Rugby scrums under pressure, former player Alice Soper says let’s innovate, not debate

For most of my life I found scrums pretty boring. The set-up, the collapse, the resets and then finally, hopefully, some good clean ball. My appreciation was limited to their ability to get the biggest players out of the way. I saw scrums as something to be endured before the real rugby began.

It’s no wonder I had no love for this part of the game. From the sidelines, it was a tangled mess of bodies. When watching at home, scrums meant a slow pan to the face of the bored first five. The set-up shots focused on the backline, not the bind, which meant we missed the hit but cut back just in time for the halfback’s dodgy feed. Commentary too was all focused on what happened next. A stream of speculation on the launch play to come, rather than battle for the ball. Should a scrum have to reset, most commentators, almost always former backs, would make a joke about their lack of knowledge.

Perhaps scrums are so misunderstood because they have been in a nearly constant state of change since this game began.

New Zealand is credited with first introducing positions to this knot of bodies. Not unlike football or the way forward packs now choose to distribute themselves across the paddock, teams used to determine their own formations. New Zealand preferred a seven-player set-up, allowing the eighth player to run amok. Eventually this was outlawed and over time, the remaining loose forwards were also required to be less loose at scrum time.

Our country innovated again in the modern era with the revolutionary idea that we could, in fact, all push together. The game then introduced more serious attempts at player safety with the crouch, bind, pause, engage cadence, which was soon replaced by instructions to crouch, bind and set. Replacements were also replaced, with a number of experienced front rowers now required on the bench.

World Rugby’s most recent innovation requires that scrums happen faster or preferably, not at all. The reward for holding a player up over the try line is no longer a five-metre scrum but a drop-out. Since the list of scrum laws has grown, so have the complaints about their place in the game. The pressure from scrums’ vocal opposition has World Rugby kicking this part of the game to touch.

Those who want fewer scrums are often rallying against the dominance certain teams have in this area, complaining they are using this set piece to set up points via penalties rather than tries. However, each team identifying and playing to their strengths is the whole point of rugby. The lack of homogeneity of playing styles and players themselves is what makes it entertaining.

Rather than debate, let’s innovate.

The shot clock has added a level of drama to place kicking; why not provide an onscreen scrum tracker to do the same? Let me know the win percentage of certain prop pairings and an estimation of force.

If we want to pinch anything from rugby league, it shouldn’t be their group hug scrums. Instead, let us look at the dual referee system which was previously employed in the NRL. With so many moving parts within the scrum, what harm is another pair of eyes?

This weekend, New Zealand plays South Africa in the men’s World Cup final. The Springboks will no doubt once again flex their muscle at scrum time, while the All Blacks will seek to create havoc in open play. They will put on the showcase, demonstrating the best of how this game can be played.

And if you don’t like that, you are free to watch anything else.