Paul Lewis: The 'dumb' pattern that is making rugby a drudgery

Five out of the Highlanders' six tries came from rolling mauls near the line. Photosport

Well, you've joined me at an exciting moment. These are my pants, bored off me by Super Rugby's recurring use of the Most Tedious Play In All Rugby: the rolling maul.

It is particularly being used against the two new Pasifika sides – the Fijian Drua in Australia and Moana Pasifika here. Like Friday night: the match between the Highlanders and Moana Pasifika started out as an open, entertaining encounter. It became a drudgery.

Five out of the Highlanders' six tries came from rolling mauls near the line. It's a coaching standby: play it tight so you don't get stung by the ability of the Pasifika boys to run and pass. God forbid rugby should be exciting. So…let's maul.

The Crusaders pulled it twice against Moana Pasifika in their clash (who at least learned enough from that to do it twice against the Blues, who in turn used the rolling maul to score six tries against them over two matches). Two rolling mauls saw the Waratahs past the Drua in their clash. Seeing a pattern yet?

The Crusaders also used it to sew up their latest match against the Chiefs and the Brumbies (renowned as the rolling maul specialists) beat the Force with two. No disrespect to the Brumbies but being called a specialist in rolling mauls is like Gordon Ramsay being acclaimed for his toast.

The time is long past when rolling mauls should have been stopped. I'm not really saying the rolling maul is boring. It's far worse than that. It takes a lot to make me turn off the TV with a competitive game of rugby going on – but the rolling maul manages it.

There's so much dire inevitability: Penalty. The attacking side should kick for goal but they opt for touch, setting up the lineout and a rolling maul. What follows is a ballet of predictable ugliness unique to rugby.

The jumper comes down with the ball, palms it to a driving teammate and the whole pack and sometimes the (unemployed) backs grunt and snort their way over the line, collapsing in a heap with the ball usually buried. The referee is often unsighted, the fans at the stadium are in the dark and the defending team knows it is almost impossible to defend the rolling maul correctly so have only the alternative of giving away another penalty and a yellow card – and the whole wretched, tedious thing inevitably repeats.

In the two recent matches between the Blues and Moana Pasifika – there were eight rolling maul tries. Eight! The first five tries in their first encounter were all from rolling mauls. In the second match, Blues hooker Kurt Eklund scored a hat-trick of rolling maul tries.

Eklund is a fine hooker and turnover merchant; if he had been playing in the first match, he would probably have scored the two rolling maul tries Ricky Riccitelli did in his absence.

That would have meant Eklund would be gloriously alone on top of the Super Rugby tryscoring charts with seven instead of merely tied at the top with five. Hookers have been scoring tries since Sean Fitzpatrick invented the hooker-on-the-wing trick but rolling mauls have become their principal vehicle. The Highlanders' hookers, Andrew Makalio and Rhys Marshall, scored two tries each against Moana Pasifika on Friday. Preposterous.

In 2019, Brumbies hooker Folau Fainga'a led Super Rugby tryscoring before eventually finishing third, with 12 tries. In 2018, South African hooker Malcolm Marx finished fourth, also with 12. If hookers are leading try scorers now, the game of rugby is in deep trouble.

The reason a rolling maul is so offensive (besides being about as exciting as constipation) is that it runs contrary to the ethos of rugby – stay behind the ball and do not obstruct defenders. The rolling maul deliberately stations people ahead of the ball, offside, where they obstruct defenders.

The answer? If World Rugby doesn't ban it, then make a rolling maul try equal only to two points, with no conversion, less than a penalty. Give defences more to do by instituting a 10m zone behind the rucks and mauls and bring back creativity.

Rolling mauls are rugby's worst asset and the dumbest thing I have seen since many British expats living on Spain's Costa del Sol voted for Brexit – and then complained when the Spanish allowed them to spend only three months there rather than unlimited time.
Stupid? So is the rolling maul. Get rid of it before it gets rid of us rugby fans.