Seamus Harty on Munster's scrums

ormond lad

From
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/sport/2011/0202/1224288499328.htmlChasing the Hit

Scrum Focus: The international scrum can be a thing of
beauty to behold, but it requires skill. Most players can
benefit from taking time to understand its potent influence
on the game, writes Liam Toland

WHAT IS THE difference between an International scrum
and a Stradivarius? You won’t get killed playing the
Stradivarius. The name “Stradivarius” has become a
superlative often associated with excellence whose quality
and sound has defied attempts to explain or reproduce.
Sound familiar? The international scrum, like the
Stradivarius, is a thing of beauty that will forever remain
impossible to explain and for some this Six Nations will be
impossible to reproduce.

There are few in Irish rugby that can equate a scrum to the
Stradivarius. I had the privilege of observing in my playing
days (as I was but a backrow) two, TW Roland ‘Roly’
Meates and Des Fitzgerald in full flight. They bring untold
amounts of knowledge to a much underutilised attacking
force – one which Keith Wood readily admits to “loving it”.

Let me give you my two cents bit. The maximum size of a
rugby union pitch is 6,900

sq m. The scrum corrals 18 players into 40 sq m, leaving
12 players to play with 6,860 sq m. Why, then, the lack of
attack? Can we expect the Six Nations teams to exploit the
15 or so scrums each match? With so much space, Ireland
need to prioritise the tight head as a scrummager. Suffice
to say the Irish fullback and tight head are intrinsically
linked at scrum time. Why? And how does the defensive
scrum scupper the attack?

Another man close to home has even more love for
analysing, experimenting and teaching the Stradivarius of
scrummaging. I recently hooked up with a genuine artisan
of all things scrummaging. The role of the set up, the hit,
the bind, the feet position, the chasing through, the unit
itself were all discussed. He is a true practitioner following
the age old form of teaching EDIP – Explain, Demonstrate,
Imitate and Practise. Yes, at 64 years of age, Seamus
Harty, from the well-known Ryan Harty Menswear Shop in
Nenagh, does exactly that.

Harty was recently united through Ollie Campbell with his
long-lost scrum brother Roly Meates. After a brief
telephone discussion, they decided to meet. Harty, being
the younger (sorry Roly), agreed to travel to Dublin. After
waxing lyrical for 10 minutes, they abandoned the
“explanation” phase and headed into the “demonstration”
phase. For more than two hours, these grown men locked
horns in Roly’s scrum cave. There, nearly 90 years of
experimentation came pouring out.

Harty, standing at 5ft 8in with a fighting weight of 13st 2lbs,
is the antithesis of our modern-day tight head and who, at
times, resembles a sprightly Jackie Kyle. It’s all very fine
locking down against Roly, but a modern prop would surely
kill him. Harty believes passionately that size does not
matter – but only when you can do what you want.

Carl Hayman, the world’s leading tight head stands at 6ft
4in and weighs nearly 18st 9lbs. A tidy sum, no doubt. He
can pretty much do what he wants at scrum time. Why then
so much controversy with our big boys? To illustrate his
point, Harty often asks big fellows to pack down against
him as he did in a well-known Limerick club. On pinning the
unsuspecting prop, he then continued to talk him through
the vagaries of the trajectory of the arm, the subsequent
bind, the head position and finally the feet. Clearly, he
couldn’t perform in a full pack, but one-on-one, he
generally has the technique to cope.

The key to the Irish scrum this Six Nations, like any
business in our troubled economy, is a fervent commitment
to the basics. According to Harty, most scrums fail around
the bind. For our tight heads, this is the key – firstly to
survival and secondly to dominance. In everything Harty
explains, demonstration follows immediately as he firstly
mimics the tight head stance (similar in ways to a boxer).
He then explains in detail the bind. As this is the key to
scrummaging, I began to wonder how many referees and
practitioners have benefited from this tuition. For obvious
reasons, we discuss at length the tight head. Harty is very
insistent on the crouch (relax), touch (relax), pause (relax)
and engage as the method. Like an Olympic lifter, the tight
head must focus totally on the engage with the hit being
crucial, which allows the winner to scrummage with knees
behind hips. The head must not give space to the loose
head, as doing so will allow him to manoeuvre. On “touch”,
the tight head should never touch the shoulder but the
bicep. The trajectory of his arm is absolutely crucial. This
will allow the tight head to mimic a boxer’s upper cut and,
using his elbow, trap the loose head’s arm. Too often, our
big boys use their forearm. Between his head placement
and fixing the arm he will control the loose head.

Interestingly, he insists that the number 8 is the man to
lead the hit. Second rows and backrows must never drop a
knee and on binding, must rotate their arms into the
quarter to three position. The number 8 is the sprinter of
the pack and must be in the blocks ready to fire the scrum
in on “engage”. The front row is poised and teetering on
the brink, sitting on the second rows. Wing forwards must
be square and scrummage on their full shoulder.

I agreed with Harty, but I also tried to explain the world
that a backrow experiences on his own line. Think of
packing down at blindside on a scrum five metres out with
a 15m blindside. Now think of Sean O’Brien packing down
at the opposition’s base readying himself to plough over
me. Do I really care about the tight head’s position? No,
I’ve enough problems of my own.

Harty calmly goes on to explain the value of his philosophy.
Once again, I’m sucked in. Toulon, as Harty points out,
managed on two occasions to more than nullify the Munster
scrum and protect their backrow. A massive Toulon hit was
followed by “chasing the hit”. On presentation of the
Munster ball, Toulon all stepped to the left, depowered
Munster, dipped in height and powered forward. In doing
so, they completely destabilised the Munster scrum and
backrow, neutralising any possible attack. Harty pauses
and then asks; think of the effect on the Munster front
row’s necks?

How can you prevent such a recurrence? Once again, Harty
returns to the symbiotic relationship between the bind and
“chasing the hit”. One action is to follow the shift left by
cantering right. Almost impossible, as when will Toulon
decide to shift? The focus must return to the Irish tight
head fixing his loose head firmly, no space at all to adjust.
He then traps the loose head’s arm/bind and locks him in
place. Chasing the hit becomes crucial. Harty is at pains to
point out that this is not an act similar to pushing the
scrummaging machine 15m down the pitch, as is
customary in clubs. He talks about violently fixing the
opposition prop in place with head, arm/bind and feet,
starving him of his power and oxygen that will prevent him
moving an inch, be it left, right, forward or back. That,
scrum lovers, is “chasing the hit”.

As we parted company I felt deeply honoured to have
shared an evening with a true expert and exponent of a
skill that is integral to our game, and one which is
unfortunately slowly slipping away from our clubs. I
couldn’t help feel a pang of sadness that men like Harty
and Meates have so much to offer, and it is through men of
such calibre that our future scrums can prosper. Harty, like
many before him, prided himself in being self-taught,
experimenting with his 13 stones to wreak much havoc on
his invariably bigger opponents. He admits that since
hanging up his playing boots, he has devoted – like Meates
– his time to understanding the scrum and its potential
influence on the game. In the world of academia, he would
be a professor, constantly learning, exploring and, most
importantly, teaching future coaches the arts.

I leave you with Seamus Harty’s knowledge – but ask the
questions. How does all this science translate into reality?
How do referees and players cope? Do they cheat (referees
players)? I look forward to Friday’s column in the main
paper and thrashing this scrummaging thorny chestnut out.

Amazotheamazing

Interesting article, who is Seamus Harty (while not being a shopkeeper in Nenagh)?

It's a pity to see guys like him, Meates and Ray McLoughlin sidelined.

Trojan

Good article. What's the source?

[Jackass]

Whatever you lads get up to in there, just try and get the ball out to me and I'll fire it down the filed! :pac:

Monty Burnz

Trojan wrote: »

Good article. What's the source?

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/sport/2011/0202/1224288499328.html

Morf

The article was in the IT 6 nations supplement.

bamboozling

As someone who has worked with Seamus Harty at clinics he is first of all an absolute gentleman. Secondly the man knows everything there is to know about scrummaging.

As someone who is also 6ft 3in and 19st he is virtually immovable in a 1vs1 situation and I'd classify myself as someone with decent technique.

He gets so low to the ground and he believes the bind is key, what you do with your bind dictates the position you can get into and the position your opposite number can get into.

I could go on but I'm quite tired. Basically people should take serious notice of what this man says because there are very few with the knowledge he possesses.

theKramer

Lets get him a job with Munster