Rugby Changes through the years

Rugby has changed unimaginably since the earl 1900's....

Some of you like myself played back in the 90's etc.

What changes do you like since you were playing and what changes do you dislike...

(In this case ignore changes for H&S purposes....we all understand players Safety is paramount, this is just about the game itself)

I absolutely dislike the fact that referees run the setup of scrums. It wastes a lot of time, as a loosehead I know what needs to be done when engaging the opposition prop, I know when I am ready to engage the prop, I know how to bind, and most importantly know how to beat my opposite to the bind.

Our scrums got setup quicker, was safer, didn't collapse as often as today's scrums.

I just don't get how a referee who has most likely never bound in a scrum in his life can from a manual be a better option to set up a scrum, than the actual players doing it.

It is like reading the theory of how trail braking on a corner is done with a motorcycle and then going out there thinking you know how.

How would you fix that OM....?

Go back to teams setting the scrum themselves.

I would also revert back to old binding techniques. This long arm BS needs to go. The reality of scrumming is the tighthead tries to bring the loosehead down, and the loosehead has to contend with the weight of the tighthead doing his best to negate your power by forcing you down into a position where you fold and cant even breathe as your solar plexus is crunched.

So in order to prevent that I wouldaim to get my bind under the armpit of the tight head and at the same time bring my elbow up perpendicular to the ground, the reason for the short arm bind is to have the leverage to square my elbow and therefor once locked it means you square the shoulders.

It is a much more stable bind which assists not only to scrum square instead of in, but also to retain your height.

The technique is sound and I have no idea why they went to the long bind.

Whats your thoughts on how the breakdown has changed?

it provides for scrums to be forward drives rather than crabbing or swinging around.

The laws are more complicated, they also removed rucking for supposed safety reasons, but in my view the clean outs you see on players prone over a ruck is much more dangerous than a couple of rakes on the back.

It is impossible for referees to officiate the breakdown these days, purely because they cannot watch evey transgression.

I spoke to a South African referee a good number of years ago and he explained to me a referee will decide what he will focus on for a specific match.

Such as players off their feet and side entries, but that mean he loses focus on lets say holding on.

The main problem with the ruck is the inconsistencies in officiating and how a referee sees an incident.

This past weekend Etzebeth was penalised for supposed hands past the ball before grabbing it, a replay showed very clearly without any shadow of a doubt he went straight for the ball. Now it didn't cost the Boks the match, but that was in front of the poles, 15 meters out and was a sure fire three points for the Boks.

Koch was penalised for not rolling away fast enough, I would personally suck that referees nuts, if he could show me a faster rollout.

Laws need to be simplified.

Scrums, hookers have to hook, and straight put ins.

Within the parameters of safety the referees only roles at a scrum should be:
1 - Form the scrum
2 - Make sure neither team shoves before the ball is in
3 - The ball goes in straight not to feet or the second row.
4 - Once the ball goes in, the referee has nothing to do other than monitor any deliberate attempts to collapse the scrum.