Does Anglo-Welsh scrum test really have any value?
“The risk for Jones and Gatland is to give the bragging rights to a Six Nations rival without the benefit of beating the All Blacks”
At last! After years of denial and dismissal, two Home Union international coaches have finally recognised the importance of the scrum. Warren Gatland and Eddie Jones agreeing to stage a scrum session tomorrow between their teams is a landmark decision with, for the first time, two Northern Hemisphere countries conspiring on how to beat the south. Is that a good thing or is it just a promotional representation of where both England and Wales feel they currently are in the international game?
Jones has described the All Blacks as the best scrummaging side in world rugby, whereas, reality suggests that despite being the best team, they are far from the best scrum in the world.
Jones has a habit of building up opposition teams and the various elements of their games so as to appear to have improved elements of his team to a far greater degree than is true.
It is a fact that England have for many years had one of the strongest packs in world rugby, from the days of Fran Cotton, Mike Burton, Phil Blakeway et al through to the current team, England have been defined by their forwards and it is they who have defined the English game.
Not just England but all the Northern Hemisphere teams (whether because of weather and pitches) regard the scrum as a major part of their armoury, and have for many a year.
Whether the Pontypool front row, Norster and Quinnell, or ‘Mighty Mouse’, Brown, Calder, Jeffrey and White or O’Connell, Keane, Fitzgerald and half the French legends whose names I can’t spell, all are forwards that took part in many epic scrum battles.
If the scrum has taken a backward step in recent years, it is because a majority of Premiership coaches have taken the view that the scrum is just a way of restarting the game and they believe it’s far more important how a player does around the field than what is achieved in the scrum.
The continual messing around by World Rugby, who have had a piecemeal approach to altering things like the bind and engagement, and more recently how the ball is put in, hasn’t benefitted the scrum at all. As a result, the scrum became a mess and almost lost its purpose, becoming a way of duping the referee into giving penalties rather than a platform for launching defence or attack in crucial areas of the pitch.
The drive to get penalties has seen the ball held at the back of the scrum for far too long waiting for the scrums to wheel with the referee inevitably giving a penalty even though there is no offence committed because it is not illegal for a scrum to wheel unless being pulled.
In one sense, Jones is right about the All Blacks because they still use the scrum in their traditional way with a solid platform, a quick hook and release to give more time to their backs against fewer defenders rather than trying to overpower the opposing pack, drive them backwards, and seek penalties.
England’s first opponents this autumn, Argentina, were a force in the scrum but have been undermined by the new engagement rules. The ‘Bajada’, a coordinated eight-man drive that took place almost immediately as the scrum came together, said to have been invented by the legendary Francisco Ocampo, can no longer be used, because the referee now controls when the ball can be put in the scrum rather than the scrum-half.
As to the Southern Hemisphere, it was always the South Africans who had the most powerful scrum followed by Argentina with the All Blacks and Australia trailing behind.
The Boks pride themselves on the power of their scrum and approached the engagement like a charging rhino creating the potential for a number of injuries particularly in youth rugby. Shortly after they were allowed back into the international rugby community, that style of engagement laid the foundation for the change in the scrum laws banning charging and bringing in the U20 variations.
I am not sure the scrum session between England and Wales will be beneficial for either side particularly with so few contested scrums. If you then add the fact that players will be rotated to allow different combinations you are probably talking of something like a maximum of six scrums per player out of a projected 12, which in a scrum session is just about warming up, especially as the first few will be as much about fronting up as scrummaging.
Jones has thrown down a challenge to his forwards saying that he wants them to scrummage against teams better than themselves to improve their set-piece, which seems a little odd given that England have beaten Wales in the last three encounters.
England have always brought in different packs (often called cannon fodder) to scrum against as part of their preparation, in fact it was during one of those sessions as cannon fodder that I got my first taste of an international scrum.
As part of a pack called in to face England’s finest at the time as they prepared to face the all-conquering 1984 Wallabies, the session lasted well over an hour and consisted of more than 20 scrums all on a patch of grass in the north car park at Twickenham because we weren’t allowed access to the pitch.
The session went well but England still lost despite having the better pack; the risk for Jones and Gatland is that all they will do is give the bragging rights to a Six Nations rival without the benefit of beating the All Blacks.