The Wallaby scrum - The real deal or a real meal?
Rugby365 editor Jan de Koning takes a look at the Australian team’s new-found scrumming power and asks if they are indeed the real deal? It makes for an interesting debate!
Much has been made, by the Australian media, of their new ‘powerful’ scrum… especially loosehead prop Matt Dunning’s new-found bulk.
However, the jury is still out on that one – with the big question being if they are indeed the real deal or are they still just making a real meal of it?
Their new-found reputation as a scrumming powerhouse is based on a one-off performance against the Springboks in Cape Town last month. And even then there were questions raised about their tactics afterwards.
This past weekend, despite beating the All Blacks 20-15 in Melbourne, the scrums were again a mess… a big, BIG mess.
At least eight penalties or free-kicks were awarded and there were 20-odd scrum resets.
New Zealand is known as ‘The Land of the Long White Cloud’.
One of my colleagues, at the weekend, suggested we should rename Australia ‘The Land of the Falling Scrum’.
I tend to agree with him, and a number of other critics, that the Wallabies are no better at scrum time than they were in 2005 when England’s so-called ‘Prop Idol’ Andrew Sheridan shattered the Australian front row.
Neither of his opposite numbers finished that match at Twickenham. First, Al Baxter proved unable to deal with Sheridan’s power, and was eventually sin-binned late in the second half for collapsing a scrum after being warned for repeated scrum violations. Shortly afterwards, Mr Dunning, who was forced to move to the tighthead side opposite Sheridan, was stretchered off after a scrum with what was feared to be a serious neck injury. Due to the sin-binning and Dunning’s injury, the referee ordered uncontested scrums for the last 10 minutes of the match.
Dunning is now back, apparently bigger and bulkier, and after a series of messed-up scrums in Cape Town he was hailed as the new Wallaby hero.
The Aussie media’s hero-worshipping all collapsed in a heap on the Melbourne Cricket Ground turf last week – where penalties, free-kicks and resets were the order of the day.
For an astute observer, the problem (or rather Australia’s new-found ‘power’) would have been easy to spot.
Having always regarded the scrums as a ‘restart option’ rather than a ‘contest’ – as most other countries do – the Australians have become astute at the art of nullifying opposition scrums through dubious tactics.
First we had Bill Young’s trickery (Remember him? Jake White’s ‘Stellenbosch’ prop?), then the masterful collapses and now the big Wallaby rush.
Yes, they rush the scrum by anticipating the referee’s call and engaging moments before the actual call comes. They also bring a ‘second wave’ in, with their locks and loose forwards engaging slightly after the front row.
It is clever, but it is illegal.
Rookie English referee Wayne Barnes was caught out by this trickery in Cape Town and the Bok scrum (a real South African strength) was nullified.
South African referee Marius Jonker – in what was just his first Bledisloe Cup match – did not fall for their tricks in Melbourne, however, and the result was a series of penalties and free-kicks.
The only problem was that the All Blacks had also done their homework and anticipated the Aussie rush. Often they got their timing wrong and were penalised just as much as the Wallabies. That is why Melbourne was such a mess.
I am yet to be convinced that the Australians are real scrum contenders and feel teams will quickly find a way to counter their new ‘rush scrum’, which will again see them shoved backwards at a rate of knots.
Do you agree/disagree with Jan?
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