Spot on and the first two you mention ( binding in front of the ball and the player with the ball swimming back in the maul rather than the ball being moved back) are not difficult to spot or police from a reffing point of view. One simple TMO review before the conversion attempt would pick them up if the on field ref chose to ignore them .My main issue with mauls is in the application of the laws around them. These sort of things, plus the variable enforcing of the ball carrier makes them an unfair lottery a lot of the time. Players still routinely join in front (illegal) and ball carriers "swim" back (illegal) and often we see pods separate and basically act as a flying wedge (look it up if you're not old like me!!). As a game built on the fundamental law of contested possession at tackle, ruck, maul, lineout and scrum, it goes against the grain sometimes.
Of course, if teams are good at it all power to them. Crazy to not use such a weapon. I might add, Aus rugby has lost a few really good "anti-maulers" in recent years, such as Arnold and Skelton.
The Brumbies also score some very well constructed set piece tries off their lineout.
One of the reasons these are normally so effective is that teams know that their forwards have to defend the threat of the driving maul.
Quite possibly.I think this is a false assumption. The Brumbies have a very good maul. The best defence could be to disrupt the lineout as much as possible.
I think this is a false assumption. The Brumbies have a very good maul. The best defence could be to disrupt the lineout as much as possible.
numbers game.I've never understood why more teams don't try this, particularly the Waratahs who have had a pretty good defensive lineout in the last couple of years and pretty poor maul defence.
If you're roughly 50/50 on giving up a try from the 5m lineout maul then why not contest the throw and hope you disrupt it?
numbers game.
Even the best defensive line-outs only manage to disrupt the opposition ball around 20-25% of the time, so teams are faced with the choice of:
25% chance of stealing/disrupting the opposition line out, or
50% chance of disrupting a rolling maul if they don't send up a jumper.
If a team contests the line out but the attacking team still secure their own ball then the opportunity to disrupt the opposition rolling maul is pretty low, against a maul like the Brumbies it would be almost impossible.
We saw it tonight pretty successfully from the Rebels in the first half no?
More the point for me, against a rolling Brumby maul the defence is not 50/50. Get up early. And learn how to sack the line out.
You don't even need to win the lineout, just disrupt it. a knock on is still better than the brumbies maul.