'Maybe other countries will say we are crazy': Former referee Raynal on combat of crooked scrum feeds in France

Former referee Mathieu Raynal of France. File picture: Michael Steele/Getty

French referee bosses are hoping the success of trials to combat crooked feeds into scrums will persuade World Rugby to adopt the law amendments.

Former referees Mathieu Raynal and Romain Poite gained permission from the global governing body to trial a number of law amendments in both the Top 14 and Pro D2 this season, also including an orange card for a 20-minute red, and no bunker review system.

It is the clampdown on crooked feeding at the scrum, though, that has had the most effective results for the men in charge of match officials in France’s pro game.

Though World Rugby laws demand a straight put in, the French have on a trial basis abolished the stipulation that a scrum-half must “align their shoulder on the middle line of the scrum… standing a shoulder width closer to their side” when feeding. 

Instead, a previous interpretation has been adopted whereby the number nine must stand centrally and put the ball into the middle of the tunnel between opposing front rows.

After six rounds of Top 14 matches this season there have been 41 infringements of the feed laws, compared to 23 for the whole of last season. In the second-tier Pro D2 there have been 51 infringements so far compared to an average of 10 per season in the past.

“I did not just wake up in the morning and decide,” Raynal said. “This has come from the coaches. Ninety per cent of feeds last season were straight into the second row. We want more equity. I have said to them: ‘Okay, we will referee it, but we will not do one step back in a month when everyone complains.’ 

“And that’s exactly what has happened. They are starting to complain. And I have said to them: ‘We will continue to do it.’ We now have some defensive scrums winning against the head, with a shove or hook. It needs to be a fair fight in the scrum.” 

Raynal credited French scrum coaches and players for adapting to the trials so far, saying “they have taken it seriously and done it”.

“Maybe other countries will say we are crazy, maybe some of our French stakeholders will, too. But we will continue.

“We’re thinking about the general interest in our sport. I don’t care about personal interests of a club, coaches or myself. If I fight for consensus, I think it’s important for our sport.” 

Raynal already wants World Rugby to take note of the French trials and enshrine them into permanent law at the end of the two-season trial “We hope that they will have a look at it,” he said. “We believe, for the general interest of our sport, that it is interesting, and we hope they put it in place.

“If we don’t change it in two years, anyone could become a scrum coach. When you ask people what they like about rugby, who might not understand it, the one thing they all say is the scrum. It is our identity. We have to respect that.”