Sharp practice

The noise at the moment might be about the four-stage scrum but I have a feeling one of the other directives to referees, the outlawing of the ruck, is going to have a more far-reaching effect on the game in this World Cup year.

The crouch-touch-pause-engage scrum has had the effect of making rough, tough and gruff men look comical, but with most teams already learning to make the “touch” part no more than a cursory slap before re-setting on the “pause” and trying to beat the referee’s “engage” call I have a feeling we’ll get used to it and get on with it.

Soon it will not appear to be so ridiculous and it will help to reduce the tendency, nay desire, for packs to charge at each other or to try to get some advantage out of the hit; such as slotting in sideways, hitting down or retreating. In the long run, once we have got used to the idiotic look of it, the scrum will survive.

Not so the ruck. The decree that stamping and trampling is “verboten” has already claimed some victims (for instance Blues captain Troy Flavell being somewhat unfairly being yellow-carded) and my contention is that it is going to get worse.

In the first weekend of the Super 14 there were already signs of teams taking advantage of the no-boots-on-the-man rule – especially as referees were remiss in penalising players deliberately lying in the way of the ball; safe in the knowledge that they could not be encouraged to do so by a gentle nudge from a size 12 boot.

Most officials were quick to punish high tackles, hitting rucks and mauls off-sides and policing errant boots but slow to pin players accidentally getting in the way of the quick re-cycle.

The Brumbies have for some years now been adept at falling on the side of the attacking side while affecting tackles and I thought the Waratahs were doing it as well against the Lions.

They make it look as though they can’t help falling on the tackled player’s side, preventing quick placement of the ball and impeding advancing players from joining rucks, but it happens so often that I feel sure that it is done intentionally – they might even be practising it.

This is not the kind of tackle in which a player tries to turn the man he is tackling towards his side, so that the ball might be pilfered, but more a conventional looking tackle in which the tackler just happens to end up in the way of the ball.

It slows down the re-cycle and, of course, the cure used to be to ruck the culprit out of the way. This is no longer allowed and unless referees come down hard on what is a subtly disguised foul all teams will start doing it and choke the re-cycling of the ball.

Of course this is more easily said than done because bringing down someone moving at speed is not an exact science. There are tremendous forces at work and sometimes the tackler does fall on the wrong side, but I believe referees should be more vigorous in forcing him to move.

The big surprise about the “kill the ruck” diktat is that there has been so little reaction from New Zealand. The ruck is intrinsic to New Zealand’s game and there are few finer sights than an All Black pack, low-slung and arms linking as they swoop into a stoppage and straight over the top of the ball – and anything else that happens to be there.

I would have thought the Kiwis would protest strongly because it certainly robs them of a key advantage; far more than any change to the scrum law.