Failure to referee the Scrum

[Ron]

Here is the link to an excellent blog on the inability of officials to referee the scrum.

http://rugbylaw.blogspot.ie/2012/10/leg ... crums.html

[The Nudger]

What a truly excellent article, one hopes that the IRB's laws panel will read it but I suspect not.

For all the wailing and gnashing of teeth about the shambles the scrum has become, the detrimental fact this is having on the game and the demands for a solution to be found, one simple fact is too often ignored - that there is a very easy and surprisingly elegant way to fix this mess. Apply the laws of the game!

Why top level referees are being allowed/instructed to not apply these laws is an enduring mystery to me

[GaryIPA]

In similar mode

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/rugbyu ... scrum.html

[The Nudger]

I know Brian Moore remains an unpopular figure among Scottish supporters due to the fact that he was so spectacularly obnoxious when he was playing (I for one couldn't abide him in those days) but I really don't beleive there's a a better writer on rugby in Britain at the moment.

His Monday columns in the Torygraph should be required reading for any serious rugby fan and I often read them and find myself thinking that if only Moore was the chairman of the IRB we'd have a much better game!

[Weegie]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgWdc1ZBPsk

This is the link to the YouTube video of the 1987 RWC posted in the Planet Rugby thread on this subject. Go to about 4mins in and you see the scrum get set within about 20sec, and over in about a minute. A fair and hard contest but none of the fannying around we have today.