1. Glasgow finally click into gear
Glasgow have underachieved somewhat this season on the domestic front but on Saturday we finally saw a glimpse of what this star studded outfit can achieve.
Blessed with most of the major players in the Scottish rugby side at the moment it looked as though, for 50 minutes anyway, that the Warriors were going to find it difficult to break down the Scarlets’ resolute defence due to a combination of unforced errors and basic skill failures but in the final quarter they were simply untouchable.
Giant wing Taqele Naiyaravoro stole the show with a blistering hat-trick but this was a team performance built on physical supremacy both in the scrum and in the tackle area.
The dominant win was made all the sweeter with the news that Gregor Townsend has extended his contract to stay on as head coach until 2017 means that Glasgow have had a great week all in all.
2. Ulster the only light at the end of a dark Irish Tunnel
There is no doubt that the Irish provinces are struggling more than ever before in European competition and this must be of serious concern for their union. Every member of this year’s World Cup Squad plies their trade in Ireland, after Johnny Sexton’s return to Leinster, and a record of two wins from seven Champions Cup Matches this season is not the return that the Emerald Isle expects.
Thomond Park is no longer considered a fortress for Munster after both Connacht and now Leicester have won there in recent weeks in front of below average gates, and while Leinster have battled gamely against Bath and Toulon away from home, they were dismantled unceremoniously at home by Wasps and are effectively out of the competition after three matches; unheard of in Dublin.
Ulster, however, are a small ray of light on the current bind that Irish rugby is in, by shutting out Europe’s ultimate giants Toulouse on Friday night. Riddled with injuries, most would have written off the Ulstermen before they even took a step onto the field but with Ruan Pienaar pulling the strings, the men from Northern Ireland set about destroying the Toulouse defensive line to keep their qualification hopes alive.
3. Ford proves his nerve with Jones watching on
One of the past criticisms of George Ford has been his kicking ability under pressure and whether one day it could cost his club or country the chance of a big win. On Sunday night he nailed one of the biggest pressure kicks of his young career so far to disprove that theory.
Bath’s performance was infected with ill-discipline, poor decision-making and unforced errors throughout and Ford was not exempt from this, but as they scored in the dying embers of added time to level the scores, the Bath and England fly-half was left with a kick from the touchline to seal the victory.
Just to add some more pressure to the kick, Ford had missed an easier penalty earlier on in the match which would have handed the lead back to Bath and also the new England coach, Eddie Jones, was watching on with great interest in the stands.
Ford duly obliged by dissecting the posts to banish any clutch-kicking demons he may have encountered in the past.
4. Saracens’ Steam Train shows no sign of slowing down
Six from six in the Premiership and now three from three in Europe; Saracens are looking like an unstoppable force on the continent as well as in England.
One of the most impressive things about Sarries is that they have a game plan, they execute it so cleanly that by 60 minutes the match as a contest is over and they then get to rest their big name players to keep them fresh for the next challenge that lies ahead.
Most exciting of all, though, is the wealth of English talent that the men from the Allianz have on show. 10 of the starting line-up in Oyannax qualify to play for England and not only that, they are all putting their hands up to claim a place in Eddie Jones’ Elite Player Squad.
Owen Farrell played with pace and creativity to bely the pigeonhole that he has been put in by numerous onlookers of being defensive and more pragmatic in his approach. Maro Itoje never fails to impress whilst Chris Ashton’s hard work on his defensive game and positioning seem to be coming to fruition.
The biggest talking point though was Will Fraser, the openside flanker. This is a position that England have struggled to find a balance in for years now, and Fraser certainly put his hand up for inclusion yesterday. Commanding at the breakdown and a menace with ball in hand, Fraser found gaps easily and linked play with the greatest of ease. A superb all round performance.
5. Chiefs finally arrive at Europe’s top table
Although ‘performance of the weekend’ should rightfully be given to Ulster, Exeter Chiefs’ second half against Clermont was a very close second. 14-10 down at half time, the Chiefs had been carved open on more than one occasion and things were looking ominous.
Rob Baxter is a shrewd coach though and had the men from Sandy Park revert to what works for them week in and week out in the Premiership. Hitting the man in the lineout and driving the ball may not be a thing of beauty to most, but if it works then it must be utilised.
Thomas Waldrom added a further brace of tries to his hat trick from last weekend and Jack Nowell certainly didn’t look out of place at outside centre, a position that may become more regular to him with Henry Slade’s long term lay off.
There will now be calls for Waldrom to be included in the squad due to his try scoring record but I very much doubt Exeter’s style of play, which enables Waldrom to be on the end of these opportunities, will be recreated by Eddie Jones and his new look England set-up.
6. Scrummaging problems remain
At the weekend, there were numerous games of potentially exciting rugby spoilt by the fact the ball wasn’t in play due to the lottery of the scrum.
This is quite an obvious and ongoing matter but when will the rule makers of the game prioritise this issue, step in and shift the emphasis of the scrum back to getting the ball into open play rather than a chance for teams to win penalties?
When the ball was in play during the match at the Ricoh Arena between Wasps and Bath it was an exciting and open game to watch but every time there was a knock on or a scrum reset you could almost hear the collective sigh in the commentary box and stadium alike.
On average, 15 minutes a match is lost at scrum time and when a referee does finally buckle under the pressure and guess on whom to give a penalty to, you find yourself quite relieved that the game may actually continue.
Everyone is quick to blame the referees but the players have to accept some responsibility also. Game-playing and trickery is part of the front row union’s make-up and no one wants to see a less competitive scrum but then again, who wants to see 15 minutes of no rugby being played?
Two ideas: downgrade penalties to free kicks unless they are repeat offences or maybe more controversially, stop teams being pushed further than five metres. Five metres gives you front foot ball against a defence going backwards and encourages exciting, attacking rugby.
Surely these are worth a trial in the lower leagues, if nothing else?
ByAndy Daniel (@scrum5ive)
Photo by: Patrick Khachfe / Onside Images
Like the idea of downgrading scrum penalties to free kicks. My only worry would be if a team were infringing and causing the scrum to collapse, the attacking team (if they were close to the try line) may then pick a scrum again, and again. Then we could potentially be in a position where instead of a penalty being knocked over, we have multiple scrums.
I guess, as you say, it converted to a penalty after two or three repeats offenses it could be controlled; but how long would three collapsed scrums take to reset and complete?
Agree on the downgrading of scrum penalties to free kicks, but the 5m thing seems a bit unnecessary. Correct enforcement of the existing laws covering crooked feeds and early hits would significantly help to tidy up the scrum.
First up let me preface this with the confession that I am a back so this is not my forte but the issues seem obvious to me
1. Crooked feeds – when the ball goes straight to the 2nd row and there is no chance to take it against the head and it becomes a straight pushing contest with hookers committing to the push not the strike
2. Completed scrums – Once the ball gets to the back foot then the ref should call ball available. After that no scrum penalties should be given even if it subsequently collapses. This would stop teams just milking the scrum for the penalty
Provided there is a contest for the ball teams will need to secure it and move it to the back foot. Once there the ref makes it clear it is a completed scrum and we get on with the game
Problem with the completed scrum thing is if a team is on the backfoot they will just collapse once the scrum is called ‘completed’ rather than keep retreating – this would be a really dangerous move. Although it would do as you suggested and stop the attacking team being cynical and looking for a penalty, instead it would encourage cynical and dangerous play by the defending team. A worse scenario I think.
I think the suggestion above is the best option – you need to reward a dominant scrum and stop a defending team collapsing. However, the penalty reward is too great at the moment. Moving to a free kick would make them more likely to play the ball, and bring us back to what the scrum was supposed to be – a restart. Like when someone engages early – inevitably the scrum half taps and goes as the opposing pack is still formed up. Much better.
However, I would be very nervous about the 5 meter drive rule, as actually hitting the brakes on a moving scrum is very difficult and could result in a collapse in itself if the timing is off (imagine the ref calling it, front row hits the breaks, locks don’t hear and keep driving… everyone goes ‘splat’ in a heap).
Let’s just get as much emphasis on rewarding quick ball out of the scrum. Maybe even pushing the defensive and attacking back lines slightly further away from the scrum (like at line-outs) as this would make it an even better attacking option and encourage them to just get on with it.
How often are scrums pushed more than 5 metres? I admit I didn’t watch the Wasps v Bath match (though was keeping an eye on the live score updates online and thought it was locked away on 79mins…gutted by the final result) but I can’t recall it happening that often, and I certainly agree that once a team has been pushed back that far, the attacking team should probably have a decent shot at quick, front foot ball anyway. I suspect that whatever can be done to fix the endless resets after immediate or near-immediate collapses would have more impact on the length of time the ball is in play.
I would say one relatively simple fix is for the refs to start actually pinging scrum halves for feeding. Straight put-ins would force hookers to go back to what they are there to do, which is hook the ball, and not just serve as an extra prop/battering ram. This would reduce some of the forward pressure in the front row and potentially keep more scrums from collapsing (it might also bring back some element of competition for the ball at the put-in – perish the thought!).
Another, more controversial and less direct, idea could be to stop the clock for scrums. The counter argument of course is that we don’t want rugby to drag on into American football-esque game lengths with endless stoppages, but if we are only talking fifteen minutes over the course of a game, that wouldn’t be the end of the world. Scrums then wouldn’t eat up game time to the extent they do now, and perhaps it would also force players to retain greater aerobic fitness and a more open style of play…
Oh, and something I learned this weekend – buying a team sheet that reads like a World XV does not a good performance make. Toulon were startlingly rubbish considering the all stars in the line up – I hadn’t been following the team news closely and had a heart attack when I saw Nonu on the pitch. Nonu, Habana, Vermeulen, Manoa, Giteau, Mitchell – ridiculous. And not that impressive on the field this weekend.
Toitally agree – a few problems with that team. One example would be line outs. So many massive ball carriers and not enough line out options. You need guys that complement each other in the team, not just the best individuals.
Still wouldn’t write Toulon off yet, bit of tweaking with regard to personnel and they have an amazing team.
Their line out was a massive issue at the weekend. However, by the time we get to the business end of the season they’ll have O’Connell in there to run that, as well as probably Fernandez Lobbe at 6 to add a line out option in.
Their backs look stagnant, but again, I’m sure we’ll see a Cooper/Giteau/Nonu midfield by the time we get to the big games in May – with Halfpenny back fit at 15 as well, back to being pretty frightening.
2 thoughts spring to mind
a 5 second rule as in rucks, use it or lose it, just might encourage back row to get it out instead of milking the penalty.
Penalise both props that collapse the scrum – 3 strikes & both props are in the bin for 10minutes, puts the onus on both to keep the scrum live.
Of course apply the existing rules to the put in, the Ref’s seem to look but do nothing about the crooked feed.
Not sure how penalising both props helps anyone? Surely penalising a prop that has collapsed due to illegalities of his opposite number is just asking for problems?
As a front-row player (albeit a rubbish one), I’ve been leaning towards both ideas proposed about the scrum in this article. From experience, the reason penalties against front row at scrumtime are given is because one side is stronger than the other, which means that the weaker and losing front row inevitably end up in bad body positions (boring) or collapsing the scrum to prevent going back any further.
I therefore honestly think its really unfair when this is penalised, especially if a front row player is carded, as the ref is essentially just penalising that team for having a weaker scrum.
The 5 metre rule (which I distinctly remember being used at age-grade and school rugby) would put the onus on the attacking team to use the ball, although has the flexibility that if an attacking team can set up an opportunity 5m from the try line, then they should also be able to score a try by driving scrum.
Lets stop penalising teams for essentially having lighter/less-scrummaging packs.
But scrummaging is a key part of the game Marc and therefore if one team has a lighter pack or one that is not so good in the scrum then that’s just life and if they want to compete they will have to learn to negate their weakness
Otherwise where does it stop? Should a team with better kickers be made to only kick with their weaker foot? Should a team with faster backs have weights loaded onto them so as not to penalise the oppostion for essentially having slower backs?
Facetious examples I know, but they do illustrate the point I am making
Completely agree with Pablito here – also would add that if we downgrade the need for people to have good scrums then the players will change and we move towards athletic running props – towards rugby league. If you have a strong scrum you should be rewarded with scoring opps and personally I see no problem with them being penalties. I don’t follow the “it’s just a restart” opinion as if that is true then have no pushing at all.
I’m with Marc on this one. When a poor kicker misses, he doesn’t get the points. You wouldn’t award a penalty to the other side each time he misses. You wouldn’t yellow card him for being the weaker kicker either. The same goes for having better/worse backs. I’m not sure what the solution is but it does seem unfair to yellow card a player because he’s not as good a scrummager as his opposite number.
I agree with Marc somewhat. I think a free kick would be a much better option against a team supposedly collapsing a scrum.
I was watching a premiership game recently (can’t remember which one) but a passage of play went like this:
Team A knocked on in the opposition half, between the 22 and halfway, i.e they made the mistake. It wasn’t in a particularly threatening position for scoring a try.
Team B put into the scrum, but it collapses straight away and one of the team B props is penalised (seemed a bit of a lottery).
Team A get a shot at goal and score 3 points.
So team A went from making a handling mistake to immediately scoring 3 points. This doesn’t really seem right to me. If Team A got a free kick instead then they are back to where they were before knocking on, which seems fair, as team B were unable to take advantage of the mistake by getting the ball out of the scrum.
While we’re doing facetious examples.. how about this. Team A knows they are dominating in the scrum and have a good kicker, so every time they get in range they just knock on (on purpose), have a scrum, dominate it and get a penalty. Dull.
It’s a race to be the biggest and strongest scrummagers, which impacts all players on the pitch as they need to be big enough to tackle them. Impacts are bigger, concussions more common.
On a specific point, the U19 law variations of the scrum places the onus on playing the ball once it’s been won, with a 1.5m limit and a free kick against a team if they don’t use the ball once its available (http://laws.worldrugby.org/?variation=1).
Just wanted to highlight there’ a discrepancy in the approach we take to the scrum between different ages, which so far as I can tell doesn’t seem to be down to safety.
No Pablito I don’t think your are being facetious. Gone are the days it seems, when scrummaging was an art in itself and props and hookers took a pride in their job. There is a massive irony at work here in that the front rowers are bigger,fitter and stronger than they have ever been and yet the game is slower because the art of scrummaging has been sacrificed to power and endurance. Maybe a time limit for the ball to be put in and won or lost should be set. That way both sets of forwards would be duty bound to try and win clean ball,either by effective hooking or striking quickly and cleanly against the head.
Just a thought. Something needs to be done though as the situation is getting farcical.
Can we have an article on Mr Jones assembling of his new coaching staff Jamie?
Cheers.
I think the quickest and most effective thing they can do doesn’t even require a rule change.
Just make scrum-halves put the ball in straight for crying out loud!!
There will be something coming your way to that effect this afternoon!
It has been said before, but I still think the most effective change the game can have is to do something to increase the ‘ball in play time’ – whether this is stopping the clock when having scrums, or kicking, or something else, I don’t mind. The net result will be to force players to become more athletically fit rather than just huge 20-stone players, and a knock-on effect will be to help the scrum as there won’t be as much force coming through. It will also help in other areas, such as the concussion problem.
I am aware they would be small margins of change and it will take a while for the effects to be seen, in fact it would probably make games longer in the short term. But once we see a change in the players body shapes, I think it will make for faster, more exciting rugby – fewer collapsed scrums and sickening head injuries.
But then Henry wouldn’t we just end up with everyone shaped like flankers?
And then we may as well drop a couple of players to give attacks a bit more room to play in. Then perhaps limit the amount of tackles before you have to hand the ball over to the oppostion to avoid boring multiple phases of attack by teams stuffing the ball up their jumper…
One of the delights of rugby is that there is a place for the 20 stone fat lads as well as everyone else.
Also, league obviously don’t have 20 stone props and the ball is in play more but I don’t believe they have less concussions more than union
Yup
How many concussion occur at the scrum? Almost none
How many concussion occur in rucks, mauls and tackles (also known as open play)? Almost all
Sorry I think my point was unclear – I was suggesting there would be less concussion because players would be lighter, nothing to do with the scrum maybe being sorted out. Just something I read that suggested the rise in concussions was linked to the average weight of players increasing. I was only addressing one cause of concussion – yes conversely, increasing the length of ball in play will give more opportunity for a concussion incident to happen.
I am not advocating us moving towards rugby league in any way. The beauty of rugby union has always been it accommodates all sizes. But on that point we are already seeing the loss of small quick guys in the backs – the Christian Wades and Kyle Eastmonds are becoming rarer – and are already often labelled too small to play international rugby. This is as much a shame as losing the big props.
I would just suggest that by stopping the clock for breaks in play and giving us another 10/15 minutes of ball in play time – for example taking us to closer to international standards of about 45 minutes, at club level – would force a slight change in physical approach. Emphasis on the slight. Not as far as your are suggesting! The problem is I think we are going to far the other way – the sport is becoming so stop-start with so little ball in play time that the players are becoming more like American footballers than rugby players. They only have to operate for 30 seconds at a time, then get a hefty breather while we waste time on restarting play. You saw with England against France a couple of 6N ago, when everyone started cramping because they weren’t fit enough to deal with the (very high) 47 or something minutes of game play. Hence why players are getting bigger and bigger and the force of collisions getting higher.