Rugby: Hooker Hore happy with new scrum laws

The All Black training group practises scrummaging at North Harbour Stadium yesterday. Photo / Brett Phibbs

The All Blacks brief audition with the new scrum laws left hooker Andrew Hore enthused about their launch in the Rugby Championship.

The squad held a "crouch, bind, set" session with their coaching staff yesterday as the two-day training camp wound up at North Harbour Stadium.

Hore thought the law change would benefit players and spectators, test hooking skills again and referees' judgment on halfbacks' delivery.

With practice done, his thoughts reverted to the old rules and a flight home for club training last night at the Offal Pit in a bid to be picked for tomorrow's semifinal when his Maniototo Maggots play Arrowtown.

That done, Hore and the All Black squad will assemble in Wellington next Friday for trial matches against Wellington and Canterbury as the opening gambit of their Rugby Championship plans.

That series will operate with the new scrum laws so teams can be in sync with Northern Hemisphere sides when the All Blacks tour in November.

The new engagement sequence is supposed to reduce the impact by 25 per cent and decrease the number of resets.

"The hit's not as hard," Hore said, "but getting in there, the eyes are still watering even though we didn't have the whole eight on."

It would be interesting to see who came up with ways to use the new sequence best but all front rowers were excited about scrum contests and building better platforms.

"We are chipping away in there but I think the hooker is going to find it a little bit harder to hook the ball. We have the wee rules there where the halfback has got to put it in down the middle and the referees are calling it in.

"We will chip away with it next week so hopefully by the time we play the Aussies on the 17th we have some sort of plan."

Hore had lost none of his humour despite a wretched campaign with the Highlanders, hoping the new laws would help old style hookers as he was getting very deep into his career.

"We only did half an hour out there. The props are keen because there were no collapses so it has to be going in the right direction," he added.

The next few weeks would give them all a better idea on how to comply with and use the changes which should still favour a dominant scrum.

"I think it will be more for the scrummagers. There is nowhere to hide, you can't dive to the ground so you are locked in. Hopefully if we do things right and work off a short hit we should be pretty good. As All Blacks we try and dominate every team we play."

An extra prop will come into the reserves in 23-man squads. That change suited someone like specialist loosehead Wyatt Crockett who is battling knee ligament damage or those, said Hore, who were "old" like himself and could get a rest after an hour.

New loosehead contender Joe Moody had started well in a low-key way.