wales england scrums

i have been reading a bit about yesterdays game and it seems that most pundits reckon that the ref was a bit easy on wales.
I'd like to point out that sky showed a shot from above one of the scrums which clearly showed dan coles driving straight across. He even set himself at a diagonal.
He was commended by the commentators but unless i'm mistaken he was scrummaging totally illegally. Have i missed something?

props will try and get away with what they can, i call the tussle between coles and james as six and one, wales were VERY lucky not to concede a pen try tho, corbisero mullered mitchell. James i thought made more of a contest of it, however stevens i think is better

I've given up on trying to understand penalties at the scrum.

I remember the beast doing something very similar to phil vickery in the fist lions test...think he even got man of the match!

Rugby_Assessor wrote:I've given up on trying to understand penalties at the scrum.

Personally I've given up on Ref's understanding penalties at scrums. The rules are pretty easy - the Ref's can't see the woods for the trees!

i know that england destroyed us in the scrum. i just think its a bit much for the pundits to go on about how lucky wales were when coles should defo have been penalised at least once.

Sky acually praised Cole for angling in on Burns!Thought that is meant to be illegal?Am I missing something?

i'm glad i wasn't the only one to notice that.

It's not difficult, frontrows have to set square and straight and not go up or down. Forwards or backwards are the only legal directions. Refs get a birds eye view of the front rows, if they can't spot a prop driving diagonally then it's time for a visit to specsavers! Front rows pop up under pressure due to an unwillingness to go backwards. Scrums collapsing are the most difficult to pinpoint. The cause isn't always obvious and is the only scenario where I have some sympathy with ref's. Everything else is straightforwards.

I also agree with Kingsley Jones (http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_union/welsh/9352385.stm) on the "hit." Teams are trying to gain an advantage in the scrum through winning the hit. This is actually illegal. You're not meant to push until ... now this is where the laws get fuzzy and need clearing up .... either the ref says so or the ball goes in. As Kingsley said, clear this bit of the laws up and return the scrums to what they should be - a pushing and hooking contest.

If the scrum is reffed properly it should be no bother to anyone and I daresay we'll see fewer scrums go down (props will do this when they "lose the hit") when the "hit" is sorted out. So in short

Scrummage straight and square
Keep a legal binding
No pushing untill the ball is put in
Remain bound untill the ball is out (i.e. no popping up)
Ball to be put in straight and between the front rows!

Basically the side the ref can't see, is the side where cheating is going to go on. He can't be in two places at once.

Even for Haskell's try that was much vaunted, it's clear Stevens changed direction at the point of engage and boored into Bennett, in the first friendly, which should in theory of been a penalty to Wales. this was even pointed out on sky using arrows, which is why James got turned so easily.

AlynDavies wrote:Basically the side the ref can't see, is the side where cheating is going to go on. He can't be in two places at once.

Even for Haskell's try that was much vaunted, it's clear Stevens changed direction at the point of engage and boored into Bennett, in the first friendly, which should in theory of been a penalty to Wales. this was even pointed out on sky using arrows, which is why James got turned so easily.

I agree with the principle Alyn but not that particular example. The ref should be able to see the props body angles no matter which side of the scrum he's on. In that particular example the ref missed the foul play. However I wish Phillips had stayed in the defensive line and not gone prancing off at a defensive 5m scrum!!!

True but the facts are props will cheat, and this hasn't be going on in professinal rugby. Props have been conning refs since rugby was created, the difference now with replays and proper analysis is were more aware of it. The only way to eradicate it is to have passive scrums, but that would be no fun really.

Or an assistant ref on the other side

Totallybiasedscarlet wrote:
Ball to be put in straight and between the front rows!

Rare nowadays, maybe not as obvious as a league feed, but seldom see balls go into the tunnel now, always angled towards the 2nd row via the gap tween hooker and prop.

Seems all scrummies does that