DIAMOND: TIME TO ACT OVER SCRUMS
‘Delays are killing game’
SALE boss Steve Diamond claims time-wasting at the scrum is killing the game and claimed it is the ‘King Herod’ of sport.
Diamond – a former front rower – does not blame match officials, claiming it is the fault of the lawmakers.
The 52-year-old insists those in charge should take a look at old videos of scrummaging – when players just got on with it instead of faffing about.
Scrums have been used as a tactic to chew up time in a game, lasting a couple of minutes from offence to finish, and are subject to multiple resets, which eat up more minutes.And Diamond says the big lads should get the ball into the hands of the stars fans really want to see play.
He said: “What King Herod was to baby-sitting, scrums are to entertainment to rugby – it is absolutely boring! I am not the first person to say it and I am a hooker.
“Go to YouTube and watch scrums. Put in 1975, 80, 85… and just time them. As soon as the knock-on happens they all get together quickly. They bind up and there is no waiting period. It beggars belief. It is not the referees’ fault, it is a directive from up above.
“People want to see the ball in Denny Solomona’s hands or Manu Tuilagi’s hands.
“If people like me were to put a stake in the ground to speed the scrum at the set-up, then people will jump straight back into the line of ‘what about safety’. There’s no other sport in the world where you have something like a scrum so either we take it out of the game, which takes all the oddshaped people out the game, or you’ve got 15 seconds to get your set-up sorted and you get on with it.” Meanwhile, Diamond jumped to the defence of his players – including eight South Africans – who did not take a knee ahead of Friday’s clash with Harlequins.
World Cup winners Faf de Klerk and Lood de Jager were among the eight Boks – Tuilagi also did not take a knee – sparking accusations of racism from South Africa sports minister Nathi Mthethwa.
Mthethwa said: “We were together at the World Cup in Japan as a country with some of the players and one thing which cannot be tolerated is when somebody is displaying racist behaviour and showing racist attitude.
“I interacted with SA Rugby through its president [Mark Alexander] and I asked him to explain what’s happening.”
But Diamond said: “I think there was four of our lot who took the knee, but that’s their entitlement and the rest didn’t.
“I think it’ll be a storm in a tea cup. We all wore the rugby against racism T-shirts, which we thought was important.”