NICK CAIN
READ HIS EXPERT OPINION EVERY WEEK
Uncontested scrums are a blight on the fifteens game, and my solution to get rid of them for good is to have a three-man sevens-style scrum as a replacement, rather than have the farce of an inert play-the-ball involving 16 forwards.
These reduced scrums of two front rows have the beauty of being a true contest for possession – not just a means of restarting the game – and were very keenly fought during the recent Olympic Sevens.
The bonus is that while sevens scrums involving six players remain a genuine trial of strength, timing, and technique, they do not automatically require props, because the load-bearing is much less than in a full scrum.
That said, the front row forwards in each 23 would be eligible, along with five further nominated scrummagers from the rest of the team line-up.
A further innovation, targeted at disrupting the flatline rugby league defences choking modern rugby union, is for the offside line for any forwards not included in the sevens scrum to be stationed 20m back, or on their own goal-line for a scrum anywhere in their 25m. They cannot advance to take part in attack or defence until the ball is out the scrum.
The aim is to give the attacking backline the space to run at their opposite numbers, and put the emphasis back on running-handling skills and aerobic fitness over 80 minutes.
However, the three-man scrum has to be a last resort, rather than a challenge to the influence of the full scrum – and the first resort to ensure that full scrums are contestable is changing the bench regulations.
The simplest way is for each team to have four front row replacements of three props and hooker. Of these, bar medically confirmed injuries, only two can be tactical substitutes, putting greater emphasis on having front row forwards who can play for 80 minutes. In a professional sport it is also a legitimate requirement that with specialist subs at tight-head and loose-head, the third prop should be a switch-hitter able to play both positions.
Outside that, the remainder of the bench would be one utility forward, and one utility back. This reduces the bench to six players, of whom two can only play in the event of multiple front row injuries.
If you want an explanation of why uncontested scrums must be banished, look no further than last weekend’s second Test between Australia and South Africa in Perth. The facts around uncontested scrums are frequently shrouded in fog, most of which usually emanates from the team being out-scrummaged, and the multiple injuries/HIA’s their props have sustained.
In Australia’s case they had only one fit prop just eight minutes into the second half, with bench tight-head Zane Nonnggor the last man standing. Starting tight-head Alan Alaalatoa had departed due to an HIA at half-time, and his loose-head counterpart Angus Bell – who was playing after a foot operation – was also replaced at the interval due to a cut over his eye, which would not normally be an injury to keep a player off the field.
However, when centurion loose-head replacement James Slipper also sustained an HIA injury after making a 48th minute tackle, Australia’s coach, Joe Schmidt, had cooked his own front row goose by declaring Bell injured.
Schmidt’s subsequent observation about Bell that, “in retrospect, he could’ve come back on”, cut no ice – especially when he then said a return to the pitch might not have “been best for his foot”. Nor did his musings that, “we never expected to lose Slips”, sound convincing.
What Schmidt forgot to mention is that the South African front row bench bomb squad of Ox Nche, Malcolm Marx, and Vincent Koch, which had destroyed the Australian scrum in Brisbane a week earlier, was about to come on when the Wallaby prop exodus took place.
Thankfully, poetic justice was served when the Springboks switched their focal point from the scrum to their bulldozer rolling maul, scoring three second-half tries to seal the deal.
There is a significant footnote concerning these multiple Wallaby prop injuries because Alaalatoa, Bell, and Slipper were all fit enough to be included in the Australia squad due to arrive this weekend in preparation for their two Tests against Argentina, with the opener against the Pumas in La Plata on Saturday.
The uncontested scrum contortions in Perth are just the latest in a long list of incidents which should have sealed its fate long ago. Instead, World Rugby’s inaction speaks loudly of its lawmaking committees ignoring the urgent issues staring them in the face while tinkering ceaselessly in other areas of the scrum, and elsewhere, to the detriment of the game.
