Breaking the Law: bring back contested scrums in rugby league

Rugby league’s scrums are the oddest observances. They’re a ritualised handover of the ball, both sides calling an odd little truce in an otherwise fierce 80 minutes. It’s two packs of forwards agreeing, We will not contest and We will not contest either. It’s Christmas Day on the Somme. And it has long been lamented: what good are scrums? If there is no contest, why have them at all?

Indeed to contest in a league scrum is not only Not The Done Thing but rather against the rules. Well, it’s not against the rules as laid down in the actual rule book. But to put the ball into the tunnel and for either pack to actually push is against the spirit (for want of a better word) of the game as it’s played today. Or more how it’s understood that the game is played (perhaps this article would be better subtitled Breaking the Unwritten Law). And that’s how it’s been for 20 years.

Some years ago I rang around a bunch of rugby league Old Boys, dinosaurs, knucklemen to hear their thoughts on the Modern Game. And to a man, while marvelling at the skill levels of players who could fly through the air outside the very planes of the playing field and stuff the ball down one-handed, they lamented the de-powering of the scrum.

“The ball should go straight into the middle,” said the first Newcastle Knights captain, Sam Stewart. “There should be skill required to win the ball. It should be a contest. It’s entirely too predictable.”

“It’s a waste of time having a scrum,” said South Sydney Rabbitohs winger, Ziggy Niszczot. “I know it was messy in our day but at least the best hooker got the ball back.”

“There hasn’t been a hooker in 10 years who’s put his foot on the ball,” said the former Parramatta Eel, Bob “The Bear” O’Reilly. “A decent scrum would open up your backline. Now you’re seeing front-rowers getting out to knock the five-eighth over. I’d like to see back-rowers put some weight into them and see if the hooker can get the ball back.”

As scrums are now, they may as well make the players form human pyramids. Why not? A rugby league scrum’s only purpose is to gather six players in one part of the field and alternate possession. Blokes get a rest. And that’s it. It’s the Ritual of Handover. To which most thinking people ask, Why have them at all?

At the same time as asking the Grumpy Old Men I asked the NRL’s then chief operating officer Graham Annesley (now CEO of the Gold Coast Titans, one-time honourable member for Something and NSW minister for sport and recreation, the man can spin like Warney) who said: “The ball simply has to be put into the tunnel. It makes scrums safer. Scrums used to collapse. We were also spending too much time on them. They were being repacked and re-fed because there was a mass of legs across the tunnel. To make the game faster, the ball has to go in and out. But scrums still serve a purpose. It makes backlines seven on seven. And it’s a traditional part of the game. There’s also nothing to stop a side putting a shove on.”

Well, apart from the ball being rolled literally under the lock’s feet. But we’ll address more of the Honourable Man’s scrum thoughts in due course.

For now we’ll ask Thinking People to think again. And contend that rather than brushing scrums altogether, why not make them contests again? Tighten them up. Have rules. Make the halfback – or better still the pocket referee or touch judge, they do little else – feed the ball into the middle of the scrum. Make those men labelled “hookers” earn their name by “hooking” for the ball with their feet. Make scrums contests.

In May, the Warriors shocked the Eels – and the rugby league world – by pushing in a scrum and winning the ball back, “against the head”. When Sam Tomkins picked up the ball and scooted over to score, children everywhere asked in wide-eyed wonder: “You can do that”?

Yes, children, you can. Indeed it is written in the laws.

Now, sure, if there were a contest for the ball in scrums there would be cheating. Scrums were once arcane, nasty bits of kit. Referees would pluck out penalties against both teams. They were “messy”. But rugby league too often wants “clean”. Rugby league wants perfect. Crisp, completed sets. Video referees. Black-and-white. But some of the best things about sport are random, messy, unscripted. And because players may cheat is surely not a reason not to police it.

Rugby league once had scrums to contest possession. And today, without a way to legally get the ball back from one’s opponent save a one-on-one strip, rugby league has a “sameness” about it.

And, for mine, the depowered, ritual scrum is a factor.

Consider: Coaches – never people who feel that “entertainment” is part of their mandate unless it leads to “winning” – teach their charges that in their own 40, there’s nothing but hit-ups. Pack the field with giant brutes who power up field, confident in the knowledge they’ll have a rest after the powerhouse because of the interchange system (also another story).

Ten metres your side of halfway the ball is kicked long for a corner. Ten metres into their half it’s kicked high in the air. And there’s little deviation from this. Then, once inside their 40 and with a few tackles up one’s sleeve, toss it about, or grubber, or punt, or bunt, or run free like the buffalo, whatever. Inside the other mob’s 40, that’s where the party starts, where interesting happens. Outside that … not so much. And to an extent it’s the scrum’s fault.

Bear with me.

For if there were a chance of getting the ball back every scrum, you could see more attack from outside these almost legislated zones. It could make rugby league more random. Attackers may be emboldened to pass the ball more, offload, toss it about in all parts of the field, knowing that dropping the ball (most dropped ball in rugby league is a “knock-on”, it’s another Thing) isn’t an automatic handover.

Grubbers for the sideline would be more valuable because there’d be a chance of getting the ball back. Wingers, full-backs, centres might have to patrol their line like fast, agitated sentries.

Powering up scrums would, crucially, tire out forwards. Pushing in scrums is hard, physical work. To make a scrum powerful, all six men, but particularly the front-five – what rugby union calls “the tight five” – would have to “bind” tightly with one another. A tight scrum is a strong one. Six men tight together can get things done in the pushing department. A combination of a go-forward scrum and a clever hooker, and you can get the ball back. And the ball is The Precious, as we know.

Annesley said de-powering scrums makes them safer because they no longer collapse. And he can make a case. And with Alex McKinnon’s injury still fresh in mind does rugby league want to introduce more potentially risky action? It does not. But scrums aren’t dangerous if packed properly, if policed, if contested by players – forwards – schooled in scrummaging. In rugby union, long-necked backs would no more join a scrum than a cult.

Annesley also pointed out at that there was too much time being spent on scrums, that they were being packed and re-fed because there was a mass of legs across the tunnel. And he made a case. But there is story in this. Old cousin rugby might have three and four repacked scrums, long minutes of “inaction” followed by a penalty. But there’s story in that. Packs asserting dominance. It’s part of the game. And it mightn’t make sense to some. But people do enjoy it. Because people love story.

And, again, it could be policed. Hookers used to stretch right across the tunnel to get the ball. Loose head props would sort of swing them in. There was a lot of work in it, a lot of arcane jiggery-pokery. But these things, again, could be policed with laws. And the scrum could be tightened up.

The game is, perhaps, faster because the ball goes in and out. And there’s more “action” in terms of running and tackling. But sometimes slow food is soul food. And the game could come back a bit, just as it did when unlimited interchange became 12, and now 10. Ask Andrew Johns – a key man in the change away from unlimited – and he’ll tell you it should be eight. Ask our dinosaurs they’ll tell you there shouldn’t be any. Another story, also.

Annesley also declared that “scrums still serve a purpose – it makes backlines seven on seven.” This is true. As would a human pyramid. He also said this, which is true: “It’s a traditional part of the game.” But this lacks … I dunno. Rigour? We have ritual scrums as a nod to the old days? We have possession-exchangers where once there were dockyard brawls? I think it’s silly.

Annesley is sort of right to say that “there’s nothing to stop a side putting a shove on” as the Warriors did the other week. Except that the ball is being rolled under the lock’s feet (which is against the rules, mind you, something an ex-referee like Annesley might think sacrosanct) – and putting a shove on is a waste of energy and might mean all your forwards have fallen over when they might be stopping someone running with the ball.

It comes down, in the end, to the lack of one word in one item in one subsection of section 12 of the Laws of Rugby League. Said item decrees that: “The ball is to be fed into the tunnel from the referee’s side with the halfback standing square with both hands on the ball.”

Yet without the word “straight,” scrums will remain rituals only. Like human pyramids but less interesting.

Article source: http://www.espnscrum.com/scrum/rugby/story/233857.html

Breaking the Law: bring back contested scrums in rugby league