Push comes to shove for scrums
For the second year in a row, the Six Nations was blighted by the increasing amount of time required to have completed scrums with the amount of resets now a blight on the game.
The scrum is an integral part of the game. When executed properly, as England did against Ireland last month, it is an art form that forces the opposition to address their problems, not by tweaking the laws in order to have a meaningless ritual — like in rugby league — but a full on physical contest for possession.
Nigel Owens is the latest in a list of high-ranking referees to come under scrutiny after his performance in Thomond Park. It is increasingly difficult to escape the fact that when it comes to refereeing the scrum, the vast majority of officials are bluffing.
Given the vast strides that the game has taken in recent years, that simply isn’t good enough. The recent demotion of Wayne Barnes, Dave Pearson and Bryce Lawrence from the elite panel of test officials at least sends a signal that the IRB are no longer willing to put up with whistleblowers who fail to reach certain standards.
I have huge sympathy for Pearson for the manner in which he was hung out to dry by the French federation for the late postponement of Ireland’s Six Nations game in Paris. However, the Englishman has only himself to blame for the bizarre decision to only yellow card Bradley Davies for that shocking tackle on Donnacha Ryan.
The IRB should have been far more proactive by coming out the following day to confirm that the incident should have warranted a straight red.
By not doing so, it implied that Alain Rolland’s decision to show red to Sam Warburton at the World Cup for a less severe tackle on Vincent Clerc was incorrect, which of course it wasn’t. Is it any wonder that players and coaches bemoan the lack of consistency in some of the decisions of referees? At the other end of the scale, Ospreys wing forward Justin Tipuric received a yellow card against Leinster at the RDS a few weeks ago for a tackle that was judged dangerous but wasn’t in the least. To think he received the same initial sanction as Davies is madness. At least the citing commissioner stepped in and justice was seen to be done with a seven-week suspension imposed on Davies.
In relation to the mess that surrounds the scrum at present, the time has come to reassess the whole cadence of the engagement as the crouch, touch, pause, engage sequence is not working. The vast majority of problems faced by referees now surrounds the setting of the scrum. On Saturday night, Owens contributed to the problem time and again by the nature of his delivery of the engagement sequence. Does he have any idea how difficult it is for the prop to try and resist the power that the back five are thirsting to release once they hear the word engage?
The longer that sequence takes to deliver, the more difficult it becomes for the prop to hold his stance.
Think back to how the scrum was managed in the amateur era. The two packs came together and folded in so that there was no pushing before the ball was put into the scrum. It was the job of the wing forward on the side where the opposition scrum half was feeding the scrum to anticipate when the ball was being put in by calling — ‘coming, coming, coming NOW’. On that call of ‘NOW’, the whole eight were flexed and poised to explode in an effort to destabilise the opposition scrum. There was little or no collapses and no necessity for resets.
Nowadays, the success or failure of the scrum almost exclusively comes down to the timing and power exerted on the hit, with little else happening afterwards.
In a bygone era, the contest only started when the ball was put in and often went through a second phase with one side holding it at the feet of the No 8, going for a secondary drive with the entire scrum dipping and driving in unison.
That was a skill of precision and timing in itself and a crucial part of the game. Nowadays the scrum only matters when one side has a clear advantage over the other and go for broke to maximise that advantage, as England did against Ireland at Twickenham.
In an era where the majority of the top referees are full-time professionals, it is no longer acceptable to play a guessing game every time the scrum goes down as to whom to penalise. Last weekend saw a record attendance for a club game of 83,761 turn up at Wembley for Saracens’ Aviva Premiership game against Harlequins. Thankfully it was a smashing game, a feature of which was a cracking contest at the scrum between two well-drilled packs with Quins enjoying an advantage in that crucial facet which helped them over the line in the end.
The Aviva Stadium will have in excess of 45,000 watching on Saturday when Leinster face Cardiff Blues while Thomond Park will be full to capacity when Ulster come calling on Sunday.
Those massive audiences will cease to return in the future it these big games continue to be dominated by a litany of collapsed scrums.
Let’s hope it won’t be the case this weekend.
