The scrum is a problem for rugby - lawmakers now face a crucial choice

The scrum is not popular. It takes up too much time to set up, sometimes more than once.

It’s not a fair contest because the law requiring the ball to be put in straight is ignored. It is more and more seen as a means of winning a penalty rather than re-starting the game and, as used to be both theory and practice, getting the ball to the backs while forwards are, for the moment at least, out of the way.

All these objections are reasonable. Can suitable answers be found?

First the set-up and engagement with the referee shouting out instructions. Sometimes he or she is not satisfied and it has to be done again. This gradual set-up was brought in for safety reasons: to prevent a mighty collision as each scrum sought to get the upper hand. Well ,this was laudable. Nevertheless, it’s unsatisfactory.

When I coached schoolboys decades ago, we had them doing this by numbers: first the front-row engage with no movement forward or back, then the second row and then the No 8. Do it like this and there is no collision, or, if there is, it is easily spotted and penalised.

Second, the put-in. Referees insist (once or twice in a match anyway) that the ball is thrown in straight at the line-out, but they have given up on the set scrum. There was a brief flurry a few years ago when referees penalised at least one squint put-in a match – one remembers the horrified indignation on Ali Price’s face when he was penalised for a squint put-in at a defensive 5-metres scrum in Cardiff – but the law was soon ignored again. Some say that it is now too dangerous, given the power of scrums, for hookers to strike for the ball, and this may be true. Consequently, the ball is now usually fed straight into the second row (as in Rugby League scrums) and