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Scrum Talk

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Crow

Jimmy Flynn (14)
Tight shirts are worn specifically because they're hard to get a hold on, for the purposes of the tackle and ruck.
Also, if one team managed to tighten their shirts before a scrum, they would have an advantage, as their opponent would be more likely to be pinged for not binding.
So it's in the team's best interest to get around any law about the looseness of shirts and it would be difficult or impossible to enforce. It would be an ineffective annoyance for teams which can get around it and a disadvantage for teams that can't.
It's the worst of both worlds.
 

Lee Grant

John Eales (66)
[Getting rid of the power hit]would take away from a reasonable impressive part of the modern game.


It also gives the impression of unreasonable scrum collapses and sometimes 3 - 4 minute gaps in the 80.


Homo sapiens evolved after eons of trial and error: following paths that fizzled out, but back up the path there was always another one where we had branched off, to take us to where we are today.


Rugby is taking a path now that will fizzle out; it has to.


People are making the scrum issue too complicated. We just have to go back up the rugby path and do something we knows works, because we saw it back in the day. Packs came together passively then showed their power and technique on the power shove. There was no place to hide for dud scrums: they got chewed up by the predators.


A while back - and you could see the beginning of it in the later 70's - coaches wanted to get an edge on their opponents and started to get their teams to lurch into the other scrum with a bit of force. The lurch gradually became a hit and 20 years after it had started, when the players were paid to be in the gym, it became a power hit.


The scrum contest became a hit contest: a race across a short distance with two 900kgs packs colliding and because you can't scrum head to head there was a natural sudden clockwise wheel with the LHP forced in. There was also a natural hinging down or standing up unless the vertical forces were just so.


Those things happened in the old days too but because the pressures were applied more gradually it was more manageable for the players and the scrums stayed up more. The referees had a better idea of who was doing what.


Hands up those who have seen a dominant scrum being dudded by an early engage (a non-existent thing in the old days - they were already engaged) being called wrongly by a skinny ref? What about a dominant scrum being dudded by a ref's guess on who was responsible for a collapse? Yarda, yarda.


It pisses me off when I hear commentators say about a ref when he gave scrum penalty on the 3rd attempt: "He lost his patience with the players," because they are right.


For God's sake IRB give the scrum back to the players: go back up the path and continue down the right one.
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fatprop

George Gregan (70)
Staff member
Brain Moore contributes on the PR site and had this to say about the scrum issues


It is the driving before the scrum is steady and square and before the ball is put-in; enforce that and long binds on shirts, not arms, of shirts you can actually grip - straight put-in and there would be huge improvements

I think the long bind is pretty important, damn hard to collapse with a good long bind and a straight back. Whereas a nice short bind lets you do all sorts of evil

To me crouch, touch (and actually touch (to ensure the distance is right) and leave the hand on the shoulder point) and set (where the hand slides down the back for a long bind)

I can't see many collapses with the above approach.
 

rugbysmartarse

Alan Cameron (40)
I agree with both of you that the ideal solution would be to get rid of the hit, but this has been met with too much resistance in the past. Even from former wallabies who have suffered at the hands of scurm evils (like Al Baxter). What I am proposing is a half way house - a step towards a more stable scrum set - whereby there is still some hit but one which is shorter, and has the props bound to each others shirts to reduce them slipping off each ofther and either going to ground, putting their hand on the ground, or dropping their bind.
 
T

TOCC

Guest
Whatever the situation, i can only foresee more scrum collapses and potentially more injuries if the current rules stay in place and the physicality and explosiveness of forwards continues to increase.

I think its evident something needs to be done, i enjoy the scrummaging part of the game as a player, but as a spectator i feel it shouldn't be consuming such a large percentage of the game time as they currently are.
 

kiap

Steve Williams (59)
Brain Moore contributes on the PR site and had this to say about the scrum issues

bcm666 said:
It is the driving before the scrum is steady and square and before the ball is put-in; enforce that and long binds on shirts, not arms, of shirts you can actually grip - straight put-in and there would be huge improvements
Yup, makes some sense, FP.

Maybe a reversion to the original heavy cotton jerseys for props is what is needed. The material itself would be enough; the wearer is not going make that skin tight.
 

Lee Grant

John Eales (66)
Brian Moore

It is the driving before the scrum is steady and square and before the ball is put-in; enforce that and long binds on shirts, not arms, of shirts you can actually grip - straight put-in and there would be huge improvements


Sounds good, looks good, smells good - but how many times do we see refs telling players to do exactly these things during a game, repeatedly, and they don't. Even when they are penalised and carded they keep doing it. It makes one suspect that the power hit can defeat the best efforts of players and the referees.

The shirts - by all means - I mentioned this about 5 years ago on rugby forums and I wasn't the only one then: it's already an old idea. Moore mentioned it years ago too. This is something that can be done without the ref and players stuffing it up. It beggars belief that this by itself will make a difference but all ideas should be trialled, not talked about.

Including mine.
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Lindommer

Simon Poidevin (60)
Staff member
Brainwave: what about a crouch/bind/pack call? And with loose, cotton jumpers for the tight pigs.
 
J

Jiggles

Guest
Looking at the Scrum analysis on the front page. You would think that TPN is going to have to lift his work rate big time over the next 12 months or else he wont be featuring in the Lions come 2013. Hanson is showing superior stats currently.
 

Lee Grant

John Eales (66)
It is already being used in the NH and has been for several years. The only pro games where it is not used in the NH (UK, Eire, France and Italy, that is) are test matches.

Incidentally, it is used in the Shute Shield in Sydney and perhaps in other parts in amateur rugby. Since these teams don't have reserves normally, and players who have played in the earlier game act as subs, it is a good ploy to avoid uncontested scrums without having to add to a club roster.

As I have written before: the addition of the 4th prop into a matchday side will disadvantage Oz teams, including the national team, because of our historically small pool of elite props.

In France you often see two props replacing the the run-on pair not long into the 2nd half and sometimes all the front rowers are replaced at the same time. The scrum is a huge part of their game.

Many of the Oz Super teams struggle when the 3rd prop has to come on, especially if one was crocked before the match and no.3 is really no.4. Even the national team struggled a couple of years ago when the Poms visited. The visitors actually had problems because they were too dominant.

Thank God for the power hit kerfuffles and the early engage calls that went our way, and the wrong referee guesses against the Poms when scrums collapsed. I suspect also that the home team got a few square-ups in their favour: some of the penalties and free kicks we got were unaccountable, at least to my untrained eye.
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JJJ

Vay Wilson (31)
It is already being used in the NH and has been for several years. The only pro games where it is not used in the NH (UK, Eire, France and Italy, that is) are test matches.

So they're including it in test-matches and Superugby now? From the article it was part of the new laws being passed.
 

Lee Grant

John Eales (66)
No they wouldn't be new laws.

There are usually 3 stages to law changes - trials, ELVs and new law.

I will leave it to others to look at the announcement, but I had the impression that they were only trials and not ELVs yet, but I am probably wrong.
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Hugh Jarse

Rocky Elsom (76)
Of late I have noticed that the feeding team has lost a few scrums despite the cheating runt halfbacks illegal feeds almost into the second row which seems to have become the accepted practice in recent years.

Also some referees (rather rare) have actually penalised a couple of the aforesaid cheating runts for illegal feeds. This has to be a good sign and should be encouraged to reintroduce a contest for the ball at scrum time, not just a contest for the hit (before the ball).

When the feeding team lose the ball, can that be classified as a tighthead? These invariably seem to occur when the ball ricochets forward off some dufus of a 2nd rowers foot/leg following an overly fast throw into the scrum from the #9, and not due to an individual act of skill from the #2.

Until there is a genuine hooking contest for the ball, these should be referred to as a Scrum Win Againt the Feed, or Scrum Turnover, rather than a Tighthead. This would recognise that these are the result of the combined efforts of the entire scrum.

I feel that the term Tighthead still should be reserved to recognise an individual performance by the Hooker/Front Row.

And lets not get started on the debacle of uncontested scrums at International Level.
 

Tez T

Bob McCowan (2)
Law 3.13(g) states:
“A Match organiser may determine within Competition Rules that a match may not commence in the event of suitably trained and experienced players not being available prior to a match.”

Law 3.14(d) states:

“A provision may be introduced that where uncontested scrums are ordered as a result of there being no suitably trained and experienced front row replacement for any reason, the team concerned shall not be entitled to replace the player whose departure caused uncontested scrums.”


In the interests of the amateur game; QRU has determined not to exercise Law 3.13(g) and all games may commence in the knowledge that all scrums will be uncontested during the game.
However, when a game does commence and at least the first scrum is contested; then Law 3.14(d) is to be applied.

It appears that the net effect of this directive is that those sides (i.e. lower grades and subbies) who are short of STE front row replacements are commencing matches with uncontested scrums rather than starting contested and going to 14 men through injury.

My thoughts are:
Rule 3.14(d) was introduced to maintain that the contested scrum remains an integral and distinctive part of the Game.

The IRB Playing Charter 2012 states that “the essential balance between continuity of play and continuity of possession” is provided “as one team attempts to maintain continuity of possession and the opposing team strives to contest for possession.”

Furthermore, the Charter says “the contests are balanced in such a way as to reward superior skill displayed in the preceding action. For example, a team forced to kick for touch because of its inability to maintain the play, is denied the throw-in to the lineout. Similarly, the team knocking the ball on or passing the ball forward is denied the throw-in at the subsequent scrum. The advantage then must always lie with the team throwing the ball in, although, here again, it is important that these areas of play can be fairly contested.”

Rule 3.14(d) attempts to maintain this balance by lessening the possessing team’s ability to maintain continuity of possession where that team has removed ability of the opposing team to contest for possession during the set piece, namely the scrum.

Subsequently, when the team having no suitably trained and experienced (STE) front row replacements become the opposing team in contest for possession, they are also now disadvantaged in the remaining set pieces and general play, despite no requirement that a replacement player need be “suitably trained and experienced” for these areas of play.

It is in these plays that I imply that Rule 3.14(d) removes the balance between contest and continuity and no longer rewards superior skill and instead shifts focus to physical requirements where those requirements are superfluous, resulting in play that is unfair and no longer in the Spirit of the Game.

It is my experience as a senior player in lower grades, that the majority of players and coaches would prefer to see a 15 per side game with uncontested scrummaging than the situation described above and this appears to be how it is playing out.

From the ARU’s request for clarification (IRB Clarification 2-2008):
ARU believes that the intention of the Law is for non-contested scrums to be played where one or both teams are unable to provide suitably trained or experienced players to play in the front row (either at the start of a match or during a match).

ARU is also strongly of the view that at the Community level of the game, the effect of introducing competition rules that provide a sanction or penalty (either prior to, during the match, or post match) for the teams that are unable to comply with Law 3.5 has the potential to lead to untrained or inexperienced players being placed in an unsafe situation by team officials who wish to comply with Law 3.5 in order to avoid the sanction or penalty imposed if they do not comply.

I think that this situation could also occur in relation to Rule 3.14(d). Further it could see team officials or indeed STE front row players themselves attempt to delay removing an injured STE front row player in order to avoid the sanction.

Unfortunately it may also create unscrupulous or foul play targeted specifically at STE front rows in order to force opposition to be sanctioned by Rule 3.14(d).

For these reasons, I do not think that Rule 3.14(d) should be enforced.

What are your thoughts?
 

JJJ

Vay Wilson (31)
If I understand it correctly, I'm guessing the reason for law 3.14(d) is to stop teams who are getting dominated at scrumtime from faking an injury to a front-rower and bringing on another flanker instead. This would unfairly advantage them (can't be dominated at scrumtime, more mobility in the pack) and is too open to abuse. Law 3.14(d) puts the onus on teams to provide STE front rowers, which is an essential part of rugby. I reckon it's an appropriate law. God knows we need more front-rowers in this country.

It's like turning up to cricket without a wicket-keeper and expecting the other team to agree to automatic wicket-keeper (ie nick it and you're automatically out) while you pick another specialist batsman to pad out your team.

There's a place for uncontested scrums, and to the best ability of the lawmakers to fairly enforce, that place should be rugby league. Just my opinion.
 

en_force_er

Geoff Shaw (53)
The picking of an additional front rower on the bench is terrific and the extra sub will no doubt ensure front rowers stay big (and a little fat) rather than evolve into league props (basically extra no8s).

I would even consider making it a rule that each front rower position is cover 3x over (you'd need 2 props in the squad who could play both sides and one prop that could be a hooker in a pinch). It'd probably get too complicated though.
 

Wallatahs

Allen Oxlade (6)
Tez T

I take a different view to that of the ARU. Also being a lower grade player (perhaps even lining up against you this Saturday), I am fed up with uncontested scrums, particularly when the other side brings out a front row weighing in excess of 300kg (you can't tell me they're not props).

Rule 3.14(d) serves a good purpose and was applied in a game I played in earlier this year. We were clearly dominant in the scrum, so the opposition decided to sub one of their front rowers and called for uncontested scrums. We raised this rule and then all of a sudden the opposition happened to find a new prop to replace the last one - magic.

We play rugby union, not rugby league and there is no excuse for any of the top clubs (prems through to 4th grade) not being able to produce/train front rowers. I understand that this might be a bit different in subbies, where clubs don't have the same number of players and resources.

Where there is a genuine injury to a front rower, I'm sure most opposition captains would exercise some discretion and would not call for the rule to be applied. But on occasions where the opposition uses it to negate the other sides advantage in the scrum, I think rule 3.14(d) serves its purpose.

Some clubs have form in this area (I wont mention names), however from my experience, Souths are never short of a good front row.
 

Wallatahs

Allen Oxlade (6)
Sorry - I should have made my above post clearer. I think Rule 3.14(d) serves its purpose without actually being applied. The thought of being reduced to 14 men stops players calling for uncontested scrums when the opposition has the upper hand.
 

Gnostic

Mark Ella (57)
I had to sit through the State Of Origin on Wednesday night as I was staying with the Relatives and their TV etc etc. Do we want Rugby Scrums to become as much a farce as League Scrums. It is heading that way IMO, with too many instances of glaring errors being made in adjudication of "dominance" because of the hit.

The hit has no part in the Laws and a strict reading would say that it is itself a breach of the laws as how can it be anything but pushing before the ball is fed.

Get rid of the hit, feed the ball straight and we might actually see a contest for the ball and some real scrummaging.
 
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