Baxter: Scrum pause not helpful

Australia’s most capped Test prop Al Baxter believes referee Allain Rolland deserves most of the blame for the Wallabies’ scrum woes against New Zealand in Hong Kong.

Despite scraping home for a memorable 26-24 victory over the All Blacks, the scrum was again a major problem for Robbie Deans’ men after struggling to adapt to the Irish whistle blower’s decision to prolong the engagement.

Most referees will take around five seconds to deliver the ’crouch, touch, pause, engage’ call, but Rolland kept the two packs waiting for around 10 seconds in most instances.

While his intention was to stabilise the scrum, Rolland’s approach resulted in numerous collapses, four penalties and three free-kicks for scrum infringements.

The Wallabies, who were punished four times including twice on their own feed, became gun-shy and subsequently struggled against the superior All Blacks pack in the set-piece.

“I’ve actually said this before I think it probably destabilises the scrum having such a long pause,” Baxter said.

“Think if you had to have guys on the starting blocks running or on the blocks swimming if you had to hold them that long before they started.

“And that’s essentially what we do as well and we’ve got eight guys from both sides all having to hold that long on the blocks, so it just means that is doesn’t actually make the scrum any more stable having a really, really long call.

“So ideally if the call was shortened then you’d actually have less re-packs.”

Australia’s problems have not gone unnoticed ahead of this weekend’s clash against Wales at Millennium Stadium, with sections of the Welsh media quick to label the scrum as vulnerable.

But Baxter, who has not given up hope of returning to the Wallabies fold after being overlooked this season, believes Australia’s scrum is on the up following the emergence of a new breed of front rowers.

“Something we’ve struggled with before in Australia has been depth in the front row and this means now we’ve got a lot of depth in the front row, which is great,” he said.

Quizzed on his own chances of adding to his 69 Test caps, Baxter, who has fallen to at least fourth on the tighthead pecking order behind Ben Alexander, Salesi Ma’afu and James Slipper, replied: “Of course I want to be there and that I guess gives me motivation coming up to this pre-season to go as hard as I can and hopefully get back there.

“It’s going to be really hard but I definitely want to get back there. It’s obviously something that motivates me.

“I’ve had two World Cups and they’ve been absolutely brilliant experiences and I’m really hoping for a third, but it means I’m going to have to put in a very good season here with the ’Tahs for the Super Rugby season.”

Baxter, who was cleared to resume training last month after overcoming a neck injury suffered while playing club rugby in July, welcomed the chance to play each of his rivals twice in next year’s revamped Super 15 competition.

“That’s another good thing about more local derbies is that you get to go against these guys double the amount of times you would usually,” he said.

“It’s very good because that hopefully will give good indication to selectors what the pecking order is.”