Click-Bait Pish As Received Wisdom

TO PARAPHRASE a Great English Hero: there is pish, shite, and what they publish on English/Irish rugby websites. But, really, the idea that Ellis Genge, a player who couldn't scrum his way out of a paper bag, could “destroy” the best tight-head prop on the planet is simply stupid. Clearly, dreaming-up click-bait is bad for one's mental health

I still maintain, as I have done since watching the England v Ireland game live on television, Genge and the England scrum – under the guidance of scrum coach Matt Proudfoot – did a proper number on the Irish scrum, and at the same time, made excellent use of referee Mathieu Raynal's failings as a referee of scrums.

England conned Raynal and won scrum penalties which should, had they been awarded at all, have gone the other way.

However, who allegedly “won” or lost the scrum battle at Twickenham is neither here nor there. Ireland, albeit in an ugly way, won the actual match – they achieved the only win that mattered, the actual game. The ongoing problems are these:

• What is World Rugby going to do to sort out the scrum at elite level?

• Is there a wish within World Rugby to actually sort out this plook on the face of the game?

Forget who “won” the scrum battle – the fact is, as I am getting fed-up stating on here: “The purpose of a scrum is to restart play with a contest for possession after a minor infringement or stoppage.”

We SIMPLY MUST get back to this basic principle. I still maintain there are too-many infringements around the scrum which can win a side penalties. Take away the ability to win a penalty, for everything except obvious foul play, and a lot of the problems around this particular set-piece would go away.

An old friend of mine, a man well-versed in the dark arts of the front row, has long believed, if we did away with scrum penalties and replaced them with a means of re-starting the game, whereby the non-offending side had to take a tap and go kick, it would clean-up the game.

I also believe, at the elite level, where most of the hoo-hah around the scrum happens, if we made use of the line or drone cameras and hung that particular camera immediately above the heads of the two hookers – the TMO would be able to adjudicate on whether or not the front rows were pushing straight. Bring-in the tight-head side assistant referee to police one side of the scrum while the referee policed the other, and a lot of the problems would go away.

Then, make the scrum-halves put the ball in straight, down the middle of the tunnel, and insist on a hooker hooking, and the job's a good 'un. I am not so naive as to think some props wouldn't still mess around, but, I am sure we would see fewer lengthy interludes of scrum re-sets and collapses.

OR – we in Rugby Union adopt the Rugby League principle of “anything goes.” The law makers make it very-clear to the players and coaches, unless serious foul play breaks out, there will be no scrum penalties; the ball is put-in and hooked; if the scrum goes up or down, it is re-set and this continues until it is completed. It's a means of re-starting the game, not a means of winning penalties.

OR - as I have suggested before, we change the Laws so that the ball cannot be held in the scrum other than at a five-metre scrum. Everywhere else in the park it has to go in and out as quickly as possible.

Take away the ability to win penalties, which are far-too-often awarded arbitrarily, and the players would soon learn to scrum properly or they would not be picked.

I am not the first to say this. I will not be the last. But, are the high heid yins of the game interested? Are they even listening? The people we need to pressurise to do something about this spreading plook on the face of the game – the scrum shambles, are:

Bill Beaumont; Bernard Laporte; Sol Iglesias, Marcelo Rodriguez, Fernando Rizzi; Hamish McLennan, Pip Marlow, Brett Robinson, Pat Parfrey, Deborah Griffin, Bill Sweeney, Jonathan Webb; John O’Connor; Brigitte Jugla, Serge Simon; George Nijaradze; Susan Carty, John O’Driscoll, Philip Orr; Giovanni Fava, Antonella Gualandri, Marzio Innocenti; Kensuke Iwabuchi, Naoko Saiki; Deb Robinson, Mark Robinson, Bart Campbell; Alin Petrache; Tuilaepa S. L. Malielegaoi; Mark Dodson, John Jeffrey, Lesley Thomson; Mark Alexander, Vanessa Doble, Jurie Roux; Fernando de Posadas; Bob Latham; Liza Burgess Robert Butcher Ieuan Evans; Terence Khoo, Ada Milby; Richard Sapias; Cathy Wong; Khaled Babbou, Rolande Boro; Dennis Dwyer, Cristina Flores; Octavian Morariu, Veronika Muehlhofer; Marjorie Enya, Sebastian Piñeyrua.

The above 52 men and women are the members of the World Rugby Council – they are the movers and shakers in our game, nothing will change unless they authorise it.

They're an interesting bunch – one or two household names: Chairman Beaumont, oor ain White Shark, Phil Orr, Ieuan Evans, Jonathan Webb, Brett Robinson, Bernard Laporte, plus a few who I dare say aren't household names in their own household.

Five, including Beaumont and John Jeffrey, have been there for over a decade, while the majority, 36 of the 52, have less than five years' service. The old-stagers such as Beaumont and JJ are unlikely to want to change things, after all, they've presided over the scrum becomng a shambles; I don't see them undergoing a Damascan, far-less a John Taylor conversion to sorting things out.

We must hope the younger, fresher minds, can sort-out this particular mess. Or might it be that, in Dublin, as in EH12 – It's aye been and aye will be is the protocol?

On a wider point regarding changes to the Laws, I would favour the game going to ball-in-play time. OK, since the days of to hack or not to hack and arguments about “broken time' payments to the oiks Oop North tha knows, Rugby Union has been played over two halves of 40 minutes each.

Might there be a case for moving to say 60 or 70 minutes ball-in-play time, with the clock stopped every time the referee blows his whistle to halt play, or the ball goes into touch, restarting the clock when play resumes.

I have seen ball-in-play time of a little over 30 minutes in recent internationals, come on, if you're expecting someone to play £100 for a seat for an international, or even ten times that for a corporate hospitality experience at the same game, then I would suggest, international has to address the value for money issue.

 

FINALLY – Has the RFU lost the plot entirely? I ask this following this week's news that Bath's Charlie Ewels can have his three-week ban following his red card for England v Ireland, reduced to a two-week ban: “If he undertakes a tackle technique course.”

Well, pardon me for pointing out, but, Ewels is 26 years of age, he's been with Bath since he joined their Academy in 2009. He made his Bath first team debut in 2014.

So that's 12 years and more in an intensive rugby coaching environment, eight years as a first-team player with one of the top teams in the country – and they want him to undergo a week long tackling technique course. What the fuck have his coaches at Bath and England being doing these past 12 years?

If he hasn't learned proper tackling technique in that period of time, what difference is a week going to make? Professional rugby is getting like professional football – the lunatics are running the asylum.