Stop the clock after a failed scrum.

I like the 'new' scrum interpretations but players and probably the coaches are extracting the urine with iterative re-sets/collapses etc.

Stop the clock at the first reset and restart it only when finally the ball emerges satisfactorily.

The laws are simple and straightforward enough and if each half lasts fifty minutes, the so be it - that'll larn 'em.

I go along with this

In Ice Hockey the clock stops every time the ref blows his whistle and doesn't start again until play resumes.

You go to see 60 minutes of action and thats exactly what you get, down to the second. No dead time, every stoppage is off the clock. Rugby could do a lot worse than to think about that.

Portnoy's Complaint wrote:I like the 'new' scrum interpretations but players and probably the coaches are extracting the urine with iterative  re-sets/collapses etc.

Stop the clock at the first reset and restart it only when finally the ball emerges satisfactorily.

The laws are simple and straightforward enough and if each half lasts fifty minutes, the so be it - that'll larn 'em.

That's a great idea. Especially in a cold wet game, they will learn quickly. Your suggestion is almost evil. I think it is the right thing to do.

I'd threaten to have the fattest man in Britain sit on their faces unless they keep the scrum up   

Notch wrote:In Ice Hockey the clock stops every time the ref blows his whistle and doesn't start again until play resumes.

You go to see 60 minutes of action and thats exactly what you get, down to the second. No dead time, every stoppage is off the clock. Rugby could do a lot worse than to think about that.

Rugby could then get like American Football where the game is only 60 minutes but can last 3 hours. I had to give up golf because of how long it took. Don't want to have to give up watching rugby too!

Totallybiasedscarlet wrote:I'd threaten to have the fattest man in Britain sit on their faces unless they keep the scrum up   

That is disgusting.  Therefore it might work.  
When he is done with the scrum laws, perhaps he can repeat the process with the Euro negotiations?

doctor_grey wrote:

Totallybiasedscarlet wrote:I'd threaten to have the fattest man in Britain sit on their faces unless they keep the scrum up   

That is disgusting.  Therefore it might work.  
When he is done with the scrum laws, perhaps he can repeat the process with the Euro negotiations?

...but first port of call: the faces of the WRU and RRW.

Good idea! My father is always saying it too because scrums take up so much time and theres nothing more frustrating then seeing teams run the clock down near the end with countless scrums.

Griff wrote:

doctor_grey wrote:

Totallybiasedscarlet wrote:I'd threaten to have the fattest man in Britain sit on their faces unless they keep the scrum up   

That is disgusting.  Therefore it might work.  
When he is done with the scrum laws, perhaps he can repeat the process with the Euro negotiations?

...but first port of call: the faces of the WRU and RRW.

I think we've struck on something here. I'll suggest it to the folks at Crys 16   

Absolutely right

Quite right. Just as long as stadia stock enough pies and tea and keep nurses around to reflect the fact that games will be 200 minutes long and all the backs will have frostbite by the end.

Possibly forwards (and coaches) will realise that as soon as the first scrum collapses, that everyone is on unpaid overtime, they will behave themselves.

I bet some stato out there will be able to name the teams most likely to be involved in reset scrums. It would be interesting to see the naming and shaming of time wasters.

That naming and shaming would be tricky to do.  Are there a lot of resets in X team's game because;
(a) they are wasting time, or;
(b) they have the dominant scrum and it is the other team trying to cheat their way to parity?

Very judgemental.  You couldn't just tot up the total extra minutes.


I like the stop the clock strategy when the ball is out of play.  There can't be more than 25 minutes of actual action during a rugby half. If you were stopping the clock for stoppages you could set it as 30 minutes of action.

Could we not also smarten up how we use the TMO? This is the most time consuming part of the game today. You would swear that the TMO team has to think how they pull together the different feeds, and review each one.  Even which camera you look at first?  When you see a TMO look at the angle behind the post for a potential forward pass first, instead of having the smarts to ask for the best placed side on camera angle.  You can usually tell immediately which camera angle will be the conclusive one for any incident anywhere on the field. Is that the angle the TMO starts looking from? I'd argue they don't and it undermines there very ability to be  TMO if they can't figure out the 'T' part.

Totallybiasedscarlet wrote:I'd threaten to have the fattest man in Britain sit on their faces unless they keep the scrum up   

Allan Jacobsen retired at the end of last season unfortunately.

Stopping the clock could work fantastically although it would knacker the props in the winter, it would also play havoc with the tv schedules as it could add a lot of time onto games.

It sounds good in theory, but having to resort to this is just admitting defeat in terms of the scrum set-up/instructions working properly.

You might get more 'play' but would it be more watchable?

Add this to the time taken when the TMO is reviewing yet another decision and you could be looking at games going for more than two hours.