The dark arts of the scrum have long held a prestigious position in rugby folklore, with the members of the famed front row union being the rock stars of the game.
Legend has it that the overall score is of no importance to the front rowers, but the scrum and tight head count is a source of immense pride for the winning scrum. Front rowers were made of immense slabs of meat and did not know the meaning of taking a step backwards and the scrum was a real contest. Their beer chugging abilities was also the stuff of legends.
So where did it go all wrong then?
The obvious answer to this is player safety. After a spate of serious neck injuries, specifically to young players, World Rugby started to tinker with the scrum laws and the first thing that was taken out of the scrum was the old-fashioned “hit” when two scrum packs of 900kgs each would crash into each on the engage.
What started off as a noble intent to prevent serious injury to players has one unfortunate by-product – an absolute mess at scrum time, which has become a bore to the viewing public and in the opinion of some an opportunity for the referee to guess who the next penalty should be awarded to. Television commentators have started to keep quiet straight after a scrum penalty is awarded so that they can hear how the referee explains the penalty as very often they cannot work out why a penalty has been awarded. This includes former front row forwards.
To try to address the problem of slipping binds, the brains trust of South Africa’s Varsity Cup Rugby introduced “grip patches” on front row forwards’ jerseys. Referees were instructed to ensure that front forwards bound on each other by holding onto the grip patches. A good idea, but impractical for a few reasons. Firstly, not everyone is built the same way. The boys in the front row are generally big lads, but with different proportions. The grip patches would therefore generally sit differently on different individuals. Secondly, before a front row forward can grip on his opposing front rowers jersey, his opponent’s jersey is already pulled out of place by the binding of his team mates.
A further issue is that each referee pays specific attention to a different aspect of scrummaging, so a front row forward would not experience consistent refereeing in two consecutive games. Some referees focus on the scrumming angle of the loosehead, others concentrate on the bind, while yet others pay specific attention to the loosehead “walking around”. In many cases, this is actually unfair against the loosehead because this is often caused by the opposing tighthead angling inwards and the result is that the pressure from the loosehead forces him around the corner.
Being a modern front row forward is certainly not an easy job and the scrum is receiving a significant amount of negative comment in both the press and pubs around the world and we are even starting to see scrum resets make their way into World Sevens rugby. What has become even more farcical is the extent to which a team can be penalized for scrum indiscretions. I would be quite happy if an offending front row is continually punished with full penalties, with the resultant loss of field position and the risk of conceding three points or even a try from a lineout in the corner. This is not the view of World Rugby though and referees are able to send a front rower off the field for ten minutes via a yellow card.
Once again, the intent of sending the prop off the field has its merits, to eliminate continuous scrum resets and to speed up the game. This is not the reality though. As soon as the first scrum is awarded after the prop was sent off, it is usually a back row forward that has to be pulled off the field for the duration of the yellow card so that a replacement front rower can be brought onto the field to allow for safe and contestable scrums. To prop up the scrum (pun intended) the side that is a man down has to use a back line player to try to be competitive at scrum time, mostly unsuccessfully. They are severely compromised in terms of competitiveness at the scrum, but at the same time their opponents have a significant weight and strength advantage, bringing safety into question again, so we are back to square one.
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