New Scrum Laws - Help Or Hindrance?

With only a day to go before the 2013/14 Premiership season begins and the IRB’s new scrum laws are implemented, Talking Rugby Union looks at how beneficial they will be for the game.

The Premiership is part of an IRB global trail, which aims to lessen the impact of the scrum and improve player safety. The IRB also desire a more stable game, with more successful scrums and much fewer resets.

Specifically, referees will now call: “Crouch, Bind, Set”, to engage a scrum. Props will crouch on the referee’s call; opposing props will then bind using their outside arm, once the referee has called bind.

Finally, the bind will be maintained until the referee calls set, at this point both sides will engage.

The IRB has also instructed to referees that they should ensure that the ball does not enter the tunnel unless the scrum is square and stationary, and the ball MUST be put-in straight.

The introduction of the new scrum laws provides one of rugby’s most contentious amendments in the last decade.

A number of Premiership players and coaches have already expressed their concern, including Richard Cockerill of Leicester, Exeter’s Richard Baxter, Northampton’s Jim Mallinder and Lions and England hooker Tom Youngs, who all believe the new laws may be dangerous, making players even more vulnerable.

“When they change these laws, nobody asks Premiership coaches about the laws of the scrums," Cockerill voiced when he spoke to BBC Sport.

"Who changes these things and what's their agenda?"

He added: "You'd like to think that the people who make and change these laws consult Premiership coaches instead of just doing it."

Speaking at a Rugby Football Union conference on the matter, senior English referee, Wayne Barnes, explained that “we have told the players how we want the scrum – we want it balanced, we want it high, we want it stationary and we want the ball down the middle. That ball has to go in straight. If we don’t deliver on that we will be held to account by everyone, and rightly so.

“This is a season-long trial of the law and we have to do this throughout. We don’t want to start off in week one being very harsh and then by week 20 everyone has forgotten about it. We have to be held to account throughout the season to make sure that this works. Players and coaches have to buy into this. If a player continues to do something that we told them in pre-season they shouldn’t do – such as putting in the ball straight – there will be sanctions.”

In effect there is going to be much more emphasis on the ‘technique’ of the scrum; hooking the ball back for your side, rather than a sheer strength contest.

It is the general consensus between officials that the new initiative will lessen the impact of the scrum by about 25 per cent.

The new laws have already been integrated in the Southern hemisphere, with the current Rugby Championship. However, the new laws, first featured in Sydney between Australia and New Zealand, have been received with mixed reviews.

Commentators after the game on Australian television believed that the new laws were spoiling the game, making it even more of a mess than before. At one point, two of the world’s best scrum-halves, Will Genia and Aaron Smith, were caught laughing with each other at the prospect of getting red-carded for not feeding the ball straight.

Cockerill suggested to BBC Sport that the new laws were brought into place after pressure from Southern hemisphere sides.

"They say it's for safety, but it looks like the southern hemisphere are just trying to depower the scrum so the ball comes in and out," the Tigers coach said.

"I don't know whether it's depowering the scrum.”

It seems as though the jury is still out on the issue of rugby’s new scrum. The laws are on parole for a year around the globe, and we will only be able to grasp how beneficial they are when the season begins and players become more accustomed to the changes.

With the Aviva Premiership’s first game being this Friday at Kingston Park, between Newcastle and Bath, there’s not long to wait.