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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Mike
Guest
Richard, you won't get any argument from me. I just used him as an example of controversy about scrummaging and for some reason the fur started to fly...
richard
Guest
"find me one person of note who has ever,ever stated that Bill Young was not incompetent' The late John Drake,cornerstone of the ABs scrum in 1987.He regularly derided the WB scrum,with a particular emphasis on the "scrummaging" of Young.Big ups to Young that he could constantly con referees. As you say,Mike,people praise him as a good scrummager by Aussie standards,frankly that's not saying much.
Mike
Guest
That's an excellent response, GM - cutting the ground from under your own argument... I've read over your posts and you just don't seem to have a clue what the thread is about. Oh well...
Mike
Guest
"Find me one person of note who has ever, ever stated that Bill Young was not incompetent." Right, the double negative - let me tweak that sentence slightly: "Find me a person of note who has ever, ever stated that Abraham Lincoln did not beat his wife". "Geez, I can't think of one, off-hand" "AH-HA!!! - that PROVES he was a wife-beater!!!!" I doubt you will find many in Australia who would class Young as incompetent. Spiro Zavos on the Roar would, sure. But many others praise him as a good scrummager by Australian standards. If you don't want to agree with them, you don't have to. I don't care one way or another. "To suggest that’s British sour grapes is quite literally the most ridiculous thing I have ever, ever read on this site." Errr no, what I suggested is that there are people in Australia who would view it as sour grapes. You may not like that, and I am not suggesting you have to.
Mike
Guest
Fully agree with your comments on Ben Alexander - sums it up well
Mike
Guest
The only person I can see "avoiding facts" is you - although I am probably not getting the point of your question. I don't know what florid language like "absolutely monstered" means, but yes they won some scrums and they also lost some. I at first thought you were just ignoring the latter, but I think you are trying to make a point that I am missing. I have no problem with saying that the Lions pack were overall the better scrummagers in the first test (in case you think I am denying that). However, I can recall at least one wallaby win against the feed, and at least one wallaby scrum penalty. I can't offhand recall the Lions winning any scrum penalties in that test, although you might correct me on that.
Ben.S
Roar Guru
Find me one person of note who has ever, ever stated that Bill Young was not incompetent. To suggest that's British sour grapes is quite literally the most ridiculous thing I have ever, ever read on this site. Re: 2008, a lot of scrums collapsed and penalties were duly handed out. One man has a history of being a powerful scrummager, and the other doesn't. Hmmm...
Ben.S
Roar Guru
Now, the Wallaby scrum doesn't need to be thrown out - I agree, but it needs a lot of work ASAP. Ben Alexander is still not the cornerstone you need at 3. He is competent, but against the top end players he will struggle.
Ben.S
Roar Guru
Right, to repeat: in a number of scrums in the 1st Test the Lions absolutely monstered the Wallabies - I'm not sure how you can keep avoiding that fact? Given that monstering took place with Tom Youngs, it was only likely to intensify with the bigger and more renowned scrummager Hibbard starting in the 3rd Test. In the 2nd Test Vunipola started due to injury, so it's not apples. It's not rocket science.
Mike
Guest
"I don’t think there’s any shame in coming off second best against them." Definitely not, a great pack.
Dean Vincent
Guest
As it happens I tend to agree that the Wallabies aren't that bad in the scrum, I just think in the Third Test they came up against a formidable scrummaging front row who only played as a unit in that game. I don't think there's any shame in coming off second best against them. I hadn't seen a great deal of Corbisiero before this tour but a number of my English friends said he was a fearsome scrummager and I've watched Jones and Hibbard play for many years and know their capabilities. As a Welsh supporter, I myself have real concerns about the tighthead prop position. We have no-one there to fill Adam Jones' boots once he retires and our scrum has been badly exposed when he isn't there. For example, in the 3rd/4th play-off game of RWC 2011, our front row had a right going over from the Australian front row (not sure who propped for Australia that day). I also think that the scrummage is an area of the game that needs to be looked at as in some games it is often a complete mess but nothing should be changed that de-powers this area of the game. Any changes should just try and ensure a clean contest.
Mike
Guest
They should have. If they didn't, then that's a black mark. Modern rugby means playing to the referee.
Mike
Guest
Gavin, thanks for a citation that missed the point entirely. Dean Vincent, I agree. I have nothing against the Lions scrum in this match, nor am I complaining about the fact that Poite made his rulings and the Wallabies were stuck with them, for good or ill. The heading to this article is: "Were the Wallabies really that bad at the scrum?" which in turn carries the implication of what changes we need to make for the future. My position is that Poite's rulings should not be used by themselves as a basis for answering these questions going forward - not only were they not consistent with the relative strengths of the two scrums in the first two tests, they were also inconsistent with how the Wallabies scrum shaped up against other packs last year: Boks, A/Bs, Welsh, English etc.
Mike
Guest
Just a note: I didn't say we didn't lose scrums in the first test (or the second for that matter), just that those two games weren't the severe mismatch that Poite's ruling would seem to indicate (if all his rulings were justified). Hence I am arguing that the Wallabies should assess Poite as an aberration, and see the first two tests as indicative of where their scrum is really at - requires improvement certainly, but not a total mess to be thrown out and re-start from scratch (as some Roarers argue).
Mike
Guest
"Nothing was said about the Baxter match actually. Not a single thing ..." I had to smile when I read this, given some of the articles and blog comments I remember at the time - Baxter didn't bind properly, his shirt was too tight so Sheridan couldn't get a grip etc. But not to worry, I agree with the overall point you are making. And similarly with Bill Young - there are many who would disagree that he was "notoriously incompetent" and would rather see it as British sour grapes. I am not trying to start an argument about this, just pointing out that controversy in this area is a regular thing, which I think is also your point. I am certainly not suggesting we wuz robbed. Even if the outcome of this game turned on scrums (it didn't) you take what the referee dishes out and that is it. But that is a different matter to agreeing that his decisions were correct, which in turn affects whether you make changes to your team or technique for future matches based on his decisions.
Mike
Guest
I agree. My concern is with those (Australian) roarers who use the scrum penalties in this test as a basis for concluding, in effect, that the entire Wallaby front row are hopeless scrummagers and should all be immediately replaced. Whilst such an argument could be made, it won't be credibly made on the basis of a single test where the calls went heavily against us, any more than Twickenham in 2008 defined the state of scrummaging in England at that time.
Bakkies
Guest
The Wallabies avoided a lot of scrums in the first 2 tests by having Genia feed the ball in to the second row.
Bakkies
Guest
Alexander was a scape goat as Robinson had been pinged a few minutes before.
Bakkies
Guest
Woodcock a player who I can't stand is chronic at boring in.
Upfromdown
Guest
For what it is worth here are some of my random thoughts on fixing the scrum. 1) eliminate the hit - it is not in the rules so why adjudicate on it? Hopefully the new rules will help with this. 2) feed the ball straight - this is in the rules so enforce it! 3) feed the ball when the scrums engage - halfbacks should not hang about waiting for the scrum to be settled allowing teams to "wrestle" until they feel they are on the front foot, so to speak, before feeding it. 4) have a use it or lose it rule once it gets to the back of the scrum - like with rucks etc. It makes no sense to have a static scrum with the ball waiting to be used. 5) allow play to continue if the ball clears the 2nd row and is available to be played even if the scrum has collapsed or gone 90 - I mean it would be hard to manipulate collapsed scrum and have the ball at the back waiting to be cleared? 6) short arm penalty for teams that don't stay bound - with warnings/yellow cards for teams that infringe multiple times 7) again, feed the ball straight!!