Will World Rugby Ever Bite The Bullet And Sort-Out The Scrum?

OUR heart rates back to normal, with the Saturday Night Fever declining, we ought perhaps to look at the wider implications of weekend one of the Guinness Six Nations.

I begin this with a reference to a Facebook post which I spotted on Sunday. This was a video clip, headed: “This is what you call a dominant scrum.” It showed a definite coarse rugby pack shoving their opponents all the way back from half-way, to score a push-over try.

It had to be a lowly-ranked, grass-roots game, because, at the professional level, once they were forced to engage reverse gear, the pack being dominated would have gone to ground, reckoning it better to concede a penalty than be forced all the way back and concede a try.

I still recall, as a 15-year-old hooker, having the effrontery to nick a tight-head strike (remember them), against the venerable Sam Muff, of Ayr's veterans-only A2 XV, as a prelude to our pack marching the Ayr eight all the way from the centre spot to over their own line. Sam, these many years now playing in the Heavenly XV, was the Godfather to us younger Ayrshire hookers and he proceeded to give me a masterclass in the dark arts of hooking. I think the final match tight-head count was something like 9-2 to Sam. It was the start of a long friendship and a great deal of respect for the man on my part.

The tight-head count seems to have vanished from modern rugby, now the obsession is with the scrum penalty count. This is a plook on the fair countenance of the game and it is way past time World Rugby did something about playing for penalties at the scrum.

The scrum, and here I quote directly from Law 19: “The purpose of a scrum is to restart play with a contest for possession after a minor infringement or stoppage.”

There you have it – a contest for possession, not a means of winning a penalty – take penalties out of scrums and I think a lot of the problems would vanish with that change.

Ignore what I wrote in the second and third paragraphs above, I would certainly maintain the push-over try element, but only from five metre scrums. Elsewhere, I would prohibit holding the ball in in the second or back row and demand the fastest possible in and out of the ball at each scrum.

Do away with scrum penalties, give the non-offending side a free-kick and get on with the game.

However, we must still have the penalty sanction for foul play, although, the good, old-fashioned front five punch-up seems to have vanished from the game. I wrote above about my first game as a hooker. My second was equally memorable; we were playing a minor Glasgow club, whose tight-head turned up in his big Jaguar. A somewhat loud character, at the second scrum, he started boring-in on me, so I had a word with my loose-head, a gentleman who spent his week days flat on his back, pick in hand, hewing coal at the face in the narrow seams of Whitehill Colliery. A lightning-fast head butt, followed by a couple of hooks and the opposing tight-head was anonymous for the rest of the game.

Any way, the massed ranks of English Rugby, from HRH The Duchess of Cambridge down (and by the way, I bet the Cambridge household was an unhappy place on Saturday night), are moaning about that series of scrums in added time on Saturday – claiming, erroneously, that England ought to have had a penalty.

I said, at the first re-set, Joe Marler, under the most-intense pressure from Wilem Nel, had stepped out and, under the present refereeing of the scrum, should surely have been pinged. But, we can forgive the generally excellent Ben O'Keefe for getting that one wrong.

As for that great late line-out steal from Sam Skinner, I would hazard a guess, it will be written into RFU protocols: “When trailing by three points very-late in the game, we take the points rather than kicking to the corner, we never, ever, do this again.” They are proving to be not very good at that tactic.

ANOTHER thing I noticed on Saturday night and Sunday was the differing views of those rugby writers charged with producing player ratings for the game. Now, when “on the tools” I was never a fan of ratings – I didn't like doing them; they come down to opinion, and opinions are like erse-holes, everyone has one.

For instance, I saw one team of the week which had Jonny Gray as one of the locks. Well, it seemed to me, and indeed to most Scottish commentators, that Grant Gilchrist was the more-important and influential of the two Scottish locks during the game. Mind you, I have a hunch, Gray the Younger's performance was a rare case of a rugby player doing a football-style “man marking” job on his opposite number.

Certainly, Maro Itoje wasn't his usual big nuisance self, indeed, he was barely seen during the match. I feel Oor Jonny had something to do with that fact. Mind you, that same Team of the Week had Marcus Smith at ten, so maybe a desperate effort to get at least one Englishman into the team, or, failing that, a player with an English club.

OF COURSE we are only one-fifth of the way through the competition; just 20% of the games played. Take this down to a single game and, we are 16 minutes in. Well, 16 minutes in on Saturday, even the most-optimistic Scots had to concede, we are only just hanging-on. There's a lot of rugby still to be played.

With Jamie Ritchie almost-certainly out of the visit to Cardiff, Gregor Townsend has to make at least one change. So, who comes in – Magnus Bradbury (perhaps at Number Eight, with Matt Fagerson switching to six); Sam Skinner, who has been playing there regularly for Exeter; perhaps Nick Haining, given Josh Bayliss' injury concerns. Or, might Toony gamble, switch Hamish Watson to six, give Rory Darge his debut and play with two out and out sevens?

A wounded Wales, playing at home, will be dangerous. The trouble for the Welsh is, while every squad in any 6N campaign has to contend with injuries, Wales are losing the guys they would least want to lose. OK, a lot will now depend on skipper Dan Biggar, but, I honestly think, this weekend, we have a terrific chance to improve our woeful record in the Welsh capital.

I also believe, an England win in Rome is not the Gimmee their cheerleaders in the media would have us think it will be. The annual Wooden Spoon Decider has come early this year, and could go either way.

And, it goes without saying, whichever nation wins in Paris confirm their tag as tournament favourites.