Nick Cain: Moaning Robin McBryde should face all the facts

If Robin McBryde wants to know why Gethin Jenkins was sin-binned against England last weekend he does not need to go the IRB for an answer. The Welsh scrum coach knows that there is such a thing as a track-record in top class rugby, where players earn a reputation. It might be for being a fearsome tackler, or for being a tremendous contributor in the loose, which Jenkins certainly is. It might also be for being in a serial number of collapsed scrums, which Jenkins certainly has.
McBryde need only go back to the season Jenkins spent at Toulon last year to understand why the French match referee, Romain Poite, was unequivocal in his instructions to the 104-cap Welsh loosehead once the England match was underway. And why, when Jenkins ignored him, he was penalised and eventually yellow-carded after 52 minutes.
Jenkins failure to keep the scrum off the ground did not meet with approval in the Top 14, where they like the scrum to be a macho trial of strength between two front rows rather than an exercise in trying to hoodwink the referee into giving penalties by going down, up, or sideways.
When the Welsh talisman found it difficult to abandon the ducking and diving scrum method, the Toulon coach, Bernard Laporte, opted for the giant English power scrummager, Andrew Sheridan, as his starting loosehead. This consigned Jenkins mainly to 15 minute cameos at the end of matches for the duration of his time with Toulon.
As a Top 14 referee Poite was party to the perception among French match officials, and Top 14 coaches (Toulon’s included), that Jenkins pushed the boundaries too far. It’s a perception that was re-inforced when he was sin-binned for collapsing in the autumn, taking South Africa‘s Coenie Oosthuizen with him, followed by a repeat performance when he was yellow-carded with France‘s Nicolas Mas three weeks ago.
Jenkins’ cause was not helped because Mas is seen both outside French rugby, and inside it, as a good, technically correct tighthead. There was also a feeling that the main reason that the referee, Alain Rolland, banished the Frenchman along with Jenkins was because he did not want to point the finger of blame directly at a prop with a century of caps.
Poite had no such qualms – and the IRB’s referees manager, Joel Jutge, should back him to the hilt by giving a missive sent by McBryde asking for an explanation short shrift. Analysis of the match tape totally contradicts the Welsh scrum coach’s version of events.
McBryde’s view was that England tighthead David Wilson was the culprit: “I felt Gethin was pushing straight… there was one poor call from the touchjudge when their tighthead’s binding meant Gethin could not get his arm up, and there were times I felt we should have had penalties because we were going forward.”
The question, however, is how were Wales going forward, or attempting to? The answer is through illegalities which were so blatant they did not test Poite’s powers of deduction.
The first two scrums resulted in a penalty each. At the third scrum, which was reset, Jenkins was penalised for driving upwards. At the fourth scrum he was penalised again after a collapse, with the referee explaining, “No bind No.1”. At the fifth scrum Wales marched the scrum round, stepping across in unison, and stood up, resulting in Poite warning Wales captain Sam Warburton that the illegalities had to stop. At the sixth scrum England won clean ball.
When, at the seventh scrum, Jenkins made no attempt to be square or steady, and drove inwards in a bull-like charge at close to a 60 degree angle to disrupt an England put-in, Poite had seen enough, and brandished the yellow card.
What was common to almost every engagement was that the Welsh scrum, with Jenkins its chief protagonist, failed to adhere to the basic principle that the scrum should be “square and steady” before the put-in. For that reason alone Wales were fortunate that Jenkins was their only front row forward in the cooler.
McBryde knows that the scrum laws have changed, and that square and steady is now a fundamental requirement, as well as being a vast improvement on the collapse-fest that preceded it. Instead, Wales are still trying to employ a barely disguised rolling hit – which is now illegal – and claiming that makes them a dominant scrum.
The Welsh scrum coach complained that Jenkins is being victimised. “My concern is that Gethin is a marked man and that there is a preconception with him.” Perhaps McBryde is right – although I doubt Mas or Oosthuizen would agree.
The reality is that when the evidence overwhelmingly supports the preconception you are on a hiding to nothing. Rather than complaining Wales, and Jenkins, should undertake a thorough overhaul of their scrum technique and strategy – and emerge stronger for it.