“the purpose of the scrum is to restart play quickly, safely and fairly after a minor infringement or a stoppage.” (Law 20).
There is no doubt that one of the features of our game is the forward play, and the pinnacle of this is the dominant scrum. Much is to be said of the physical and mental advantage that can be gained over your opponents when the scrum is “on”. There is also no doubt that there has been a bit of chatter of late about the mess that scrums have become. Referee decisions baffling punters and players alike, dominant scrums accused of cheating and using illegal tactics, constant collapses. The current state of play is dangerous, A waste of time and against the spirit of a “contest”.
The first talk I heard of removing the hit from scrums, I remember clearly, it was like one of those “Moments of Clarity” you hear of. I was sitting in the car park at my office, listening the David Flatman on Ruggamatrix. David said:
They then put a Scrum Clock on the screen to show you how long this blasted scrum has taken and that makes every referee never want to reset a scrum again because they look like they are out of control, so you have referees blowing on their whistle and sticking their arm up, and they don’t know what they are on about, just they’re being forced to guess but it is not the referees fault, they’re being forced by the Assessors, by the Papers by the TV Channels to guess and its our job, this is my job this is what I get paid for and you’ve got blokes guessing you know and also, of course a prop is never wrong, so he’s never going to give away a penalty, never. But I think the only way to sort it out is to take away the engagement, that’s the only way to do it, take away the impact.
I was shocked, Heresy I screamed. How could someone, let alone a current international prop (though he is a pom…) dare suggest the removal of the fabric of our scrumming history. Since the dawn of time, front rowers have relished the opportunity to exert some dominance over the opposition by smashing them in the hit. But as I listened, the clarity appeared. Never before have I listened to a Pom and agreed, but here I was.
Unfortunately that set me off on a slippery slide of looking for the Origin of the hit. I followed David Flatman’s advice and started with the famous All Black front row of Dowd, Fitzpatrick and Brown. Apart from them being revered as the longest-serving front row in All Black history, there was no mention of inventing the hit. Wider searches bring nothing either. So where did the evil hit begin? Google wasn’t helping, so I turned to human searching, trying for the more wise amongst us, the ones who had seen more rugby than me. I got something there. The forums very own Lee Grant was able to provide me with information on scrum engagements using his library. He was able to look back and give me the most complete history of the evolving nature of the hit so far.
- The fifties, things were very civilised, in the 1956 New Zealand v Springboks match there was no hit of note more a civilised walk-in with some niggle and disruption before ball put in.
- The sixties were noted for a very casual approach, with the 1967 England v New Zealand match demonstrating players running for the scrum after line out and get in position just before put in; mostly engaged waiting patiently for scrummie to retrieve ball for put in.
- The seventies were a decade of discovery, going from the 1971 New Zealand v B&I Lions where there was not much change from 60’s with the ball typically being put in long after soft engage to the 1974 Springboks v B&I Lions where the physicality was really starting at put in, all the way through to the 1979 test between New Zealand and France where there were some definite attempts at hits early in game but mostly walk-ins
- The Eighties were interesting for more than fluoro hyper-colour clothes and synth-pop, 1981 we saw New Zealand v Springboks with some short power hits but mostly folding into each other and noticeable pushing after engage and before put in. By the 1983 test between England and New Zealand there was lots of walking in; one from 2 metres away; in some one side of the scrum engaged before the other side. In the 1985 Bledisloe the set ups were seen to be getting more streamlined prior to engage and by the 1986 Bledisloe the gap before engage was looking bigger. In the first RWC Final there was a drop in the scrum intensity noted with Lesser hits compared to recent Bledisloes, also from closer in. But the 1989 Bledisloe saw hits back to pre RWC intensity.
- The early, pre-professional Nineties things stayed at a similar level, with things seeming to settle at that intensity, scrums managed to stay up and the spirit of the contestable restart was upheld.
Since the advent of professionalism there has been a slow but definite evolution with a gradual increase of power of players in professional environment; necks and shoulders get more developed to deal with power hits. The 8 man hits are more prevalent and pack movements towards each other are faster and more explosive. There is now a greater dependence on hit from both sides needing to be exact for scrum to stay up, because of increased power, and there has been a tactical dependence on winning the hit.
Lee was able to give me quite a comprehensive history of the evolution of the hit, but I wanted more. I asked around and eventually found my source. Bob Dwyer was good enough to put me onto Andrew Blades, World Cup winning Wallaby tight head and renowned as a ‘professor’ of the dark art of scrummaging. I asked about the crediting of the creation of the hit to the Dowd/Fitzpatrick/Brown front row and he replied that the hit didn’t start with the All Blacks, but they could probably just be credited with coordinating it. Andrew went on to discuss the history of the engagement, saying sometime prior to 1984 scrum machines became common, and teams started working on scrums and getting tactics organised, giving them the ability to hit as one. Then in 1983, the Argentine’s had developed a technique at the scrum that allowed the 8 to hit as one. They toured Australia and subsequently smashed the Australian scrum, leading to the Wallabies biggest defeat by the Pumas, 18-3 in Brisbane. That led to the Wallabies prioritising scrum work, and interestingly, recruiting one Enrique “Topo” Rodriguez who propped the scrum that day, they were able to earn the famous push over try against Wales as they used it against the home nations on their Grand Slam tour in ’84.
Around that time there were starting to be some injuries and the IRB tried looking at different ways to improve safety at the scrum. they tried having the front rows binds then having the rest of the scrum pack around them, that didn’t work. Then they focused on coordinating the timing and space, getting the calls all the same so the pack could work to a rhythm. That did work.
The problem that presents now is that as the pro era arrived and players got bigger, stronger and had more time to work on tactics and ways to bend the rules.
The main issues currently are that refs started trying to mix up the timings in an effort to prevent early hits and keep the packs honest. There needs to be a set cadence to the calls allowing the packs to hit together, making the engagement more likely to be balanced and stay up. There had been an improvement in this area this year, until at least the Honkers Bledisloe. There is also a case to simplify the calls, changing the last call from the two syllable En-gage, to a single short sharp word, like “scrum”
According to Andrew, referees appear to be trying to overcomplicate things, he said “In the past the good refs would hold their arms out and the front rows would set themselves at that distance (Refs hand on the props shoulder), The bigger teams would complain in an effort to bluff the ref into giving them more space, this would play into their strengths and allow more room to increase the hit.”
He went on specifically pointing out, “The Referees then would then use a set rhythm to their calls”. The scrums we witnessed on the weekend show what can happen when this is not done. The difference is stark. Referees also need to push the point of not driving before the ball is played. When pushed on this point, Andrew said “There has to be some push before the ball, this is just physics, picture a prop with their feet back and head down, the only way that can be held up is by some pushing, but it must not be excessive”.
Talking to Bladsey, I was reminded that though the hit hasn’t always been with us but it is possible to keep this in the game, and maintain a level of safety. This years “New Law Interpretations” were not actually anything other than applying the laws that were already there. This shows there may be some value in looking back at what the written laws were trying to achieve when they were penned in order to find the answers to the problem. If I recall correctly, it was SANZAR who initiated the NLIs before this years Super 14. Do they or the IRB have the stones to tackle something of this importance this close to a World Cup?
In the forums, the debate has been raging, hopefully this clarifies a few things, the hit should stay. We just need the administrators to stop looking for reasons to ping and start working with the men upfront to make this thing work again. Should the hit be scrapped – Heresy, I say…
