Prop Dilemma

[TOCC]

According to Spiro and the S14.com stats at the end of the S14 the Tahs and the Brumbies scrums has the most re-sets in the comp.

thats not necessarily indicative of a weak scrum though, props collapse scrums all the time to milk penalties, in recent years it has happened to Australia numeours times where the opposition front row has collapsed a scrum, knowing that the Ref will believe it was collapse by the Australians due to there perceived(and actual) weakness at the scum, can often backfire as well though.

The more relevant statistic would be how many tighthead scrums were won/lost and how much clean ball/disrupted ball each halfback received from the scrum.

 

[DPK]

According to Spiro and the S14.com stats at the end of the S14 the Tahs and the Brumbies scrums has the most re-sets in the comp.

How many of them came from the Horror at Homebush (Tahs vs Brumbies ANZ)?

 

[Hawko]

According to Spiro and the S14.com stats at the end of the S14 the Tahs and the Brumbies scrums has the most re-sets in the comp.

The resets stat is wholly useless. You have to watch the scrums and see who dominates. Who gets bad ball or penalties against them. Watching the S14 the Tahs pack lost the scrums in one game, against the Crusaders. For the rest they had parity or dominated, mostly dominated. They were a better scrum than all the other Aussie scrums head to head. Stats be damned.

 

[Viking]

Perhaps not in the tight, but he was magnificent in the loose this year I thought.

This is true, I know im going to get shit for this BUT i seriously think Alexander is over-rated. What kind of Prop plays in the loose? Do we have any forwards that actually play tight? Sure anyone is better then Ma'afu and he's the best we got but he isnt a Robinson.

 

[Jnor]

How many of them came from the Horror at Homebush (Tahs vs Brumbies ANZ)?

Having been there and seen it (albeit under the influence of several refreshments - which were definitely needed) I remember counting exactly 6572 scrum re-sets

 

[fatprop]

Looking more closely at the list:



Tahs are strong in the first three and Tilse was great at the end of the S14, but at the end of Shute he was getting pushed around. Ryan was not so good when he stepped up at the end of Shute. If Kepu, Baxter and Robinson stay healthy they'll push a lot of scrums around, but if they are injured it could get ugly. TPN and Whittaker are a huge strength and will help the scrummaging along strongly.

Tilse is a good LHP with a good workrate, but an average THP, which is where he played most of the season in club to allow Jerry to play LHP.

When Ryan joined Tilse in the GF, they looked to have a good balance and were very effective

 

[Gnostic]

As has been discussed at length regarding Big Al, it doesn't matter shit how dominant your scrum/props are if any collapse is immediately thought to be your fault and the refs have a preconceived idea about it. I have the Tahs S14 tour of NZ on the HDD and the Kiwi commentators regularly refer the the Scrum stats I previously referred to and point the finger at the Tahs as being a problem. Not a problem you think as they were indeed a dominant scrum throughout the tournament. Why then did they get so heavily penalised? IMHO the reason Baxter is in the test wilderness and had his career terminated is essentially because of this. He is without doubt after the S14 this year the No1 THP in Oz. But to play him in tests again would be to invite scrum penalty after penalty right or wrong that is just the way it is.

So yes stats be damned but don't for a second think that they haven't been looked at and teams/players judged by them.

 

[DPK]

Having been there and seen it (albeit under the influence of several refreshments - which were definitely needed) I remember counting exactly 6572 scrum re-sets

I too witnessed that atrocity. Afterwords I was ready to send the lot of them to the Hague.

 

[ACT Crusader]

I agree with much of your statement there Hawko, i do however think you are greatly underestimating the Brumbies scrum, i admittedly didnt watch all there games in 2010 but from the ones i did watch, there scrum was generally speaking quite good.
In retrospect we are building form a low base in terms of quality props in Australia, however 2011 is looking like the best in a long time for Australian Rugby.

It was pretty poor from my viewing TOCC. Two things stick out to me when watching them on TV and Live were firstly the fatties struggled to get a good hit. Evene in todays game of "engage", the better scrumming teams always get a decent hit. The other more noticeable thing -in Live viewing at least was the locks. I recall one game where a scrum packed down near me and the locks seemed to pack down late and then on the TH side not even push. Seemed bizarre at the time, so watched closely as best as I could for subsequent scrums. Sure enough same routine. Took a bit of notice in following games thereafter and noticed a pack not clicking as 8.

And yes I do recall a lot of resets this season, so unless someone tells me it was some sort of tactic, IMO they were getting done over and struggling to hit with any consistency and force.

 

[WorkingClassRugger]

As has been discussed at length regarding Big Al, it doesn't matter shit how dominant your scrum/props are if any collapse is immediately thought to be your fault and the refs have a preconceived idea about it. I have the Tahs S14 tour of NZ on the HDD and the Kiwi commentators regularly refer the the Scrum stats I previously referred to and point the finger at the Tahs as being a problem. Not a problem you think as they were indeed a dominant scrum throughout the tournament. Why then did they get so heavily penalised? IMHO the reason Baxter is in the test wilderness and had his career terminated is essentially because of this. He is without doubt after the S14 this year the No1 THP in Oz. But to play him in tests again would be to invite scrum penalty after penalty right or wrong that is just the way it is.

So yes stats be damned but don't for a second think that they haven't been looked at and teams/players judged by them.

Very astute regarding Baxter. He is an unfortunate casualty of the Jones era scrum disaster. Refs just assume he's at fault when anyone with any experience in the front row or with a shred of honesty can see that he's actually a good scrummager. I love the new excuse coming from detractors of the wallaby scrum. Evidently Robinson the greatest cheat going. Why else would he be arguably the world's premier LHP.

 

[cyclopath]

Well, I agree that Robbo "cheats". Watch Woodcock, and watch Fatcat. They use a few similar moves. The hand on the ground on engage (especially if the ref is on the other side - ARs / touchies have no balls to call it mostly), then set themselves to drive in and up.

 

[Lee Grant]

The Shute Shield played this rule this year. 6 front rowers in a 23 man list.

Wow - I didn't know that. There's never a list of reserves in the Shute Shield (regular season) games because they usually use players from the Twos, but I didn't notice that in the finals that there were indeed 8 reserves.

Funny that the Currie Cup and ITM Cup are still going with just 7 reserves and I assume that it will be 7 in Super rugby.


On the hookers: I think we are only a couple of years away from having great Wallably depth with TPN, Moore and S.Finger still around and both Charles and Fitzpatrick being seasoned by that time.

 

[Slim 293]

The Brumbies clearly intend to play Alexander at LHP as they really have three THP's and only Jerry at LHP. This is a terrible outcome for the Wallabies as Alexander needs all the time at THP that he can get, particularly after such a long injury timeout. Palmer is possibly a great talent, but right now if its not scrummaging he doesn't rate top 20. Ma'afu is our fouth or fifth best THP and that's being generous. I can see some teams deliberately knocking on just to have a go at them. The only blessing for them is they do have Moore at hooker (and Edmonds to seagul later on).

What team would be dumb enough to do that?

I'm not sure if you watched the comp this year but the Brumbies did have one of the better packs... however, they were rightfully decimated by the 'Saders scrum who by far had the best in the competition...

It's just a shame that we couldn't get another LH like Kepu instead of Palmer for next year... The Brumbies now have no choice but to continue playing Alexander at LH as Jerry Y will probably never make the step up...

 

[Joe Mac]

Does anyone remember who the prop's for the Under20 World Cup were? I realise they will be too young for the WC in 2011 but am curious to see where they will be playing next year and whether we will see them making any super 15 appearances.

 

[Langthorne]

Cruze Ah-Nau
Paul Alo-Emile
Salesi Manu

and um, others....

from what I saw they were big guys with potential, but not yet ready for s15 action. With time, some serious work in the gym as too much of their weight seemed to be fat (trust me, I'm an expert on fat given how much I carry), and a bit more time perfecting their technique, they could make the step up. I'd be surprised if they aren't in academy programmes though.

 

[Hawko]

Tilse is a good LHP with a good workrate, but an average THP, which is where he played most of the season in club to allow Jerry to play LHP.

When Ryan joined Tilse in the GF, they looked to have a good balance and were very effective

In the semi final against SD, after Jerry Y got injured I think, in the last 5 minutes before half time the Uni scrum was totally dominated and only got saved by Walsh not awarding a penalty try when he should have. Props that day as I recall were Tilse at LHP and Ryan at THP. Its for this reason that I'm so concerned about the Tahs scrum if Ben, Fuse or Kepu get injured. That 5 minutes against a really good front row said more than a whole grand final against a lesser pack.

 

[Hawko]

On the hookers: I think we are only a couple of years away from having great Wallably depth with TPN, Moore and S.Finger still around and both Charles and Fitzpatrick being seasoned by that time.

I agree that we'll have fantastic depth if they all stay in Australia, but I would expect to see some of them (Moore and TPN) going to Europe to further their careers after the World Cup. If they come back home in 2014 though, there'll be a log jam of hookers for the next world cup.

 

[RugbyReg]

Cruze Ah-Nau
Paul Alo-Emile
Salesi Manu

and um, others....

from what I saw they were big guys with potential, but not yet ready for s15 action. With time, some serious work in the gym as too much of their weight seemed to be fat (trust me, I'm an expert on fat given how much I carry), and a bit more time perfecting their technique, they could make the step up. I'd be surprised if they aren't in academy programmes though.

Paul Alo-Emile has a full contract at the Force.

 

[DPK]

A thought I had about the scrum rules; doesn't seem impractical to use a non-monosyllabic word to engage the front rows? Do the ref's tell the teams whether they want them to engage on "EN-gage" or "en-GAGE"?

 

[fatprop]

In the semi final against SD, after Jerry Y got injured I think, in the last 5 minutes before half time the Uni scrum was totally dominated and only got saved by Walsh not awarding a penalty try when he should have. Props that day as I recall were Tilse at LHP and Ryan at THP. Its for this reason that I'm so concerned about the Tahs scrum if Ben, Fuse or Kepu get injured. That 5 minutes against a really good front row said more than a whole grand final against a lesser pack.

Yeah, they got owned that day, the SD scrum was just massive that day and Palmer was rock solid