Scrum Talk

[kiap]

Ben Darwin on this week's podcast suggested the new scrum interpretations would not be final and needed further modification. Kiwi scrum guru Mike Cron also sees the need for changes:

Crouch, bind, re-set​

By Wynne Gray​

5:30 AM Thursday Sep 19, 2013​

All Black scrum coach Mike Cron believes many of the persistent problems will improve if match officials concentrate on the tighthead props. He's convinced the new crouch-bind-set instructions will benefit the sport, but warns those changes may still take time.​

Spoiler

The statistics aren't flattering but Cron, who is on an IRB laws group, liaises regularly with men like Andrew Blades and Pieter de Villiers, who guide the Wallaby and Springbok scrums.[/INDENT]

"The changes were made for player welfare - and that has worked - and for viewers, and that box has not been fully ticked," Cron said.

The All Blacks fed 12 scrums in the latest test with the Boks. Three were resets, four were heeled by New Zealand, who were also awarded two penalties and a freekick by referee Romaine Pointe, while the Boks earned a freekick and a penalty. The Springboks had six scrums with no resets, hooked the ball three times, lost one and received two penalties.

Cron felt a delay before the "yes nine" put-in command from the referee, a narrow channel for that delivery, the pressure and incorrect binding from tighthead props were all part of the scrum difficulties. The reduction in the hit helped stability and player welfare, and most collapses were caused by tightheads' incorrect binding.​

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"Clearly the cause is tightheads binding on the arm and I don't think [the All Blacks] did that in the test," he said. "The law states the tighthead must bind onto the body. You're not allowed to bind onto the arm, elbow, shoulder, chest or collar. After the hit, the props are allowed to readjust but it must be within the law.​

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"The next thing is the way we scrum now, with the depth and pushing position, it's impossible for the hooker to get his foot up and into the tunnel. It's like the lineout, we have to work through this with the right authorities."​

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That meant giving constant feedback to Joel Jutge, who was in charge of an IRB group overseeing the scrum alterations. Scrums had become a pushing competition and the Pumas were trying to cope with that by slowly rolling the ball in, but that can lead to poor quality ball. The All Blacks were looking for strong possession to attack from. When front rows were bound, halfbacks were supposed to feed the ball straight, into an area one ball width either side of the props' shoulders, he said.​

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"For a hooker to get that ball back, he has to strike past the middle line but the force in the scrum doesn't allow that. We're proposing that the tunnel should be widened. We want the ball fed in straight but in a wider channel."​

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Spoiler

When Cron played, hookers swung off the props but the pressure in scrums was far less. Teams were hitting, holding and pushing in a much longer test of power and technique. Scrums were no worse than before but there was no silver bullet either because they relied on players with good technique and strength.

"Referees need to look at one thing and make sure both tightheads bind on the body and that will stop a lot of the collapses. Generally I get my guys to bind just under the armpit so they're off the arm and on the body, and if they stay there they have a strong legal position. The new laws should take away 50 per cent of the problems; they should stand out and officials should be able to find fault easily."

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=11126678​

 

[Quick Hands]

In general, I like the new scrum laws. I'd get rid of the yes 9 call though. The ball should be put in as soon as the front rows come together and if either pack are pushing early, twisting, lifting or wheeling penalise them, if the half delays too long, penalise him.

 

[Sully]

Putting the ball in when the front rows come together is what caused this in the first place. All the ref has to do is stand in the tunnel until he is happy and then step back to allow the halfback to address the scrum. The halfback should then not delay putting the ball in unless the scrum is unstable. The ref doesn't have to say anything.

 

[Sully]

Alternatively he could tap the half on the shoulder when he is happy or give him a nod if he is on the other side.

I would bring the assistant ref in field a little to keep a better watch as well.

 

[Quick Hands]

Putting the ball in when the front rows come together is what caused this in the first place. All the ref has to do is stand in the tunnel until he is happy and then step back to allow the halfback to address the scrum. The halfback should then not delay putting the ball in unless the scrum is unstable. The ref doesn't have to say anything.

I don't agree with your first sentence, but the rest makes sense.

 

[Sully]

It definitely started it.

Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF700T using Tapatalk 4

 

[It is what it is]

Did not
Did so
Did not
Go to your room
Sorry Mum & Dad

 

[Hugh Jarse]

When I came to this page, down the bottom under "Users found this page by searching for:" was this gem

ベン・ダーウィン　スクラム

G&GR has gone international.

Apparently it is "Ben Darwin Scrum" in Japanese characters. Awesome. Appropriate search term for a scrum thread.



日本人の友達 GGR フォーラムへようこそ

 

[Hugh Jarse]

A full page ad for "The Art of Scrummaging" by Topo Rodriguez in the Programme for the Schoolboys Tri Nations series.

Hopefully some of the "heavy hitters from Rugby's underground" will take notice and do something about this rather important part of the game.

 

[Hugh Jarse]

Any feedback on Topo's book "The Art of Scrummaging", @Inside Shoulder?

 

[Budgie]

We need to get some National Scrum camps going.

It is not just front rowers but the whole 8 need to learn how to work as one unit.

Worry about the next play after you win the current play, not at the expense of the current play.

Learn to do something well, and then do that well, as opposed to doing everything half arsed.

 

[Lee Grant]

Somewhere on some thread where the new scrum engagement sequence was discussed, I said that I didn't like the way the referees were telling the scrummie when to put the ball in—"Yes 9 !!"

The reason I didn't like it was because as soon as the the referee said "Yes 9" the opponents would anticipate the put-in and execute a power hit-type push. Though not as malign (because they were already loosely engaged) it caused some of the same problems as the power hit did, including early pushes off the mark after wrong guesses.

And collapses were not reduced as much as they should have been, and the attacking team did not get the benefit of the put-in as much as they should have.

I said that in the old days the referees didn't have to tell the scrummies when to put the ball in, they just did it, and although they couldn't delay the put-in, they nevertheless had a long-forgotten, narrow window of surprise as to when they did so.

So the put-in command should be discontinued as an unneeded thing that had bad results anyway, said I.

As I was drinking my second glass of expensive red tonight with my meal (De Bartoli Cabernet Merlot from the 4L cask) and watching my recording of Ulster v Montpellier in the Heineken Cup, I heard the commentator say after the first scrum in the second minute: "Of course, there is no 'Yes 9' anymore".

Bloody hell, thought I, and sure enough at the second scrum, after the "Set" Wayne Barnes taps the Montpellier scrummie on the back and he puts the ball in.

When I think to notice it, there is Barnes standing on the other side of the scrum and pointing the finger at Pineaar to feed the scrum for Ulster.

After a bit of googling I found out that the IRB had a meeting near Paris last month and recommended that the present verbal protocol, after the referee was satisfied about a steady engagement, should be replaced by a non-verbal protocol.

Sweetness and light—and straight feeds and a hooking contest.

Mind you the old situation was not law, nor is the new one—they were/are just protocols.
.

 

[Sandpit Fan]

Sweetness and light—and straight feeds and a hooking contest.

Mind you the old situation was not law, nor is the new one—they were/are just protocols.
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Indeed LG, and it hasn't stopped the usual high pitched whining from the usual suspects in the north from complaining bitterly that this massive change in the system so soon before the 6N is unfair and has not been trained for.

Strange days indeed.

 

[Ruggo]

I always thought telegraphing the feed was dangerous in that it exposed the timing of when the attacking side was most vulnerable when the hooker had a foot off the ground to strike.

Happy to see it removed.

 

[Lee Grant]

Strange days indeed.

Not that strange really, if the whining is done by coaches.

I am amazed at how pragmatic players are with such changes as these and also to changes of laws even. They just get on with the job—and it is their job, after all.

But coaches have set up their systems to deal with the refereeing landscape that they know, and unlike the players they fear changes to it—and what will happen if they get the response to the changes wrong.


Not to the point but I like the way that Wayne Barnes dips down to inspect the straightness of the feed whereas most referees seem to think that they are above all that (literally) and go with the vibe.

That is how referees get into bad habits and they are followed by lower level referees. Before you know it another referee convention gets established—that you don't really have to bend down and look.

Wayne Barnes' actions are a better example to follow because it sends a better message to scrummies and their coaches than free-kicking them periodically.

A few sentences from the bosses of the referees in each elite rugby competition, or better still: a few remarks from the capo di tutti capi, IRB boss Joel Jutge—that bending down to look will be considered to be good practice—will be beneficial.

Then the elite referees will try to out-do the others in bending down, to brown-nose to the ref authorities.

And lower-level referees will follow their example.
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[Bardon]

The non verbal cue is such a small change but is making a big difference as part of the overall changes in the scrum. There was even a scrum hooked against the head by Munster yesterday against Gloucester.

There are still problems in the scrum but many of these are caused by teams trying to get an unfair advantage in the scrum with things like the little half step back on the engage to make it look like the opposition is pushing early etc.

I'd like to see all refs be hot on the crooked feed again for a bit just to hammer it home as some SHs have started to feed under their front row again to test if the ref will pull them up on it. Some do and some don't.

As Stuart Barnes said in a recent match commentary why can't all refs be hot on this stuff all the time.

Lee Grant, I know you watch a hell of a lot more French rugby than I do. I was wondering if you caught the Toulon v Cardiff game where the ref awarded 3 penalty tries to Toulon. Would be interested in reading your take on it if you did.

 

[Lee Grant]

I'd like to see all refs be hot on the crooked feed again for a bit just to hammer it home as some SHs have started to feed under their front row again to test if the ref will pull them up on it. Some do and some don't.

Agree - The power hit was one of the excuses for not enforcing the crooked feed, because often there was no tunnel to put the ball into. But now the power hit is no longer, the skew feed has to be cracked down on otherwise the convention of allowing crooked feeds will be reborn.

As regards that match: I've recorded it but haven't watched it yet.

PS It is interesting that Barnes pointed the finger at the scrummie when he was on the other side of the scrum as the non-verbal prompt, but Leighton Hodges in Gloucester v Munster just nodded his head.
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[Nusadan]

The local referee's society in Scotland I'm in had just issued a memorandum, in light of the IRB directive, to its members to signal to the half back if on the other side of the scrum by 'thumbs up' amongst other things.

Before then, I had not ever verbalised to the half back to put the ball in, just moved away from front of him after the 'set' was called and the scrum was then to my satisfaction.

 

[Bardon]

I noticed both Rolland and Owens were pointing at the scrumhalf for the put in today's games (Castres v Leinster & Toulouse v Sarries).

 

[Hugh Jarse]

Loving the modifications. Bring back a fair hooking contest for the ball at scrum time.

SH referees last year only lasted about 3 weeks of keeping the cheating yappy runt halfbacks honest before they seemed to stop monitoring the crooked feed.

Haven't watched any NH games this year yet. Has there been less front row collapses and more successful scrums as a result of the ref's no longer broadcasting the "yes 9" call to the fatties?