Bok scrum

@reprobate said in Bok scrum:

But that's the rub. If one team, in this case the Saffas, has a brutal scrum and half a dozen forwards on the bench - then that sets quite a high bar for parity.
Taking the Irish demo job as an example, they gave up 6 penalties and a card from 12 scrums. I think the average is about 10 total penalties per team conceded per game, and from WR annual report: "Scrums are now often seen not so much as a source of valuable possession but as a source of winning penalties, with almost 50 per cent of scrums currently ending in a sanction."
So your 10 scrums result in a disproportionate number of the game's penalties, and penalties are crucial to winning games - sometimes directly for points, but more often for field position while maintaining possession - either relieving opposition attacking pressure or creating scoring opportunities.

If you have parity, all that shit goes away.
If I was a modern day HC, my first priority would be the scrum.
Doesn't need to be dominant, but good enough to secure your own feed, and take it out of the game day calculation.
With that done, you can have a game plan
Any HC at the elite level of the game, with a shit scrum, should be exited.

WR is on to it.
The question is . . . is the scrum for winning penalties or winning possession.
The basics of rugby is about the contest for possession.
Looking at it from that perspective, winning penalties by physically forcing someone to make an involuntary error, when you already have possession is a bit of a fucked up philosophy.
I think WR is coming round to that point of view.

Penalties should be awarded when an individual player choses to transgress the rules.
Not for when he had no choice.

If you want to use the scrum to win penalties.
Why F about setting a scrum, just blow an f'n penalty and get on with it!

And that is not even going into the OH&S issues.
There are 6 front rowers in a matchday squad.
That's because the modern scrum has become very serious business (overly serious?)
So, not the time to play at being silly buggers, someone could get badly fucked up.

@OomPB said in Bok scrum:

Scrumming in sevens is exactly what you want. Thats the competition you want. 15 men rugby is for all shapes and sizes. Your TH fatty must be the first selection in a rugby team. Like a goalie in soccer or wickey in cricket

Or the punter in a game of American football.
Just sub them on and off for the scrums.

All shapes of big you mean.

Not too many genuine fatties at the top level of rugby now.
Cos they'll get found out around the rest of the field.
I note Rassie is on to a good work around for that.

As the game now stands, the THP is the most important player.
But that can be changed, with a bit reinterpretation of the rules by the refs.

@taniwharugby said in Bok scrum:

yeah massive hate on scrumming for pens from me, a player being penalised for not being as good as your opposition most of the time, beyond getting demo'd at the actual scrum.

I've seen some referees be a bit more discerning lately.
Only blowing a penalty if they think someone has deliberately transgressed.
But not if they have been forced into error.

@OomPB

Well
That play is 1000% better than any dumb ass push over scrum.

Wilco aint that fat; he's just f'n big.
Tho I doubt whether he's played 80 mins for a very long time, if ever.
In that respect, front rowers get it easy

I don't like the Yellow cards for not being as good as your opposition prop or scrum.

You shouldn't get yellow carded for not being good enough.

The scrum is an integral part of rugby and it should remain as such.

Looking forward to seeing how the AB pack stands up against the bokke scrum this year.

I need @bartman to help me.

@nostrildamus said in Bok scrum:

@W32 said in Bok scrum:

The reason the bok scrum is dominant is because they spend more time live scrummaging and working on their technique as a unit than other teams. Its not anything other than hard work.

Right. Only hard work.

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Absolutely. Are you suggesting bok players are tested less than the ab players? Laughable

@pakman said in Bok scrum:

@OomPB Most powerful squatter in test rugby is Andrew Porter (350 kegs), so it's not everything.

true dat. Porter spends too much time giving the stink eye and not enough time working on his technique. It always makes me laugh when I see him giving someone the stare down

@mohikamo said in Bok scrum:

@reprobate said in Bok scrum:

But that's the rub. If one team, in this case the Saffas, has a brutal scrum and half a dozen forwards on the bench - then that sets quite a high bar for parity.
Taking the Irish demo job as an example, they gave up 6 penalties and a card from 12 scrums. I think the average is about 10 total penalties per team conceded per game, and from WR annual report: "Scrums are now often seen not so much as a source of valuable possession but as a source of winning penalties, with almost 50 per cent of scrums currently ending in a sanction."
So your 10 scrums result in a disproportionate number of the game's penalties, and penalties are crucial to winning games - sometimes directly for points, but more often for field position while maintaining possession - either relieving opposition attacking pressure or creating scoring opportunities.

If you have parity, all that shit goes away.
If I was a modern day HC, my first priority would be the scrum.
Doesn't need to be dominant, but good enough to secure your own feed, and take it out of the game day calculation.
With that done, you can have a game plan
Any HC at the elite level of the game, with a shit scrum, should be exited.

WR is on to it.
The question is . . . is the scrum for winning penalties or winning possession.
The basics of rugby is about the contest for possession.
Looking at it from that perspective, winning penalties by physically forcing someone to make an involuntary error, when you already have possession is a bit of a fucked up philosophy.
I think WR is coming round to that point of view.

Penalties should be awarded when an individual player choses to transgress the rules.
Not for when he had no choice.

If you want to use the scrum to win penalties.
Why F about setting a scrum, just blow an f'n penalty and get on with it!

And that is not even going into the OH&S issues.
There are 6 front rowers in a matchday squad.
That's because the modern scrum has become very serious business (overly serious?)
So, not the time to play at being silly buggers, someone could get badly fucked up.

Yeah look I'm not defending scrum penalties, just saying that right now that is how it is.
The other side is that there used to be 20+ scrums and the fatties playing 80. They had to have a degree of fitness and fatigue was a big factor - you might be huge and strong, but there is a downside to that. WR wanted to reduce the number of scrums - because apparently people don't want to watch that (I disagree with that, they don't have to take so long and are a great attacking platform), so being hugely powerful became less important - as per your initial point - it's a ruck game. But the bench changes meant that the fatties only have to play 40 minutes. So we're back to them being even bigger than before. It's not all shapes and sizes, it's 140kg monsters.
Take the penalties away, and teams will try to get away with playing smaller faster front rowers... but the defensive line becomes tougher to break with less mismatches etc, so there needs to be some sort of a balance or at least thinking it out thoroughly to avoid/mitigate unintended consequences of trying to make the game more open but actually doing the reverse. Which is what the bench changes did - make it safer by having a specialist front row bench, oh wait now they're only playing 40 and are fucking huge and the collisions are more powerful and it's less safe.

Scrums are an odd one, they absolutely are and should remain a key restart point of the game, and for some teams they are a weapon, however as I have said, scrumming for pens is wrong, and plenty of teams seem to do this, rather than using it to restart and play from.

Cant really play for pens at lineout time, but it is the same situation to restart the game with a competition for the ball.

Over the years, the number of scrums has reduced, I expect a by-product is the lineouts must have increased, given the ball in play numbers were not high for a long time too.

It's getting that balance right, rewarding teams for being dominant, but not punishing teams through penalties or cards simply for not being as good, then as above, there seems an element of guesswork at scrum-time on some calls made by refs along with what you'd think is an unconscious bias towards the dominant team in those closer calls.

@W32 said in Bok scrum:

@nostrildamus said in Bok scrum:

@W32 said in Bok scrum:

The reason the bok scrum is dominant is because they spend more time live scrummaging and working on their technique as a unit than other teams. Its not anything other than hard work.

Right. Only hard work.

View embedded content

Absolutely. Are you suggesting bok players are tested less than the ab players? Laughable

No. I am linking to an overseas newspaper article that I did not write, and letting the overly sensitive draw their own feverish conclusions! Laughable indeed!

@nostrildamus said in Bok scrum:

@W32 said in Bok scrum:

@nostrildamus said in Bok scrum:

@W32 said in Bok scrum:

The reason the bok scrum is dominant is because they spend more time live scrummaging and working on their technique as a unit than other teams. Its not anything other than hard work.

Right. Only hard work.

View embedded content

Absolutely. Are you suggesting bok players are tested less than the ab players? Laughable

No. I am linking to an overseas newspaper article that I did not write, and letting the overly sensitive draw their own feverish conclusions! Laughable indeed!

Indeed. For a minute I thought it was a Ben Smith article.

@W32 said in Bok scrum:

Indeed. For a minute I thought it was a Ben Smith article.

Ben Smith's influence on WADA is incredible

Heavens! Luckily bloemfontein has nothing to do with international dope testing. But i'm sure you understand how that works......right? The springboks are tested just like any team and the samples are sent to a world rugby approved test lab.

By your logic, since there aren't any wada approved labs in new zealand, new zealand players must be dopers. Or perhaps its just dopes who think they have the moral high ground in these fishing exercises....

@W32 said in Bok scrum:

Heavens! Luckily bloemfontein has nothing to do with international dope testing. But i'm sure you understand how that works......right? The springboks are tested just like any team and the samples are sent to a world rugby approved test lab.

By your logic, since there aren't any wada approved labs in new zealand, new zealand players must be dopers. Or perhaps its just dopes who think they have the moral high ground in these fishing exercises....

By my logic? Wow. I never wrote premises or conclusion, your inference is all yours!
Your analogy only has some faint whiff of relevance if WADA banned a lab in NZ. If there isn't one to ban there is no way to say NZers must be dopers. That is one of the loopiest attempts at reductio ad absurdum I have seen on here, and I have seen a few...

@DaGrubster said in Bok scrum:

Looking forward to seeing how the AB pack stands up against the bokke scrum this year.

After last season, i'd assume that all the teams that have the bokke on their schedule this year, will be doing some extra scrum work.

@nostrildamus said in Bok scrum:

@W32 said in Bok scrum:

Heavens! Luckily bloemfontein has nothing to do with international dope testing. But i'm sure you understand how that works......right? The springboks are tested just like any team and the samples are sent to a world rugby approved test lab.

By your logic, since there aren't any wada approved labs in new zealand, new zealand players must be dopers. Or perhaps its just dopes who think they have the moral high ground in these fishing exercises....

By my logic? Wow. I never wrote premises or conclusion, your inference is all yours!
Your analogy only has some faint whiff of relevance if WADA banned a lab in NZ. If there isn't one to ban there is no way to say NZers must be dopers. That is one of the loopiest attempts at reductio ad absurdum I have seen on here, and I have seen a few...

My bad and thanks for the correction! The bok dominance is entirely down to superior technique, rugby intelligence, excellent coaching, some work and lastly weak opposition!

@reprobate said in Bok scrum:

Yeah look I'm not defending scrum penalties, just saying that right now that is how it is.
The other side is that there used to be 20+ scrums and the fatties playing 80. They had to have a degree of fitness and fatigue was a big factor - you might be huge and strong, but there is a downside to that. WR wanted to reduce the number of scrums - because apparently people don't want to watch that (I disagree with that, they don't have to take so long and are a great attacking platform), so being hugely powerful became less important - as per your initial point - it's a ruck game. But the bench changes meant that the fatties only have to play 40 minutes. So we're back to them being even bigger than before. It's not all shapes and sizes, it's 140kg monsters.
Take the penalties away, and teams will try to get away with playing smaller faster front rowers... but the defensive line becomes tougher to break with less mismatches etc, so there needs to be some sort of a balance or at least thinking it out thoroughly to avoid/mitigate unintended consequences of trying to make the game more open but actually doing the reverse. Which is what the bench changes did - make it safer by having a specialist front row bench, oh wait now they're only playing 40 and are fucking huge and the collisions are more powerful and it's less safe.

Yeah, agree with pretty much everything there.

I'm of the opinion that the fatties are now taking the piss.
They were playin silly buggers at scrum time, and the result of that was that they got a full front row put on the subs bench, and now they are playing silly buggers with the bench rules.
That's takin the piss!

Allowing the scrum to be powered up as much as it has been over the past couple of decades has definitely made the game more unsafe.

As for a game for all shapes and sizes; not at the elite level, just big, and bigger.

I like the scrum too; but I f'n hate the f'n about, the resets and all the rest.
I think that's what WR doesn't like; it's not a good look, only a scrum aficionado can appreciate it.
The casual fan not so much, and that's the fan you want to attract to the game.
The casual fans you need if you want to get everyone paid.

I say put the clock on them (45 will probably be about right); and no resets.
Put the onus on the front rowers themselves to get it right.
If your scrum is dominant, it is your responsibilty to keep the scrum up, and push straight.
If they keep messing up then the ref just jumps in and blows for a free kick.
Quick tap, and the game moves on.

They scrums have been ok in SR this season, not too much f'n about.
The refs not putting up with much rubbish either.
And I think the smaller, faster, frontrowers are getting a bit more of a look in.

@mohikamo said in Bok scrum:

@reprobate said in Bok scrum:

Yeah look I'm not defending scrum penalties, just saying that right now that is how it is.
The other side is that there used to be 20+ scrums and the fatties playing 80. They had to have a degree of fitness and fatigue was a big factor - you might be huge and strong, but there is a downside to that. WR wanted to reduce the number of scrums - because apparently people don't want to watch that (I disagree with that, they don't have to take so long and are a great attacking platform), so being hugely powerful became less important - as per your initial point - it's a ruck game. But the bench changes meant that the fatties only have to play 40 minutes. So we're back to them being even bigger than before. It's not all shapes and sizes, it's 140kg monsters.
Take the penalties away, and teams will try to get away with playing smaller faster front rowers... but the defensive line becomes tougher to break with less mismatches etc, so there needs to be some sort of a balance or at least thinking it out thoroughly to avoid/mitigate unintended consequences of trying to make the game more open but actually doing the reverse. Which is what the bench changes did - make it safer by having a specialist front row bench, oh wait now they're only playing 40 and are fucking huge and the collisions are more powerful and it's less safe.

Yeah, agree with pretty much everything there.

I'm of the opinion that the fatties are now taking the piss.
They were playin silly buggers at scrum time, and the result of that was that they got a full front row put on the subs bench, and now they are playing silly buggers with the bench rules.
That's takin the piss!

Allowing the scrum to be powered up as much as it has been over the past couple of decades has definitely made the game more unsafe.

As for a game for all shapes and sizes; not at the elite level, just big, and bigger.

I like the scrum too; but I f'n hate the f'n about, the resets and all the rest.
I think that's what WR doesn't like; it's not a good look, only a scrum aficionado can appreciate it.
The casual fan not so much, and that's the fan you want to attract to the game.
The casual fans you need if you want to get everyone paid.

I say put the clock on them (45 will probably be about right); and no resets.
Put the onus on the front rowers themselves to get it right.
If your scrum is dominant, it is your responsibilty to keep the scrum up, and push straight.
If they keep messing up then the ref just jumps in and blows for a free kick.
Quick tap, and the game moves on.

They scrums have been ok in SR this season, not too much f'n about.
The refs not putting up with much rubbish either.
And I think the smaller, faster, frontrowers are getting a bit more of a look in.

Yeah, the more I think about it the more I think the whole thing is a mess of 'our' own making. Both lineouts and scrums used to be genuinely a bit of a lottery for possession - no lifting in lineouts, and balls down the middle of the scrum. Now, because of rule changes, good teams operate at 90%+ in both. So they are no longer contests for the ball. Defensive lines are set. The game is heavily structured. Players are huge. We made it that way. And the result is that we are subject to endless fucking box kicks to make genuine contests, where loose unstructured play and scoring opportunities are created. We have over-structured it and remove turnover ball from the game, so coaches and players have found ways to re-create it - broken field rugby is what we all want to see, and we've done our best to kill it, so now we have a bastardised shit version.
The game is not heading in a good direction. It's turning into a contested high kicking game / lineout maul game which hinges on ref decisions and cards, and something needs to shift.

@W32 said in Bok scrum:

@nostrildamus said in Bok scrum:

@W32 said in Bok scrum:

Heavens! Luckily bloemfontein has nothing to do with international dope testing. But i'm sure you understand how that works......right? The springboks are tested just like any team and the samples are sent to a world rugby approved test lab.

By your logic, since there aren't any wada approved labs in new zealand, new zealand players must be dopers. Or perhaps its just dopes who think they have the moral high ground in these fishing exercises....

By my logic? Wow. I never wrote premises or conclusion, your inference is all yours!
Your analogy only has some faint whiff of relevance if WADA banned a lab in NZ. If there isn't one to ban there is no way to say NZers must be dopers. That is one of the loopiest attempts at reductio ad absurdum I have seen on here, and I have seen a few...

My bad and thanks for the correction! The bok dominance is entirely down to superior technique, rugby intelligence, excellent coaching, some work and lastly weak opposition!

So weak they/we make the Boks look good? Sure!
Since your team is so wonderful, please send Tony Brown back to NZ, you clearly don't need him, thanks!

@mohikamo said in Bok scrum:

I say put the clock on them (45 will probably be about right); and no resets.
Put the onus on the front rowers themselves to get it right.
If your scrum is dominant, it is your responsibilty to keep the scrum up, and push straight.
If they keep messing up then the ref just jumps in and blows for a free kick.
Quick tap, and the game moves on.

The scrums have to be set much, much quicker than a 45 sec clock. As it is the fastest of them takes about that and it's an eternity from a viewing perspective.

I'd be wary of making the dominant scrum responsible too, especially if a shit scrum can win a free-kick from being both conniving and useless.

I think that the general trend is good, in that if the ball is available, just play on. But cheats like Porter should be penalised off the park.

@antipodean said in Bok scrum:

conniving

That's where the ref comes in, and makes a call.
I've seen a few refs actually call it like that this season.
Making a different call depending on whether he thought a player infringed deliberately, or unintentionally.

@reprobate said in Bok scrum:

The game is not heading in a good direction.

The game has been heading in a poor direction for a very long time imo.
But I actually think it may have turned a corner for the better.
SR has looked a bit better this year, but lets wait to see what happens in the international season.
I've seen some great play down in the amateurs.

@antipodean said in Bok scrum:

The scrums have to be set much, much quicker than a 45 sec clock. As it is the fastest of them takes about that and it's an eternity from a viewing perspective.

From what I've seen this season, most teams seem to be using a scrum call as an opportunity for a breather.
Often the ref calls time off, for whatever reason.
If we really did have the scrum on a 45 sec clock; that really would change the game.
The fatigue factor would come in big time.

Remembering that in general play, you could have up to 3 breakdown/ruck plays inside 45 seconds.

@mohikamo said in Bok scrum:

@antipodean said in Bok scrum:

The scrums have to be set much, much quicker than a 45 sec clock. As it is the fastest of them takes about that and it's an eternity from a viewing perspective.

From what I've seen this season, most teams seem to be using a scrum call as an opportunity for a breather.
Often the ref calls time off, for whatever reason.
If we really did have the scrum on a 45 sec clock; that really would change the game.
The fatigue factor would come in big time.

Remembering that in general play, you could have up to 3 breakdown/ruck plays inside 45 seconds.

I understand what you're saying now and I agree that a clock from the moment the scrum is called could be a good idea. I would like to see a team that takes the opportunity for a rest because a teammate needs a shoe tightened penalised. In my mind there has to be a real impetus to participating, rather than a team deciding it's better to get set defensively etc.

@nostrildamus said in Bok scrum:

@W32 said in Bok scrum:

@nostrildamus said in Bok scrum:

@W32 said in Bok scrum:

Heavens! Luckily bloemfontein has nothing to do with international dope testing. But i'm sure you understand how that works......right? The springboks are tested just like any team and the samples are sent to a world rugby approved test lab.

By your logic, since there aren't any wada approved labs in new zealand, new zealand players must be dopers. Or perhaps its just dopes who think they have the moral high ground in these fishing exercises....

By my logic? Wow. I never wrote premises or conclusion, your inference is all yours!
Your analogy only has some faint whiff of relevance if WADA banned a lab in NZ. If there isn't one to ban there is no way to say NZers must be dopers. That is one of the loopiest attempts at reductio ad absurdum I have seen on here, and I have seen a few...

My bad and thanks for the correction! The bok dominance is entirely down to superior technique, rugby intelligence, excellent coaching, some work and lastly weak opposition!

So weak they/we make the Boks look good? Sure!
Since your team is so wonderful, please send Tony Brown back to NZ, you clearly don't need him, thanks!

Once we have Tony adequately re-educated we will deploy him back to enzed.