Hot damn! Scrums to be a contest again, and soon

It’s not often I get to write follow-up articles these days, and much less that the follow-up contains some great news that we will all agree is long overdue.

You’ll recall my article back in March bemoaning the lack of contest in the scrum these days, on account of an absolute majority of scrumhalves feeding the scrum well off the “middle line” that Law 20.6 (d) requires.

In that same article, I also pointed out the obvious double standard that exists in the game today, where a hooker can be pinged for not throwing straight into the lineout, but from the resulting scrum, the opposition scrumhalf will get away with throwing the ball at his lock’s feet.

It’s hard to say how long it’s been happening, but we all agreed at the time it was too long, and that it something that could be addressed very easily.

And it will be, soon, but I’ll come back to that.

Last week, the IRB announced another tweak in their ongoing scrum engagement trials, with the major development being that the current engagement sequence of ‘crouch, touch, set’, will be replaced by ‘crouch, bind, set’ at which point the opposing props will be required to hold their bind on the outside arm until the referee calls ‘set’.

The new scrum call could be in place as soon as August 1, meaning it’s possible we’ll see it in play for the Rugby Championship this season.

The plan was overwhelmingly backed by the IRB’s specialist Scrum Steering Group, comprising 12 “leading experts from the coaching, medical and scientific fields,” and includes All Black scrum guru, Mike Cron.

The new sequence has been trialled in the second tier IRB Pacific Rugby Cup this year, and with thanks to Roarer LloydSix who posted this link last week, you can see some footage of the new engagement here:

The most obviously noticeable difference is the depowered ‘hit’ and the reduced gap between the front rows once the bind is taken, and prior to the ref calling ‘set’.

Where currently the opposing props will essentially rest the top of their head against their opposite’s, under the new engagement there is genuine overlap and the front rowers are effectively ear-to-ear prior to engagement.

Thus, it’s not hard to see why the IRB are claiming improvements in terms of player welfare “…by reducing impact on engagement by up to 25 percent in elite competition.”

The height at engagement also looks a touch higher to me, which should hopefully see a return to the days of opposing hookers having a crack at a tight head, but I’ll also defer analysis on the dark arts of front row play to those who can explain these things much better than I can.

In the IRB statement, Chairman Bernard Lapasset stated: “The implementation of the revised sequence alone is not about overcoming all the challenges of the elite scrum but it is a forward step.

“There is a collective responsibility for coaches, players and administrators to make the scrum a positive, fair and, above all, safe contest.

“Match officials will be stricter when refereeing the existing law.”

And it’s the last sentence of Lapasset’s statement that will have the traditionalists standing in applause.

You see, it’s not just about the engagement sequence and the likely reduction in the number of scrum resets that we can look forward to. The days of scrumhalves feeding the ball at 45° are numbered, too.

As detailed in the Daily Telegraph last Friday, IRB CEO Brett Gosper was of a similar view to all those commenting on this matter back in March, telling Iain Payten that crooked feeds “must be stamped out.”

Gosper: “We will be encouraging the referees to impose a straighter feed than they have been. The refs tend to turn a bit of a blind eye, or tend not to factor it in because they have so many other things to be worrying about.”

This, you’ll recall, is almost the polar opposite of the staggering admission SANZAR CEO, Greg Peters, made to me back in March, where he said in a supplied statement: “While a proportion of scrum feeds may not be executed to the exact letter of the law, it’s not currently an area of critical importance.”

Peters and I exchanged further tweets on that day, too, where after I suggested that fans “want a fair contest” in the scrums, Peters responded that he was “not sure it is a widely held view and there are much bigger issues at sea.”

With this firmly in my mind after reading the Telegraph article over the weekend, I posed the question to Peters whether SANZAR would similarly adopt the new focus on straight scrum feeds.

“It is part of a number of components of the global trial so when it starts for us yes,” came Greg Peters’ reply, via Twitter.

It’s a backflip of Olympic proportions from the position expressed in March, but it’s a backflip that we should welcome and applaud.

Finally, it would appear, a proper contest will return at scrum time.

Of course, the proof will be in the pudding – or the whistling, I suppose – as to just how big a clampdown on crooked scrum feeds we’ll see.

I’m expecting in the first instance we might only see penalties blown if the crooked feed is obvious (which would still be a lot, if the refs are honest with what they see), and that over time, we’ll see a return to penalties being awarded if the feed is not straight down the middle line.

After all, if that’s the requirement of hookers at lineout time, the same standard should apply to number nines, too. The double standard should be no more.

And it’s not a moment too soon, even in this former scrumhalf’s humble opinion.

Brett’s note: We often denigrate the IRB as ‘having no idea’, or for being out of touch with the common fan, but on the subject of scrums becoming a blight on the game, credit where it’s due. We should be congratulating the IRB for actively exploring and implementing changes to enhance the scrum as a contest.

On that point, whether SANZAR have been dragged kicking and screaming into adopting the renewed focus on scrum feeds matters little; the point is the changes will be made, and made soon.

My sincere thanks also to both Brett Gosper and Greg Peters for engaging in conversation via social media over the weekend. Being able to converse directly with such important figures on such a Minute little detail of the game is both refreshing and appreciated.