how do you fix a scrum mid match

First topic message reminder :

I feel sorry for Tom Court in this one, our scrum wasn't great with Ross but we are being obliterated now. As captain and hooker what does Best do what does Kidney do.......?

The first Australia vs England game in summer 2010 was a pretty big example of a team having an appalling scrum and winning. We won two penalty tries at the scrum and still lost the game 37-17.

Cowshot wrote:I'm yet to watch the match again, but my (admittedly alcohol impaired) memory is that the Irish scrum was in trouble pretty much from the start. It's just that both sides were trying to play some 15 man rugby. It was only as the weather got wetter and wetter and the players were positively comical when on the ball (Croft's juggling act will live long in the memory!) that England turned to the scrum and the unfortunate Court...

Cowshot, I just watched the match again. Not sure if either team got so far as to try to play 15 man Rugby since they both dropped the ball as if were a greased pig right from the beginning.

England had the better scrum from the outset. But not with the total dominance we saw in the second half. When Court came on, England became even stronger. But, to lay it at Court's feet would be a mistake, I think, since was total pack on total pack. This was the worst/best I have ever seen (pending one's point of view) between major nations. More one sided than the Sheridan-Dunning confrontation, since that was more man to man. Since the Irish players don't go back like that in the Heineken Cup, I have to wonder what else was going on.

thomh wrote:The first Australia vs England game in summer 2010 was a pretty big example of a team having an appalling scrum and winning. We won two penalty tries at the scrum and still lost the game 37-17.

To be fair it was only 27-17! If I recall Cooper had a bit of a blinder, so the next game Moody pretty much man-marked him out the game.

Tim Payne was in that scrum that won 2 penalty tries against Australia - let's you know the rough level of the Australian scrum they were playing against!

Let's also not forget that France and Ireland were on the last leg of four consecutive games, and I think it showed today. Both packs struggled to get quick ball for their backs and when chasing the game neither side ever made you believe that they would win. In hindsight it wasn't surprising that Yachvilli, Fritz and the 22 who's name evades me were the biggest threats for France.

doctor_grey wrote:

Cowshot wrote:I'm yet to watch the match again, but my (admittedly alcohol impaired) memory is that the Irish scrum was in trouble pretty much from the start. It's just that both sides were trying to play some 15 man rugby. It was only as the weather got wetter and wetter and the players were positively comical when on the ball (Croft's juggling act will live long in the memory!) that England turned to the scrum and the unfortunate Court...

Cowshot, I just watched the match again. Not sure if either team got so far as to try to play 15 man Rugby since they both dropped the ball as if were a greased pig right from the beginning.

England had the better scrum from the outset. But not with the total dominance we saw in the second half. When Court came on, England became even stronger. But, to lay it at Court's feet would be a mistake, I think, since was total pack on total pack. This was the worst/best I have ever seen (pending one's point of view) between major nations. More one sided than the Sheridan-Dunning confrontation, since that was more man to man. Since the Irish players don't go back like that in the Heineken Cup, I have to wonder what else was going on.

we agree on the greased pig aspect. And everything else, come to that. I have a feeling Brian Moore and co did something awful to Romania or someone back in the 1980s or '90s, but for pure scrum on scrum demolition this is the most comprehensive job of the modern era at full international level I can think of.

regarding Tim Payne, I don't think he is as comic book bad as most seem to. When he played for England he did a sound if unspectacular job - much against my expectations.

robbo277 wrote:

thomh wrote:The first Australia vs England game in summer 2010 was a pretty big example of a team having an appalling scrum and winning. We won two penalty tries at the scrum and still lost the game 37-17.

To be fair it was only 27-17! If I recall Cooper had a bit of a blinder, so the next game Moody pretty much man-marked him out the game.

Tim Payne was in that scrum that won 2 penalty tries against Australia - let's you know the rough level of the Australian scrum they were playing against!

Fair enough - I'd misremembered. Payne hasn't played for England since that tour.

I did have to check it up, but I was sure we didn't lose by that much. I thought it was closer personally, but it was a while ago now.

Payne did do a solid enough job for England when called upon, but seemed absolutely useless every time I saw him in a Wasps shirt, which baffled me. I was never happy to see him in an England shirt before a game, but after the game I was never left cursing his name. Strange one. Not that good around the park though no matter what shirt he was wearing.

It really depends on (i) what the scrum problems are and (ii) whether a referee is willing to take instructions from a team captain as to ongoing illegal play as to whether a team's woes can be fixed during a game.

One of the best pieces of coaching I ever encountered was whatever Graham Rountree said to to the England forwards against Scotland in the RWC. Cole was getting horsed by Chunk but Rountree took the front row to one side during the break and made what he later described as 'technical adjustments'.

Second half was like night and day.

As a tight-head, if someone is booring in on me, I often just do the same but bigger and more blatantly and paste the hooker. Either the referee sees it and watches carefully for angles (which often forces the other guy to straighten up), or the loose-head gets a rollocking from his hooker and told to look after him. Doesn't always work, one prop this year managed to tuck me up even worse when I tried that. Ended up subbed off at half-time in that one!

Cowshot wrote:I'm yet to watch the match again, but my (admittedly alcohol impaired) memory is that the Irish scrum was in trouble pretty much from the start. It's just that both sides were trying to play some 15 man rugby. It was only as the weather got wetter and wetter and the players were positively comical when on the ball (Croft's juggling act will live long in the memory!) that England turned to the scrum and the unfortunate Court...

We lost the first scrum but I'd say we won the next 2,then Ross got injured and things got bad even though he played on for 15 minutes.When he went off it totally fell apart and the game was over,the difference between this game and the one between Wales and Oz that another poster was talking about is the weather meant the number of scrums in this match was huge.

Back to the question: "how do you fix a scrum mid match"

You work out what's going wrong and fix it !

For example, heighy, angle of oppo drive. Talk to your front row colleagues and nullify the problem. If they're driving illegally, a dilpomatic comment to the ref.

Scrums do get fixed mid-match.

Anyone who saw the LV Cup game would have seen it today. Northampton dominating, Stankovich was subbed after 11 minutes for Ayerza and Leicester managed to turn it around. Doran-Jones then came off for Mujati and it was more 50-50, before Northampton got a slight upperhand with a series of scrums on their own 10m line. So... bring on better players?

The other option is to fake an injury and get an extra flanker on. It takes a pretty low dirty dishonourable team to do that though ( Wasps)
Credit to Ireland for not doing it. Quite how they didnt get a yellow after been given there final warning on 22 minutes then conceding 3 more penalties from scrums within their own 22 is another question.

They should consider getting a direct feed to Brian Moores commentary pumped to the front row, he at least had a theory on how they could help Court.

Theres just some days one side seems to get the hoodoo over the other in the scrum. But it is pretty rare to see that level of dominance over a side who are usually competant.

With Ross being injured though and unable to come on, I argue that it would be more advantageous to England to keep all three of the Irish front-row on. I think Owens probably realised that doing this would actually be penalising the offended team, rather than the offenders. I watched the highlights on the RFU site and I think all our points (6 kicked penalties, 1 penalty try and a tap-and-go from a penalty) all came from penalties at the scrum. Binning an Irish prop would have done more harm than good for England, and a team shouldn't be punished for dominating their opposition too much.

I wonder when the full front row on the bench (as used by English Premiership and no doubt others) will apply to internationals. I recall this measure was intended to counter the "uncontested advantage" ?

Peter Seabiscuit Wheeler wrote:
They should consider getting a direct feed to Brian Moores commentary pumped to the front row, he at least had a theory on how they could help Court.

I was thinking about this, myself. Having played hooker throughout my rather limited rugby career, it was always relatively easy to 'feel' which prop was under pressure and I would attempt make adjustments to my own body position to try and help, much like Moore was advocating. Generally I think this would have been sound advice for the Irish front row, but I can't imagine Best hadn't already worked that out himself and if he hadn't, then there is a serious coaching issue going on there. Whether he could have done anything about it is another thing altogether! One of the major problems he would have had is that Cole already had the nudge on Healy, albeit not to the extent that Corbisiero had on Court. If Best had loosened his bind on Healy and tryed to shift his weight/pressure too much to the tighthead side then it would have left Healy horribly exposed to Cole. It would probably have ended up being counter-productive to the Irish scrum.

The other major problem was the degree of pressure that Court was under. It wasn't as if Corbisiero just had the nudge on Court, it was complete and utter domination and I am not convinced that Best adjusting his body position would have made all that much difference. It was so obvious from the TV pictures that Court was being turned in and up and Cobisiero didn't have any binding problems either. Best was really limited in his options to help his tighthead in this instance. I think the Irish front row just have to write it off as a bad day at the office and work harder at technical adjustments for the future.

Charlie yes it was, in teh wake of a review following the bloogate incident looking into teh wider problems of faking. I beleive the reason it hasnt been bought forward for internationals is that its thought it may disadvantage the low tier nations who struggle to field 3 props let alone 4.

Robbo yep I agree that its was to Englands advantage to keep the scrum going comeptitive, but Robshaw did approach Owens to ask about it and got met with a smirk ( this was after 3 scrums in a row had ended in penalties, as did the next one). So bad was Englands open play though Im not sure it was a bad thing he didnt as you say.

I think it was Ferris who got away with a cheeky " hand of back" to knock the ball out of one scrum in the second half. That alone couldve bought a yellow as a single action but as a Tigers fan I can hardly complain, very professional

I think it was Ferris who got away with a cheeky " hand of back" to knock the ball out of one scrum in the second half. That alone couldve bought a yellow as a single action but as a Tigers fan I can hardly complain, very professional

If the ref doesn't see it then it's not illegal. Connor Murray looked rather worried when Owens called him over after kicking the ball away from the base of the scrum but that was handled well, would have been silly to card him for that.

Yeah i think the one that was kicked away can be excussed because the ref was shouting " use it" and the player clealry thought that meant " its out" as oppossed to "im inventing new laws"

Not sure why England were being told to 'use it' though? We were going forward and going straight, the Irish were trying desperately to wheel (as they did all game). We should have been allowed to continue driving until the scrum came apart or it became dangerous. Murray's kick was as you say more hope that the ref had imagined it was out as opposed to anything cynical.

Besides the obvious that Court is not a TH some observations.

As most will recall Vickery got mullered on a Lions tour. He was a very decent TH. The contributory factors were illegal scrummaging by his opponent and a lack of support by Mears and Wyn-Jones. Some of that can be seen in the Irish scrum.

Unfortunately Best could not focus on Court side because Healy was struggling as well. a hooker can assist one prop more than the other if the other one is secure - that wasn't the case on saturday.

The english prop did bore in to an extent but it was so quick I don't blame Owens for missing it. All LH props worth there weight will do the same.

DOC body position was all wrong and compounded the problem. There was a noticeable gap between him and Ryan and he did nothing to drive stright. In fact he made it worse. This in turn made SOB's power totally ineffectual.

Lastly Court has a tendancy to scrum with his left shoulder quite high. Not a big issue as a LH but bad news for a TH as it increases the chances of popping out of the scrum

Put the lot together and you get the result we saw on Saturday

formerly known as Sam wrote:

I think it was Ferris who got away with a cheeky " hand of back" to knock the ball out of one scrum in the second half. That alone couldve bought a yellow as a single action but as a Tigers fan I can hardly complain, very professional

If the ref doesn't see it then it's not illegal. Connor Murray looked rather worried when Owens called him over after kicking the ball away from the base of the scrum but that was handled well, would have been silly to card him for that.

I am not surprised Connor Murray looked worried..he wasn't playing

geoff998rugby wrote:
Lastly Court has a tendancy to scrum with his left shoulder quite high. Not a big issue as a LH but bad news for a TH as it increases the chances of popping out of the scrum

Absolutely correct. His left shoulder was a problem, as was his backside which was far too high. Again, not a catastrophic problem if your on the loosehead side (although still not ideal), but it becomes a real issue for a tighthead as it allows your opposite number, if they get a decent bind and hit, to get their bodyweight underneath you.

In relation to the opening question, these are relatively minor adjustments that should have been corrected sooner. The left shoulder issue would have been harder to correct mid-match, but getting your backside a bit lower for an international prop shouldn't have been that much of an issue. It might not have made any difference, and I do feel for Court playing on the 'wrong' side, but these details should have been addressed quickly.

Thanks for these last 2 posts. As a FH and FB in my playing days I was at a loss as to what was going on and the reasons for it. Very helpful.