JEFF PROBYN
A FRONT ROW VIEW OF THE GAME
EVERY week I can’t wait for Sunday to come around so that I can read The Rugby Paper and see what is really happening in our game.
It could be news of the management of the game by World Rugby and the unions and how they will try again to make the game more attractive to investors and fans.Or the reports of the games in the Premiership or those lower down the league structure, with the contest still the same with one team trying to find a way to beat another. Then there is what is happening in the foreign games in both the URC and French leagues.
As interesting as all of that is, it’s not the thing that’s at the top of my list as it’s always the letters that I read first.
Some people would ask why, as a letter is just one person’s view of the game and how they view what is happening. The answer is simple as anyone who can be bothered to write to the paper has a passion for the game and can give an insight to how things affect the game at whatever level they support. They can also throw up some interesting ideas.
A couple of weeks ago there was probably the most unexpected letter from my former England manager Geoff Cooke. Geoff was the England manager throughout my inter national career and manager at Bedford Blues where I played professionally. He asked an interesting question about as he put it, readers’ views of all aspects of the current state of the community (grassroots) game in England.
It seems the letter was prompted by the fact his club Bradford & Bingley had their first home game cancelled because the opposition couldn’t raise a team, or more specifically field a sufficiently experienced front row.
I thought that if a club were unable to raise a front row and told the opposition they could agree on uncontested scrums to allow the game to go ahead. Failure of the game to take place would only be if one club refused the uncontested option, which I must assume to have been his club as I can’t see why the opposition would object to uncontested scrums if they didn’t have any players capable of playing in the front row. Particularly as it is not unusual for scrums to become uncontested if players are injured or sent off.
Geoff pointed out that scrums in the modern game are shambolic and a nightmare for referees, which I have to agree with, but that is also the case at the top of the game including inter nationals. What he didn’t say is that it is the referee who now controls scrum set-up, engagement and execution that makes the scrum a shambles.
He also wrote that he fully accepted player safety is a major consideration but if scrums are so inherently dangerous why continue to include them as part of the game? He could have added tackling as that is where a majority of injuries now occur particularly at the top levels of the game.
“For me, the scrum is one area of the game where skill takes precedence over size”
He suggested that scrums are now seen by coaches as a way of getting penalties, something I have written before, and is probably correct. However, that is usually because most referees, having not played in the scrum, have little or no idea what actually happens in a scrum and don’t want to have to reform them.
Geoff, right, suggests that all scrums below the professional game be uncontested and used as a way of ‘decluttering’ the field and restarting the game after minor law infringements. What Geoff doesn’t seem to have taken into consideration is the fact that most front row players learn their trade by playing the game. If all scrums below the professional level of the game were uncontested, what would happen if a team gained promotion from the lower leagues to the professional championship? Its forwards would have no experience of a contested scrum and could be more likely to suffer injuries.
Geoff seems to think that scrums are a waste of time rather than a part of the contests within the game that attract both players and spectators and wins games including World Cups as South Africa have shown. Geoff also says that rugby is losing its game for ‘the all shapes and sizes’ ideal when body shape predetermined a player’s playing position which is probably true of the professional game where size is all that counts. The scrum is one area of the game where skill takes precedence over size which Geoff knows as he would not have followed Roger Uttley’s suggestion and picked me for England and later when I was in my 40s for Bedford.
I think Geoff ‘s comment about the game being a contest within defined rules is wrong. It is a series of different contests including set-piece and open field plays to beat your opposition. If we allow the switch to uncontested scrums why not include removing tackles and just play touch or tag rugby? That would remove all contact in the game which could then be played by anyone in any position at all levels with nearly no risk of injury and if you don’t have enough players just ask a member of the crowd if they want a game.
