ON Wednesday night there was scarcely a single scrum in the Lions-Sharks match which did not collapse and have to be reset. This is as ridiculous as it is tiresome, and not only because the penalties and free kicks that result leave almost everybody puzzled. If we sometimes think that the referee has really no better idea who is responsible for the collapse than we have, we are quite probably right.
Actually, however, I have decided the referee is to blame because he does not apply the law which requires the scrum-half to put the ball in straight. Oh yes, many referees will salve their conscience by awarding a couple of free kicks a match
– one to each side usually – for this offence. But that's as far as they will go and it's further than Jonathan Kaplan went on Wednesday night. Most of the time the referee can't fairly apply the law because he is in no position to do so. At set scrums referees used to squat on their haunches level with the tunnel. When did you last see a referee taking up this position? Instead, nowadays, he usually stands upright so that he can look down on the props' binding.
What is the consequence of the failure to apply this simple and fair law? First, it means that the opposition hooker will not strike, will in other words make no effort to do what the name of his position suggests is his primary function. Instead he will form part of an eight-man shove, the intention of which is to disrupt the opposition heel and swing the scrum. This is bad enough, but note what follows. Knowing that his scrum-half is going to feed the ball under his feet, the hooker of the side putting the ball in doesn't need to strike either. So nobody actually hooks the ball and, as for the loose-head prop of the side putting it in swinging his left leg round to protect the ball as he used to do, forget it. In one scrum in the Sharks 22, Mike Phillips inadvertently put the ball in straight. As a result it ran right through the tunnel because neither hooker had struck for it, and the Sharks' blindside flanker swooped on it and was off.
The upshot is that one of the most important elements in the game is being devalued, while the spate of free kicks and penalties awarded at the set scrum when the referee's patience has finally snapped is in danger of distorting matches. Yet the remedy is simple. Apply the law and see if scrums collapse as frequently as they do now. If they don't, well and good. If they continue to collapse, then, however weary we may be of experimental laws, I would suggest one that might be given a trial. This is to make failure of either hooker to attempt to strike for the ball a free kick offence. This would not be difficult to apply – assuming the referee has taken up the correct position, crouching opposite the tunnel. I think it would work. What is certain is that the present nonsense shouldn't be allowed to continue.
The Lions' performance against the Sharks was by some way their best so far, if only because the Sharks were the best team they have played yet. But it was still not very good. For most of the match the Lions were again slow to arrive at the breakdown. There were only a few occasions in the second half when they won the quick clean ball that allows the backs space. Things weren't helped by Phillips' hesitancy. He took his try splendidly, though I was amused by one reporter who said Phillips "spotted a gap"; since the said "gap" was about ten yards wide, he would have had to be blind not to spot it. However, he also contributed importantly to the first Lions try and sent out a fair number of admirably flat passes. But his tendency to hover over the ball when it is out of the ruck, as if it was a bomb which he wasn't sure how to defuse, cost the Lions time and space again and again.
Despite Ian McGeechan's ritual denials, one suspects that nine or ten places in the team for the first Test are now settled. In the backs Lee Byrne, Tommy Bowe, Brian O'Driscoll, Jamie Roberts and (probably) Phillips look likely to be selected. There is more competition among the forwards, especially in the front row, where selection still seems wide open. The back-row that played on Wednesday – Tom Croft, Jamie Heaslip and David Wallace – may well all go in, despite the problems at the breakdown, if only because the other contenders have been worse, Stephen Ferris has returned home injured and Martyn Williams has been out of action since the first game of the tour. Paul O'Connell will of course start, though he doesn't look half the player he usually is for Munster and often is for Ireland. If he wasn't captain, his place would be in doubt, and Alun Wyn Jones and Nathan Hines might be the pairing at lock.
Things may change after today's game against Western Province. So far none of the Scots has been given much chance to stake his claim. Of course, given that Mike Blair and Ross Ford weren't in the original selection and so both presumably started as No3 choice for their position, this isn't surprising; sad all the same.
