(L to R) Australian rugby union players Salesi Ma’afu, Huia Edmonds and Ben Alexander practice a scrum formation during a training session in Sydney. AAP Image/Paul Miller.
Just when rugby was getting back to being an expansive, skillful game with adjusted laws at the ruck and maul that reward attacking play, a blight is descending on the game that threatens to destroy the green shoots.
That blight is the modern scrum with its endless collapses, its time wasting by beefy front rows and its often strange policing by referees who often don’t seem to know that they are doing.
At Gosford on Tuesday night, a game that won applause from an enthusiastic crowd at half-time when the players trotted off the field, was brought to a standstill when the referee Steve Walsh forced the Australian Barbarians to scrum again when they virtually had the ball in the hands of the halfback.
The scrum was reset. Why? Then Walsh penalised the Barbarians. After that the scrums began to resemble peace conferences with the players standing around getting ready to get on with the war. The game degenerated after all this. It was a relief when the final whistle was blown.
Whenever someone from this part of the world suggests reforms or improvements to the way scrums are managed the usual suspects in the British media start to get all agitated and make the nonsensical claims that the southern hemisphere countries want to de-power the scrum because they can’t scrum themselves.
This is nonsense. New Zealand, South Africa and the Argentina have sides with terrific scrums and have no interest in de-powering the scrum. Nor does Australia. Right now there are difficulties with the Wallabies because so many leading front rowers are out injured. But at the Super rugby level the Australian scrums more than held their own.
The reason why the scrums need to be fixed by the IRB – and urgently – is to build on the way the game has evolved into a real rugby contest with the changes to the tackled ball law. Get the scrums right, and this means contested scrums but no time-wasting and phony tricks in the manner of the England pack at Perth last week, and the game has a splendid springboard into its worldwide exposure next year with the World Cup tournament.
Here are a few modest proposals, with supporting comments, that should be considered for 2011 by the IRB:
1. Stop the clock when a scrum is ordered. Start the clock when the scrum has been resolved with the ball out or a penalty awarded.
It is clear that in the northern hemisphere, particularly, scrum time is being as smoko time by packs that can’t keep up with the pace of the modern game.
2. Penalise packs that waste time.
There is a provision to penalise sides that delay throwing the ball into the lineout. Put a similar provision in for scrums. We want to stop this nonsense of sides squatting ready to scrum and then pulling back, standing up before preparing to get ready to scrum a bit.
3. Reduce the scrum calls to two: ‘Touch’ ‘Pack!”
The sides should be told to crouch without this being formalised. If sides play for time, penalise them then and there.
The ‘Touch’ “Pack!’ calls should flow quickly. No notable pause.
The instruction ‘Pack’ is the right word to use, rather than ‘Scrum!’ (my earlier suggestion) and ‘Engage!’ because as a reader of The Roar pointed out it is one syllable.
Sides can lock shoulders as soon as they hear the word ‘Pack!’ and make contact after the word is finished. But with the two-syllable ‘Engage!’ and presumably if ‘Scrum! (a one-a-half-syllable word) contact is made often before the word is finished.
Then referees sometimes penalised sides – unfairly for an early engagement.
4. When the referee calls ‘Pack’ he should have his hands on both props and join them together.
This would ensure that both sides get a fair hit.
5. Once the hit is made the halfback should immediately put the ball into the scrum. The packs should be allowed to scrum as soon as the hit is made.
A great deal of the problems with scrums is centered on the halfback refusing to put the ball in (the Gregan manoeuvre) until his pack has a sort of ascendancy.
Wayne Barnes, who had an excellent match in the New Zealand – Ireland match (only 6 penalties in the first half) penalised the All Blacks scrum for pushing off the mark. Later on he warned the Irish halfback about delaying his feed.
The halfback should have been penalised, not the All Blacks.
6. Once the ball is in a position to be released from the scrum, the scrum should be allowed to continue.
This brings us to the incident at Gosford. If Walsh had allowed play to go on, we might not have had the ensuing delays and so on that followed the reset.
None of these suggestions make any fundamental change to the nature of the scrum as a contest between two packs. What they do, in fact, is to allow the contest to be on a level playing play.
There needs to be a fundamental shift, too, in the way the northern hemisphere rugby establishment views scrums. They see the scrum as an ned in itself. They are happy therefore to see endless scrumming chewing up the clock and the flow of penalties that emerge when scrums become a mess.
The southern hemisphere view is that the scrum is a distinctive part of rugby where there is a shoulder-to-shoulder contest between the two packs. Teams with strong scrums should be rewarded for their strength. And under my suggestions this is what would happen with a good scrum giving a great platform for back attacks, and a poor scrum putting teams under pressure.
But in the end, the scrum, like the lineout and the kick-offs, is really a way to re-start the game. This is the justification for stopping the clock for scrums until they are completed.
There are two further points that need to be made.
First, it was the northern hemisphere unions that killed off the ELVs proposal for only short-arm penalties from scrums, unless foul play was involved. This suggestion should be revived.
Second, in first class matches there is always a spare referee to cover for the referee and the assistant referees in cause of an injury. This spare referee should be brought on to the field for scrums and stood on the side not covered by the referee.
At Perth we had the Welsh referee Nigel Owens convinced that all the scrum sins were being committed by the Wallabies. So whenever the scrum went down, he penalised Australia. Some, but not all, but definitely some of these infringements were committed by the England props. They waited until the referee was on the other side and then pulled the scrum down, and won the penalty.
What we want in rugby is scrums like lineouts that are contested but do not take up an inordinate amount of time to take place. Lifting was brought into lineouts to get around its illegal use, which was hard to detact (like props collapsing the scrums).
Stephen Jones of the UK Sunday Times predicted rather fearlessly (and stupidly?) that there would never be another lineout in Test rugby won against the throw. Tell that to opponents of Victor Matfield!
The point here is that the systems was modernised and cleaned up in the scrums, as they have been in the lineouts, we will get the contested scrum and strong packs getting their just reward for their dominance.
Right now the scrum is a mess, as lineouts were in the days when they were described as ‘dockyard brawls.’
So we have this memo to the IRB. Fix the mess, and we reckon the ideas put forward here will go a long way to achieving this.
DERBY COUNTY FC
Guest
21-20. What excuse now Spiro?
Mr Saunders
Roar Guru
Hhmmm... to be fair, we could do with a few more of those ELVs. Now they were really something. I'm not a big fan of this scrummaging business.
Derm
Roar Guru
And England win by scoring tries. The scrum is fixed. Thank God for that.
van der Merwe
Guest
"Manhandled" is somewhat hyperbolic and better suited to describe what happened to Dunning et al in the quarter final, however, SA's scrum was definitely second best in the pool match where Botha actually conceded a tighthead to Sheridan. Fully agree about van der Linde versus Roncero.
Peter K
Guest
No 14 players. 2-3-2 is 7 players in a scrum instead of the current 8.
Mr Saunders
Roar Guru
Obviously. And that's why you've provided so many examples of why what I have said is incorrect. Congratulations. A+ for you.
Just a Fan
Guest
Mr Saunders your biased against SA clouds any reason you may have and just makes you a laughing stock. Can't believe there are people who actually take you seriously.
Apelu Tielu
Guest
Chris, The Brumbies boys are making a valuable contribution, I believe. If they win, what might the implications be for To'omua as 5/8 and Nuci as coach...in mean a future Wallabies coach? While the pack has been good, there are some pretty good backs as well. The future of Aussie rugby certainly looks pretty good.
ForceFan
Guest
well said. Long-term each scrum should be reviewed after the game by the video ref, with side (pulling down) and top views (angling in). Where obvious cheating is seen the offending player should be suspended for a game, which should reduce their incentive. Short-term have a ref on both sides of the scrum to see how the props are behaving. One can't see the bind, elbow down on the other side,
AngryAnt
Guest
I think preception plays a huge part in this. Watch very carefully how the refs talk to different teams. Last week in the test I remember Owens stating clearly that both front rows where guilty of collapsing a scrum (I think it was about 30 mins into the first half), and that both props had slipped binds. However, he said this staring directly at the Wallaby front row. He never looked at the England pack while "chastising" both front rows for collapsing. If I am in the England pack I know he is not really blaming me for the collapse. He might be saying it but it is pretty clear that he is watching my oponents not me.
chris
Guest
Aust v NZ for junior world champ Final. Streamed live on the irb website i think @ 8:10am Tues 22nd. Gezzz that Aussie (polynesian) front row are big boys. Much better than loosing to England in the semi last year. Good work boys!
Bob Mcgregor
Guest
AFL has 4 quarters of 20 min playing time. Breaks at 1/4 & 3/4 time of about 5 minutes and 20 minutes for 1/2 time. IF there are a lot of goals kicked a quarter can blow out to 35 minutes but normally about 28-30min. Overall, most games are over within 2 1/2 hours. Given the crowds like the format and attend in their thousands they have to be doing something right. Perhaps it's time Rugby tried something different at the professional level?
AngryAnt
Guest
A question would be to wonder whether if the opposite was to happen last Saturday and Australia had the dominant scrum – would they then complain they were getting the penalties despite their tighthead collapsing at times? I very much doubt it. They would surely argue that the referee should reward the dominant scrum? Am I correct? My question in reply to the above is: Is it a dominate scrum and should it be rewarded if the dominance is the result of cheating? My personal view is that the England scrum was dominate but at times played for penalties. There was one scrum in the first half the Wallabies were penalised for the scrum dropping when Cole had the elbow pointed to the ground and the bind on the arm. If a tight head binds on the arm and has his elbow pointed to the ground he has only one intent and that is to bring the scrum down. In this case the scrum was about 20 metres out from the England defensive try line and was in a period where the Wallabies where dominating territory and possession. Even though I think it was an England feed, I believe Cole collapsed to get a penalty and get some relief - territory and possession. In this case the ref guessed and guessed worng as to who should have got the penalty, but it becomes another stat about Wallabies collapsed scrums and a penalty. Tony Woodcock has made the back half of his career off the back of extracting penalties because of a perceived dominance (born out of some substance especially in his early career) he has at scrum time. He uses this reputation to save effort and gain territorial and possessional advantage by manipulating penalties. The problem with this approach is it can back fire. You are banking on the ref guessing in your favour. If you look at the Twickers game 2008 against Australia there is a case to be made to suggest England at scrum time (first half especially) played for the penalty, believing the ref would penalise the weaker (Australian) scrum. This did not happen. (I will also conceed Australia have plenty of form him, Bill Young [a blight on props everywhere] made a career out of cheating but not because he was ever dominate in a scrum but because he was generally too weak to contest it properly). The problem I am trying to highlight I guess is that in the all of these cases (and just about every scrum) the refs are making decisions which are guesses, based on manipulation. Dominant scrums cheat for advantage, weaker scrums cheat for survival. But overwhelmingly it is never clear which of the cheating scrums scrums has caused the collapse or infringement. How do you penalise one team in these circumstances? Penalise the weak scrum? But what if the weaker scrum has not actually infringed? You are rewarding bad behaviour. Penalise the dominate scrum? That would simply promote more bill young's into international rugby. We don't need that. Sorry am not sure what the answer is, maybe make the 5/8, 13 and 15 pack into the front row (just joking princeses), but i do know that we cannot have another traversty like happened on Tuesday in Gosford, mindnumbing reset after reset. It will kill rugby in Australia (and I would argue everywhere0. No one will want to watch that live, on TV or streamed.
Ben C
Guest
More time for beer. Unfortunately more time for ad breaks also.
warrenexpatinnz
Guest
I am not sure if that makes me feel better as does this mean Owens is then one of the side line touch refs?
warrenexpatinnz
Guest
Yes wasn't really well thought out in description and probably application, take a line from the infringement across to the touch line but I guess then we are heading down the NFL road.
ohtani's jacket
Guest
If you stopped the clock every time the ball wasn't in play rugby would last three hours like most American sports do.
Mr Saunders
Roar Guru
Thanks for the info, Colin. Reliable as ever.
Colin N
Guest
The French scrum had the better in the first-half. Bryce Lawrence (yes him) awarded South Africa a penalty when they hit too early and then refused to award France one when they demolished on the Springbok feed. When Poux came on, France struggled (It's a shame Barcella is being rested) I thought and Lawrence awarded South Africa a few penalties and it was pretty even towards the end.
Mr Saunders
Roar Guru
You think SA won the tussle, but that isn't how I, or for that matter, the media seem to recall it. SA hasn't had the edge over an English scrum since pre-2000. I am fully aware what a bajada is, and it isn't illegal either. Van der Linde got pulverised because he is a lamentable scrummager, and always has been. Du Randt managed to stay reasonably square to Scelzo, however. I didn't say that there are a host of Australian props. Re-read what I said. I was on holiday last weekend so can't comment on the France game, but I can't find any media reports that suggest SA scrummaged epecially well, and even if they did 'for the 2nd half' what does that prove? Absolutely nothing. The fact of the matter is that since the 199 WC SA has not had a bonafide scrummage, and it still doesn't now. Robinson and TPN aren't particularly short for their position. NZ didn't manhandle the Australian scrum. Woodcock continuously dropped his bind. Reacquaint yourself with the footage.