PRESSURE POINT
Scrum is a rare area of concern for an otherwise pitch perfect Ireland
CHICANERY in the scrum is nothing new. The game may have evolved through the decades but this set-piece remains a dark art.
Power, technique and stamina are required in spades to cope at the coalface. A bit of street smarts will get you far as well. Because, a lot of the lot time, few people know what is happening when the frontrow lock horns, even the officials themselves.
Despite all the exhaustive analysis of the modern game, the scrum remains a bit of a mystery. When one collapses on a pitch, few observers (truthfully) are confident what has occurred.
Of course, both sets of forwards will plead with the referee — and the touch judges — that one of their props has been the victim of some scrummaging subterfuge by the opposing frontrow.
In truth, both packs are at the same caper. Everyone is trying to get an edge. We wont get bogged down in the technical aspects of scrum penalties but, at times, the whole thing feels like a lottery.
Did the loosehead lose his footing, did the tighthead drive in an angle or was the hooker go too early on the engage. And so on….
It’s a minefield. In essence, scrummaging is about staying square and driving straight. In an attempt to win these mini battles, canny props and hookers deploy no shortage of ploys to gain a precious advantage.
Ask yourself why we see so many collapsed scrums when a team is camped near the opposition try-line? And it fees like it’s easy to get away with a lot of transgressions when there are so many grey areas.
Perceptions seems to be the most important aspect. If your pack can convince the match official early in the game that their scrum is superior, it seems to influence a lot of decisions for the rest of the game. And perception seems to be a problem for Ireland at the moment. Andy Farrell’s squad got their Six Nations campaign off to a storming start at Stade Velodrome. The stunned hosts were bested in virtually every department for the duration. France simply had no answer to Ireland’s power, precision and execution. The Irish pack delivered a flawless return of 13 throws from 13 at the lineout, bossed the breakdown and in Joe McCarthy, Tadhg Beirne and Caelan Doris, they had the three most dominant ball carriers on the pitch.
The French forwards also suffered the ignominy of conceding two late maul tries from Ireland’s slick lineout platform.
But Ireland’s dominance didn’t extend to the scrum. In truth, that platform allowed a sevenman French pack — shorn of powerful lock Paul Willemse — to gain a foothold back in the game during a rare purple patch in the second half.
Ireland once again fell foul of the referee with Karl Dickson favouring the French after a few messy scrums. This isn’t a new development either.
The Irish frontrow — and specifically Andrew Porter on the looshead side — have been identified as a unit which is somewhat vulnerable. Porter, in particular, seems to be singled out by match officials time and again.
It’s been an issue to exercise scrum coach John Fogarty going all the way back to Ireland’s Six Nations clash with England at Twickenham in 2022.
The visitors cantered to a bonuspoint win against an English team which lost lock Charlie Ewels to an early red card. Farrell’s men dominated most of the game but the Irish scrum dominated the post-match analysis after a concession of six penalties in that area during the game. In these pages at the time, former Leinster and Ireland tighthead Mike Ross
felt that Ireland’s supposed scrum woes were the result of canny tactics by the opposition and not because of a perceived weakness.
‘They’ve identified a flaw in the reffing,’ he said.
‘I call it waltzing scrums because if you look at it, they’re not really going backwards. What’s happening is the opposition are pivoting around the tighthead so the loosehead chases up, the tighthead angles across and the whole thing kind of slews around.
‘If you watch the back five feet, they’re boring one way and going another. What it looks like is one side’s scrum is going backwards. It’s not, it’s actually rotating.
‘If I drag you around by the shoulders, it’s very hard for you to resist that, whereas if I push against you, you can resist that with your legs.
‘If I swing my legs out and drive across then you’re going to find it hard to resist that. They’re not driving square and straight,’ he added. Ross is one of the few people who is actually qualified to speak about the technical nuances of the scrum.
Interestedly, the former frontrower — who retired from the game in 2017 — is part of a collection of former Test props who are trying to educate the masses on this set-piece in recent times.
Along with former Munster and South Africa prop BJ Botha as well ex-Northampton, England and Lions loosehead Alex Corbisero, Ross is a regular contributor on social media, posting clips of scrums and offering a bit of technical insight into this collision of giants packs.
Interestingly, all three seemed to be of the opinion that the Irish scrum was short-changed again in Marseilles.
It was the same story in the World Cup quarter-final against the All Blacks when Ireland’s rivals seemed to shade a few of the tight calls from Wayne Barnes.
IT was an outcome that left Porter absolutely fuming. ‘A lot of the time you know when you are wrong and when a penalty is given against you, but when it is the 50/50 calls where you feel a bit hard done by it’s really tough not to get worked up about it,’ the Leinster and Ireland prop revealed a few months after the New Zealand defeat in Paris. ‘I felt that in the game, my blood was honestly boiling after a while because I just felt like I had been hard done by. There are a lot of people out there who can probably disagree with me, they always have. It’s tougher when you feel like those 50/50 calls aren’t in your favour.’ So, what can this Ireland team do? It seems that match officials have a bad perception of the Irish scrum. Is it warranted? Recent evidence suggests otherwise. All the likes of Porter and Tadhg Furlong can do is keep their heads down (literarily) and keep at it. When it comes to the scrum, there is room to improve but Ireland are the only team engaged in set-piece shenanigans and match officals should begin to pay heed to that fact.