Bringing Down a Scrum

dreamer_ire

How can you tell who has brought down a scrum?

I love rugby and watch it regularly (have never played), I appreciate that this is a very broad question but I'd appreciate even general pointers on what to look out for.

Thanks

[Jackass]

Coming from a back (so haven't a clue), I think it's all to do with the bind.

If a prop drops his shoulder on bind, he is judged to have collapsed the scrum. If he pulls down his opposite props shoulder, he is also judged to have collapsed the scrum. (by getting opposition shoulder down he has very bad bind and is much easier to shove backwards, Prop is highley technical position believe it or not.)

The problem is, when a shoulder drops, was it pulled down or was it dropped on purpose, or who's messing up the bind here? Very difficult to referee. (and understand unless you're one of them)

That's my take on it anyway, but very open to correction.

il gatto

There's many ways to bring it down. One example is not binding correctly, not creating a secure bind or binding with your opposing player and tugging his sleeve downwards. You often see that on the closer up shots. Another is diving low in the engagement, putting yourself under your opposing player, making him go over the top. Often all it takes is any one of the front row to drop a shoulder. Sometimes it's obvious whose brought down a scrum. Usually it's not, but a good ref sees things the crowd or cameras don't. Sometimes the refs stuff it up too. It's just the dark art of the front row scrummager.

il gatto

Got there first {Jackass}. I nearly said exactly the same. I was saddened to see my wisdom's (?:rolleyes:) thunder stolen like that:D.

Trojan

One thing that annoys me is that the director/cameraman never gets a real close zoom in on the scrum. (I know you don't always want that, but sometimes they get real interesting.)

My first website (in 1996) had advice for props on how to screw the opposite prop

Some of my advice was (WARNING DO NOT DO THIS)

"Screw" the loosehead:
grab the arm of his jersey, just above the elbow, pull his arm down & into him, pulling him sideways. This really makes it difficult for him to get a decent drive against you if you do it right.

Bore into him:
get your head in under his chest and lift. This will put cause him great difficulty, the pressure on his chest is annoying and disturbs his drive, also his breathing, so he can't cause you any hassle.

Bore the hooker:
If the loosehead isn't giving you much trouble you can really help your hooker by taking the oppostion hooker out of it, he can't do much. Be careful though, you might pop him doing this & refs don't like it at all!

Drop your head:
Drop your head and try to block the opposition hookers view of the ball as it comes in. This can be extremely infuriating for the hooker who can't strike accurately because of this.

Grab the hookers hand:
If the hooker is signaling the feed to the scrum-half using a hand-tap signal you can legally bind your hand over his, so the scrum-half can't be sure of the timing.

Strike at the ball:
A tighthead can often win the ball against the head by hooking himself. Make sure your scrum is under no pressure before you try this!

Take it low! Warn your hooker & 2nd row, then see how low you can take the scrum (on opposition ball only obviously!). Be careful not to collapse

dreamer_ire

+1

.DarDarBinks

Hmmmm i shall forward this to my front row muhahahaha

Eoin

"Screw" the loosehead:
grab the arm of his jersey, just above the elbow, pull his arm down & into him, pulling him sideways. This really makes it difficult for him to get a decent drive against you if you do it right.

Bore into him:
get your head in under his chest and lift. This will put cause him great difficulty, the pressure on his chest is annoying and disturbs his drive, also his breathing, so he can't cause you any hassle.

A couple of things a loose-head can do to try and counter-act this:

Bind very high on the opposing tight-head - preferably on his back. That makes it very hard to pull the arm down (which is being penalised a bit more these days).

While engaging, look slightly to the outside (left) of the scrum. It makes it that little bit harder for the tight-head to turn you into the scrum.

One for hookers on the opposition scrum: Rotate your right arm forward, so the palm of your hand is facing backwards rather than flat on the tight-head. This rotates your shoulder, putting a lot of pressure on the other hooker. This will normally force his head to be looking down a bit more, and therefore makes it harder to strike.

To answer the OP - in a lot of cases, the ref will look at the loose-head to see if he dropped his bind.

tHE vAGGABOND

Anyone who collapses a scrum on purpose is an idiot..

Read about this lad, who was capped a few under age levels for england, but broke his neck in a collapsed scrum in a training session..

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/hereford/worcs/7679641.stm

Eoin

I agree, but the problem is that you can get penalised for popping up your heads in the scrum, which in my experience you have to do in 99% of the cases because your neck is being bent. In most cases this is because of illegal driving up by the opposing front row, but isn't called nearly as often.