, and made it into a thorough and painstaking process which reaps rewards.
Against Wales last year, arguably the All Blacks toughest match of their northern tour, Cron widely regarded the work of the All Black pack as being instrumental in their second half ascendancy and pack authority over the Red Dragons.
“I really liked that. They were working like a hand in the glove and I think they really sucked the goodies out of Wales. That was a really huge influence for that opening 20 minutes in the second half when our work took the legs out of them,” Cron remarked.
“Wales then became slower and less effective at cleanouts in other parts of the field and all that psychology adds up,” he said. “The pack’s scrum work was a big factor as they sucked the energy out of the opposition.”
Cron is hard to please. It is not just aspects of the scrum that concern him, but aspects such as the scrum halves delivery into the scrum as well as the shove.
The shove itself has needed to evolve with the “crouch, touch, pause, engage” call.
The guru regards the scrum as being an essential template that operates with the purpose of supplying strong possession.
Under the Experimental Law Variations, this is even more important, considering that free kick penalties allow the scrum to be used as a far more applicable attacking weapon.
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