Brett Gosper came up with some marketing waffle this week which illustrates how the International Rugby Board have earned a reputation for consistently stuffing-up the Laws of the game, with the scrum currently the biggest casualty. The IRB chief executive closed an air-brushed address on the state of the game with this message on the world governing body’s own TV magazine programme Total Rugby.
“As the sport is growing – and it is in leaps and bounds, whether Sevens or XVs – we need to engage more with the public. We have great products which reach out to the public, and the needle should be moving, from our point of view, from regulation to inspiration.”
A word of advice, Brett. Concentrate on the IRB getting the regulation aspect right and the inspiration will follow. Put the cart before the horse, as the IRB do consistently, and it won’t. The scrum is a case in point.
Last weekend we had referee Craig Joubert trying to get to grips with the new ‘crouch-bind-set’ scrum engagement, followed by the call ‘Yes nine’, as Australia and New Zealand locked horns in the opening match match of the Four Nations Championship.
The new engagement is, glory be, a belated attempt to turn the clock back to 2001 – i.e. before the IRB scrum tinkering began in earnest. By de-powering the ‘hit’, and forcing hookers to strike for the ball, we saw a huge improvement in the scrum contest and fewer collapses. There was also a tentative attempt by Joubert to enforce straight put-ins, and we even had an All Black try (Ben Smith’s second) from a strike against the head.
However, it is a half-way house, because the match also highlighted the continuing problems at the scrum caused by the governing body’s disastrous attempts at regulation over a decade.
By my count this is at least the fourth batch of engagement calls since the IRB’s flawed decision to put the referee in charge of setting the scrum. We have gone from the referee simply calling ‘engage’, as was the case on the 2001 Lions tour, to ‘crouch-hold-engage’, then in 2007 the absurd four stage ‘crouch-touch-pause-engage’, until last season we had ‘crouch-touch-set’.
Now we have the all-important ‘bind’ element, which has severely restricted the force of the hit and therefore made the scrum more of a pushing and hooking contest, and, for the moment, more stable.
However, the malign legacy of the hit scrum is still there in two crucial areas. Judging by Joubert’s performance in Sydney, referees are still horribly inconsistent in enforcing a straight put-in, and the referee is still in control of the engagement.
Joubert, for instance, penalised Will Genia for a crooked feed at the first Wallaby scrum and then let the New Zealand scrum-half Aaron Smith get away with putting the ball into his second row immediately afterwards. Just before the half-hour Joubert gave both No.9s a stern lecture to put the ball in straight, but then failed to penalise either for squint feeds – and there were plenty– until he did them once each in the closing stages.
That is not good enough if the decade-long trend of not straight is to be eradicated, and it will take stronger leadership by Joel Jutge, the IRB referees’ manager, in dropping elite refs who will not enforce it than that shown by his Kiwi predecessor, Paddy O’Brien.
Before the 2007 World Cup I asked O’Brien to explain why the crooked feed was allowed consistently by referees when it contradicted the scrum laws. O’Brien’s response was to fudge the issue, saying it was difficult to police because, “one man’s straight is another man’s crooked”.
On another occasion he assured me that international panel referees had been instructed to penalise not straight, but actions did not match rhetoric and instead the problem became more intractable.
The solution is straightforward. Penalise anything that isn’t down the middle ruthlessly for two months and the adapt or die message will eventually get through to the generation of scrum-halves weened on squint put-ins. A yellow card for two crooked feeds, with no specialist replacement allowed on, should do the trick.
At the same time give the cadence of the scrum contest back to front row forwards and scrum-halves, and let referees like Joubert simply call ‘engage’ and then concentrate on infringements.
For the best part of a century before the IRB’s latest foul-up the conduct of the scrum was as follows. The ball was put in straight, the scrum-half and hooker of the pack with the put-in communicated either with a tap of the No.2’s hand, or a call, and the hooker invariably had to strike for the ball or lose it against-the-head. That left the referee to concentrate on technical illegalities such as not straight, pushing before the put-in, slipping of binds, collapsing, boring-in, or foot-up by the hooker.
Most hookers do not want a call of “Yes nine” from the referee telling the opposing pack when to time an eight-man shove. The whole point of having the put-in is that you know when you are going to signal your scrum-half and tap for the ball, synchronizing the put-in and the strike perfectly, and the opposition don’t – and they cannot afford to push early.
This season, following a £500,000 scrum survey over three years, Gosper and his IRB mates have come up with the ‘crouch-bind-set’ compromise. By insisting that props bind-up before they set, they have trumpeted that force on engagement will be reduced by 25 per cent, and that the scrum will therefore be safer and more stable.
As a statement of the bleeding obvious it takes some beating, and it is advice they have been getting for free from this quarter for more years than I care to count. Now all the IRB have to do is go the whole hog and return the scrum to the contest it was before they started their hair-brained experiment over a decade ago.
Nick Cain: Joubert shows refs can’t rule the scrum
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It’s human nature to circumvent the rules if there’s a way round them. If the IRB can control that then maybe there’s a chance for a perfect solution. Otherwise we’re unfortunately stuck with a lifetime of pointless articles like this one which offer nothing of substance.
PROPOSED SOLUTIONS TO THE SCRUM DILEMMA
Hi Nick,
Before I get into this subject please allow me to say a few timely words to Juliussss, I came to this box to leave a message to Nick’s excellent and very perceptive article. Didn’t intend to reply to you but after reading your flippant comments I feel compelled to right your wrong because this may influence some unsuspecting readers that are keen to learn the positives of rugby and not the negatives! – I dare say, you probably understand little about rugby and not much about the scrum.
We are on the same page and you have been very polite in suggesting that the IRB got it wrong again! Also you volunteered a simple solution to a “made complex” problem. I’m not 100% in support of your views and solutions but we both have left aside “the symptoms” of the poor scrummaging to concentrate on the etiology of the sufferings.
I’ve started to see the deterioration of the scrum at international level since 1995 (when professional rugby started) and the IRB started to utilise their army of referees as AGENTS for their administration. Since then there has been a marked emphasis on SPEED of execution of everything at all levels (COACHES) without attention to detail which is paramount in acquiring and consolidating technique.
Year after year we have seen the ever increasingly growing referees intervention in areas that have never been their domain before: a) Law making, b) On field coaching and management of players; c) Talking to TV, other match officials, players, captains; d) Coaches Education. Don’t you think they are getting a tad busy?
Now that money is not an object but the target, the game continues to get faster, stronger, more technically prepared and more intense. I’ve been saying that the physical and mental capabilities of the referees have not increased at all. So, Has anyone thought that top referees like Craig Joubert plain ans simple are NOT equipped to professionally handle the game proposed by the IRB, its marketing department, TV Executives, etc. etc.?
MY SOLUTIONS:
The Scrum Law needs to be thoroughly revised and brought into the 21st century with the conditions we have in 2013, and not 1990. A number of things need to be updated and adapted to the vision of Rugby 2020-2030
In my modest opinion, other areas need to be intervened: Give the referees more AUTHORITY and LESS work. More DISCRETION to prioritise OUTCOMES over PROCESSES. No more talking to players during play (WHY?) Tell you why: When I talk to Reds No 8, am also talking to BLUES No*, When I’m giving any instructions around the pack, 18 players hear it. So, EITHER PENALISE them or LEAVE THEM TO PLAY ON. The talk must be restricted to the two captains only (when the game is stopped). Too much show and show off for my liking!
Personally have proposed through my book The ART of SCRUMMAGING (published August 2012) http://www.theartofscrummaging.com a 2 step engagement sequence: “CROUCH” and “PACK”. The 1st step is to be managed by the players themselves and when the referee is happy he/she will proceed to the 2nd step. Referees are the ONLY OBJECTIVE ONES on the field that are able to assert whether a scrum is SQUARE, STATIONERY and SAFE for play. Thus, they are the best to give the order for put in, but not an AUDIBLE one just a hand or arm gesture will do the job perfectly!
Quite conveniently all “the attention” has been on players, coaches and scrum itself. It’s about time that referees and administrators carry their fare share of responsibility in fixing this problem affecting the whole rugby family.
Thanks Nick for undoing “the lid” of this complex jar…………..tOPO
Precencio muchos partidos de Rugby y veo como se demora el juego por que al arbitro le cuesta disciplinar el scrum, tambien observo que una jugada hasta 3 o 4 veces los hacen entrar en la formacion del scrum quedando expuestos a una lesion. el rugby tiene un reglamento que se diria es casi perfecto de acuerdo a su definicion del juego correr hacia adelante dando la pelota hacia atras . se ledio mucha dinamica con las ultimas reglas favoreciendo al equipo atacante. es importante que el arbitro desarrolle en su entrenamiento la parte tematica, que sea primera linea para que sienta lo que es embestir o ser embestido, los derrumbes solo los coach y los jugadores con arbitro esto se puede perfecionar protegiendo al jugador y a la elegancia del juego.-
Grandes verdades Mario!
Esto me obliga a pensar: Si las leyes del scrum y del rugby han sido tan perfectas y equanimes durante tantos anos, es posible que: “Un cura de parroquia de pueblo se hag cargo del Vaticano”?
La gran irresponsabilidad de la IRB ha sido en los ultimos anos utilizar a los referees como si fueran “empleados sabios” para modificar las leyes del juego y del scrum. Pero No!
En los ultimos 15 anos (con la llegada del profesionalismo) han existido varios intentos a modificar las reglas, con resultados desastrozos. Un silbato no te hace mas inteligente y un puesto en la IRB tampoco te hace la persona mas versada y culta.
Desgraciadamente en esta vida moderna agitada, el sentido comun es lo menos comun!
Existen todavia muchisimas cosas que se pueden hacer para mejorar el scrum. Pero hay que trabajar! y duro…..
tOPO
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