Abandoned Rules

[Festo]

We are just about to start the biggest international competition in the Northern Hemisphere, the Six Nations, which I'm sure we are all looking forward to. The game has undergone a transformation since last year, with the introduction of new laws etc. This of course makes playing the game a lot more demanding for the players, split second decisions have to be made. This is also true of the way the game has evolved from a referring perspective, with more and more involvement of the match day officials. They are used to advise the referee of things he has not see, such as foul play off the ball, forward passes and high tackles, this is done during the run of play. The referee can then decide what action to take given advice from the officials.. Some of these observations at times can be classed as a 50/50 decision and one official might interpret the law slightly differently from that of another, we have all seen that.

I would like to take issue with one of the laws that seems to have been abandoned by all match officials. As far as I can see this has to be one of the easiest of laws to enforce. The play is static during the execution of the law and all eyes are roughly in the same area of play, including that of the match day officials. I'm talking about 'feeding into the scrum'!!!!!!! Why has this particular law been abandoned, it is so blatant, it is flouted right in front of the referee. With the way the game is covered from a TV perspective most of us watching can see the feed, so why don't the officials pick it up????? Is it because the scrum has been an area of contention due to resets, that a relaxing of the law has been tolerated in order to maintain the flow of play?????

Can anyone can shed any light on the subject !!!!!!!!

 

[pagliaccio_euforico]

we don't need another thread on something that people really just need to get used to

 

[duncanb]

Been like it for ages,only yourself and 1980s rugby commentators seem concerned.
A well timed 8 man shove still takes ball against head.

 

[smartcooky]

Can anyone can shed any light on the subject !!!!!!!!

http://www.therugbyforum.com/thread...s-the-agony-continues?highlight=dysfunctional

 

[Festo]

Hi All, well there seems to be a general consensus that feeding into the scrum is not an issue. I still think it is, one 2017 commentator did mention it during last weekend and even he agreed that it seems match day officials are ignoring the law. So why can't WR just come out and say the law is no longer needed!!!

 

[Dunhookin]

Festo - despite two respondents to your thread being deniers that scrum dysfunction is a problem, there are many others who are of the same mind as you, that it is a serious problem and something should be damn well done about it. Quite where and when the claimed 8 man shove winning the ball against the head took place at elite level I can't imagine - there's more chance of a dirty weekend with Sandra Bullock than seeing such a thing!

Notably commentators on the BBC coverage of sport avoid commentating on it - they've been warned off by somebody - be good to know who so that person can be required to justify the biase. Even so, respected pundit Jonathan Davies, clearly frustrated to the point of outburst, opined during the autumn internationals, that scrum dysfunction was 'killing the game'. In the France v Scotland 6N game last weekend, commentator Andrew Cotter described the chronic level of bent scrum feeding as 'absurd'. So the deniers claim that nobody bar a few have a problem with this - also absurd.

Notably World Rugby (WR) have previously issued a directive with the strap line 'the ball will be going in straight' - that was only 18 months ago at the start of the 2015/16 season. So much for that - the staggering levels of abuse of the straight feed law being blatantly ignored shows how ineffective and inept WR are. There's a faction within WR that clearly think we're all chuffed to bits to see numerous collapses, chronic bent feeding and the useless slow ball resulting, plus penalty after tedious penalty ad-nauseam. They're out of touch with reality, the real world and with what's good for the game.

Time these bureaucrats were exposed and called to explain and justify their mismanagement of our scrum. I'm sure many will want to hear why they see the current ridiculous farce as acceptable.

 

[TommiG88]

Festo - despite two respondents to your thread being deniers that scrum dysfunction is a problem, there are many others who are of the same mind as you, that it is a serious problem and something should be damn well done about it. Quite where and when the claimed 8 man shove winning the ball against the head took place at elite level I can't imagine - there's more chance of a dirty weekend with Sandra Bullock than seeing such a thing!

Notably commentators on the BBC coverage of sport avoid commentating on it - they've been warned off by somebody - be good to know who so that person can be required to justify the biase. Even so, respected pundit Jonathan Davies, clearly frustrated to the point of outburst, opined during the autumn internationals, that scrum dysfunction was 'killing the game'. In the France v Scotland 6N game last weekend, commentator Andrew Cotter described the chronic level of bent scrum feeding as 'absurd'. So the deniers claim that nobody bar a few have a problem with this - also absurd.

Notably World Rugby (WR) have previously issued a directive with the strap line 'the ball will be going in straight' - that was only 18 months ago at the start of the 2015/16 season. So much for that - the staggering levels of abuse of the straight feed law being blatantly ignored shows how ineffective and inept WR are. There's a faction within WR that clearly think we're all chuffed to bits to see numerous collapses, chronic bent feeding and the useless slow ball resulting, plus penalty after tedious penalty ad-nauseam. They're out of touch with reality, the real world and with what's good for the game.

Time these bureaucrats were exposed and called to explain and justify their mismanagement of our scrum. I'm sure many will want to hear why they see the current ridiculous farce as acceptable.

I bet your fun at parties.

 

[smartcooky]

Festo - despite two respondents to your thread being deniers that scrum dysfunction is a problem, there are many others who are of the same mind as you, that it is a serious problem and something should be damn well done about it. Quite where and when the claimed 8 man shove winning the ball against the head took place at elite level I can't imagine - there's more chance of a dirty weekend with Sandra Bullock than seeing such a thing!

In that case, I should have had several chances with Miss Congeniality

Anyone who watched the great Auckland Ranfurly shield era of the late 1980's will have seen exactly that...the big Auckland forward pack (Steve McDowell, Sean Fitzpatrick, Gary Whetton, Alan Whetton, Andy Haden, Mark Brooke-Cowden, Zinzan Brooke et al) used to regularly shove opponents who had won the ball completely off it. The Pumas teams of the 1990s were also very good at it.... there WILL be many other examples.

Remember also, that the rationale behind the eight-man shove wasn't necessarily just to try to win the ball against the head. It was to use the 8-7 pushing advantage to ensure that if the opponents did win the their own ball, their pack would be going backwards. This not only means the ball is difficult for their SH to clear, but he would be clearing it to a bunch of backs who ere backpedaling, while the backs of the advancing team were going forward on the front foot.

 

[Dunhookin]

Sure thing Cooky - but the examples you quote was when we had straight scrum feeding - I was referring to modern chronic bent feeding world where winning the ball against the head is about as likely as me becoming Angelina Jolie's personal masseur on £100 grand a year...!

And I understand 'bajadita' well, having had my head shoved up my a** by a better scrummaging pack a good number of times! So yes you're right, it's been used effectively by Argentina - again in straight feeding days, but it's notably less effective with bent feeding as the team not feeding are at such a disadvantage.

 

[smartcooky]

Sure thing Cooky - but the examples you quote was when we had straight scrum feeding - I was referring to modern chronic bent feeding world where winning the ball against the head is about as likely as me becoming Angelina Jolie's personal masseur on £100 grand a year...!

And I understand 'bajadita' well, having had my head shoved up my a** by a better scrummaging pack a good number of times! So yes you're right, it's been used effectively by Argentina - again in straight feeding days, but it's notably less effective with bent feeding as the team not feeding are at such a disadvantage.

EXACTLY!

With the FEEDING team facing a pack who are not going to strike for the ball at all, they are at a huge disadvantage if they feed the ball straight (at a phase of the game where they are SUPPOSED to have an advantage). This is because while they might win the ball with the hook, they will in all likihood be going backwards... and the bent feed was born.

This is why I say that so long as WR does not address the 8v7 advantage to the non-feeding team, nothing is going to fix it. I have previously stated a couple of things that could fix this situation and I'll add a couple of others.

1. Penalise bent feeding ONLY if the opposing hooker makes an attempt to hook the ball (materiality)

2. Make it mandatory that both hookers must strike for the ball, or at the very least, that neither hooker is allowed have his feed back to push

and other things that might work

3. The scrum is not allowed to move off the mark until the ball has been hooked and is behind the feet of at least one front row player (effectively no pushing until the ball is clearly won)

4. Once the ball is won, either team has ONE chance to start pushing their opponents back. When the ball is available and the referee has said "use it", if either team is not already going forward, then they must not attemot to do so.

All of these ideas will give both teams an incentive to win the ball by hooking

On a side note, it was good to see Wayne Barnes a week ago penalising props in the Bath v Saints match for taking a step sideways to change their body angle (a pre-emptive strike by Barnes against boring in and driving under...well done).

Also, he was penalising props, and ultimately yellow carded one (Kane Palma-Newport?) for changing his bind after the ball was in.... good stuff

 

[pagliaccio_euforico]

EXACTLY!

With the FEEDING team facing a pack who are not going to strike for the ball at all, they are at a huge disadvantage if they feed the ball straight (at a phase of the game where they are SUPPOSED to have an advantage). This is because while they might win the ball with the hook, they will in all likihood be going backwards... and the bent feed was born.

This is why I say that so long as WR does not address the 8v7 advantage to the non-feeding team, nothing is going to fix it. I have previously stated a couple of things that could fix this situation and I'll add a couple of others.

1. Penalise bent feeding ONLY if the opposing hooker makes an attempt to hook the ball (materiality)

2. Make it mandatory that both hookers must strike for the ball, or at the very least, that neither hooker is allowed have his feed back to push

and other things that might work

3. The scrum is not allowed to move off the mark until the ball has been hooked and is behind the feet of at least one front row player (effectively no pushing until the ball is clearly won)

4. Once the ball is won, either team has ONE chance to start pushing their opponents back. When the ball is available and the referee has said "use it", if either team is not already going forward, then they must not attemot to do so.

All of these ideas will give both teams an incentive to win the ball by hooking

On a side note, it was good to see Wayne Barnes a week ago penalising props in the Bath v Saints match for taking a step sideways to change their body angle (a pre-emptive strike by Barnes against boring in and driving under...well done).

Also, he was penalising props, and ultimately yellow carded one (Kane Palma-Newport?) for changing his bind after the ball was in.... good stuff

really like 2-4, 1 would be unnecessary and i feel one of the biggest problems at scrums is the feed to second row and then collapse scrum (scotland used it to perfection)

under your first suggestion that would be okay cause other team didn't strike but it still affected who won the ball (although penalizing the team for collapsing would have been the correct decision)

 

[Festo]

Hi All, thank you for your responses to the post, and lively debate. It seems we do have a few people interested in the subject, so it is worth debating.

The main reason for my post in the first place was to highlight the fact that there are many laws which are difficult to judge, and so we see the use of the TMO ect. I can't get my head around the fact that feeding into the scrum is one of the easiest laws to referee, due to the game at that moment being static with all eyes focused in the same area of play.

We used to call it the "put in", but now commentators and the like call it "feeding" or "feed into the scrum", so that only goes to show how through evolution we have come to accept this as the norm. Chipping away at the foundations of the principle of the laws can not be good for the sport, we don't want to end up like football do we?

Just like any other law in any other sport, you can't pick and choose which rules/laws you are going to obey. In an attempt to enforce this law a little while ago did they not instruct that hookers make a strike for the ball on "put in", in a vain attempt to put this right.

All that is needed is for a referee to blow up a few times for feeding, or just scrap the law altogether and this debate would be mute.

 

[Dunhookin]

WR have shown before that they lack fibre and back bone when it comes to dealing with important issues like this - so they won't have the stomach to cope with the outraged backlash that would result were they to announce that the straight feed law has been scrapped. Paradoxically they don't have the guts to properly enforce the law either - feeble.

 

[Festo]

Hi All, just to keep the theme going I would like to thank Brian Moore for bring up the subject during commentating France v Wales. It seems from his comments that World Rugby are interested and will look at it. So not just me interested in the subject.

 

[Dunhookin]

Agree unequivocally Festo - great that Brian Moore voiced his frustration and outrage at the extent of bent feeding and with it scrum dysfunction. As he said at the time, despite what the deniers claim, correct application of the straight feed law would see a massive improvement in scrum functionality.

Unfortunately there is little appetite from WR to deal with the problem - the level of the bent feeding in the Scotland v Italy game was so extreme, the ball might just as well been placed at Parisse's feet - abject farce and ridicule. WR will only deal with the problem if enough pressure is put on them - so keeping it topical and demanding that WR clear their myopia and do what they're supposed to do - be the custodians of our game and do the right thing by it. But don't hold your breath - from what we've seen before, WR lacks purpose, leadership and backbone...sad to say