Scrummaging - The answer!

Flatman: effective
By Malcolm Cupis
May 25 2012

Scrummaging is no longer a level contest for the ball, says Malcolm Cupis. It is a frustrating, time consuming, unsatisfactory charade. Here’s what he thinks is wrong with it and what rugby needs to do to fix it. Do you agree?

Let me declare an interest at the start of this, I spent more than 20 years playing rugby in several countries around the world and, for the most part of this, I played in the front row. I’m not suggesting I was scrummaging God, I wasn’t. I played at modest levels, but the rugby I played left me with a very good understanding of front row play in particular.

I had to retire 10 years ago after getting badly injured and since then, I have watched with frustration as I have seen the scrummaging contest at all levels of the game descend from being an honest contest for the ball to being an egotistical showcase that all too often ends in collapses, resets, penalties and free kicks, administered by referees who can’t possibly understand what is happening. Sadly the whole downward spiral has been aided and abetted by instructions from the rugby Gods that have guaranteed it to be so.

Scrummaging is no longer a level contest for the ball, it is a frustrating, time consuming, unsatisfactory charade. Here’s what I think is wrong with it and what rugby needs to do to fix it.

I should really start by saying that I watched a DVD the other day of the Lions test matches against South Africa in 1972, and it was immediately obvious that the restart phases of the game, the scrum and the lineout, were fair competitions for the ball. The game was simpler then and I’m not arguing that the standards aren’t higher today in the professional era, but there are definitely lessons to learn.

Focussing on the scrum, what was it that made the 1972 version so much better than the 2012 version.

It starts with the set up and the bind. In 1972 there was no hit on engage in the scrums. The two front rows bound loosely to each other. Their back fives bound onto them and the shove didn’t start until the ball was fed in. The hookers then competed for the ball and the hooker who had the best performing pack enjoyed a significant advantage.

The players played in cotton jerseys that gave their opposing numbers plenty to bind onto.

In very simplistic terms, the two tight heads tried to disrupt the opposition hooker by putting him under pressure. They largely did this by trying to drive between the loose head and the hooker, splintering the scrum and then driving into the hooker. The two hookers tried to work in tandem with their loose heads, trying to maintain their bind and drive off the opposition tight head, whilst mainly focusing on securing possession with their feet . The two loose heads were focused on nullifying the threat of the opposition tight head, largely by maintaining a strong bind with their hooker and by getting under the chest or armpit of the tight head and driving him upwards, making it more difficult for him to get between them and the hooker.

Obviously there were variation on this theme, depending on pitch position and attack or defence, but this describes the fundament of the battle. It has never been a completely even contest. It is far too simplistic to say that a front row in a scrum is engaged in a man-to-man battle with their opposite number. You work together as a unit and if any part of that unit fails, you fail together. As somebody who played mostly at loose head, I always felt that the tight head had an innate advantage because the loose head’s position is destabilised by being stuck out on the end. The moment the tight head gets between you and your hooker, which is where his head starts, you essentially become an arbitrary part of the contest. You must maintain that bind come what may and ensure that this doesn’t happen.

So, what has changed?

The first thing to focus on is the hit on the engage. This started to creep into the game about 20 years ago. Fundamentally, a scrum that wins the hit has an advantage – they have gained forward momentum before the bind and the contest takes place. That forward momentum gives further advantage to the tight head, because he immediately succeeds in putting pressure on the opposition hooker and getting into the space between the hooker and the loose head.

The force of the hit soon led to injuries, hence the need to revise the engage laws to those we have established today, breaking down the process into crouch, touch, pause, engage. In many ways though this adds to the problem because the front rows are destabilised by being left in the crouch position. The packs are pausing anyway before the pause command, waiting for the hit, so this is superfluous. All the focus remains on the engage, so the power of the hit is not reduced and therefore the risk of injury is not reduced.

Secondly the skin tight jerseys that players now wear. Imagine being shunted backwards by eight eighteen stone men. As you fight for balance and to stop yourself from going backwards, the props are also required to quickly bind on the body of the opposing player, who is wearing a skin tight shirt and charging forward with huge momentum.

As if this wasn’t hard enough, referees seem to additionally have been asked to turn a blind eye to the tight head binding on the sleeve. One thing I know from years playing loose head is that if your opposing tight head gets to bind on your sleeve, he will pull you away from your hooker and down towards the ground. If the referee doesn’t pick this up your position goes from difficult to hopeless.

So, if you are a loose head prop, how do you counter this? David Flatman seems to me to take the view that the only way is to hold back his bind until the last moment, so that the opposition tight head can’t make an early bind on his sleeve. His choice is to bind early and almost guarantee losing the scrum, which is his prime purpose, or to risk giving away a penalty.

Unfortunately, this last season it seemed as if word had got around about this tactic and referees began to look for out for it and penalise it, without apparently asking themselves why he was doing it.

To even up the contest referees simply must penalise tight head props from binding on the sleeve again.

Having watched David Flatman play over the years, and spoken to people who have been unfortunate enough to play against him, I know that once the contest starts, he was, and still is, one of the most effective scrummagers in English rugby. In terms of his power and technique, he is a formidable loose head prop and there is no way he has suddenly become a bad scrummager or a bad player. He suffers because the laws are not properly applied and the contest has been skewed too far in favour of the tight head prop, aided by the hit and the bind.

However, his power and skill are completely nullified by poor application of the laws of the game. This can’t be right.

The only other defensive option for the vast majority of loose head props who have lost the hit is to take the scrum down. This is frustrating for the spectator, time consuming and an ugly spectacle, especially as it puts referees into an impossible situation whereby they have to make a snap judgment as to who is offending, something they all too often get completely wrong. There may be one or two loose heads props in the world who can lose the hit, get shunted backwards, find a bind and then recover their balance into a position of power to drive back at the tight head, but in practice this is almost impossible.

So, for the good of rugby, what is the answer?

Rugby needs to even up the contest so that it becomes a fair fight and a genuine competition for the ball again. The first thing to do is to change the engage and bind. We need to go back to front rows binding loosely on each other and the competition only starting when the ball enters the scrum. This way you can check the bind before the contest starts. There is no false advantage from the hit. Props wrestle for advantage and hookers hook – compete for the ball in the scrum.

Jerseys need to have provision for binding, guaranteeing that everybody binds in the right place and referees need to penalise props who do not bind in the approved place.

I strongly contend that the outcome of this will be genuine competition for the ball, far fewer collapses and resets and far better safety for the players. Above all, spectators will see scrummaging becoming an intrinsic part of rugby again, rather than a boring waste of time, and the best scrummagers will secure more and better ball for their backs to play with. Everyone’s a winner…apart from weak scrummagers and cheats!

Scrummaging - The answer!

Posted by: TCM2007 (IP Logged)

Date: 25/05/2012 10:28

Malco recently sent me this substantial thought piece on the future of the scrum.

Do you agree with him?

If not, what do you think the solution is?

Or is there even a problem?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2012:05:25:10:30:15 by TCM2007.