{"id":172043,"date":"2025-06-10T04:35:19","date_gmt":"2025-06-10T04:35:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/172043\/"},"modified":"2025-06-10T04:35:19","modified_gmt":"2025-06-10T04:35:19","slug":"the-reds-whimpering-exit-shows-super-rugby-scrums-still-matter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/172043\/","title":{"rendered":"The Reds’ ‘whimpering’ exit shows Super Rugby scrums still matter"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

More legato, less staccato. The governing principle of Super Rugby Pacific<\/a> 2025 at the refereeing \u2018audition\u2019 before the season ever started was better flow and connections between passages of play, with fewer stoppages. The symphony of the rugby \u2018music\u2019 in the southern hemisphere was about to change for the better.<\/p>\n

Unprompted interventions by the TMO were to be limited, and there would be less interference with the acting nine at ruck, maul and scrum, reduced time for goal kicks [60 seconds, down from 90], and uncontested lineouts allowed to proceed even if they were not straight.<\/p>\n

SANZAAR claimed that they were all \u201cinnovations [which] aim to enhance the flow of the game\u2026 while referees will also be empowered to lead decision-making.\u201d<\/p>\n

With two knockout rounds yet to come, it looks like somewhere between one and two minutes of total game time may have been saved compared to other competitions around the globe, so it is fair to say the experiment has worked. Broadly speaking.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the single most stubbornly resistant aspect of the game remains standing at the gate to freedom, with arms folded and shaking a forbidding finger, and that is the set scrum. Scrums are notorious for creating staccato and \u2018eating the clock\u2019 via the time consumed for initial set-up, subsequent resets, free-kicks and penalties. None of those are agreeable to the visionaries who want to create a more fluent and seamless spectacle.<\/p>\n

Super Rugby officials have tried their best to minimise the stoppages created by scrums in regular season play by calling \u2018play on\u2019 wherever possible. Take a look at the following table illustrating the percentage of penalties currently awarded in the top-tier club\/provincial competitions around the world.<\/p>\n

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The percentage difference between Super Rugby and Top 14<\/a> may look relatively insignificant on paper, but in reality it means 400 fewer stoppages, albeit in a domestic season roughly half the duration. There is also a clear rift in refereeing thinking between SRP and the Premiership on one side, and URC and Top 14 on the other, with more scrums and more penalties from them awarded in the latter two competitions. There are two ways of playing the game, two forks in the road towards international rugby.<\/p>\n

The importance of scrums in the context of overall success is a constant, however they are refereed.<\/p>\n

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There is a very lucid correlation between success via qualification to the play-off stages and coming out on the right side of the ledger in terms of scrum penalties. The top six are positive [+53 cumulative] and the bottom five are negative [-53]. Even the points split between the top three and the three teams directly below them in 4-6 is accurately mirrored \u2013 +47 versus +6 \u2013 while the underachievement of the Queensland Reds<\/a> and the New South Wales Waratahs<\/a> over the season is implied: if scrum penalty differential really does reflect overall potential, both franchises could have finished higher in the table than they did.<\/p>\n

Queensland head coach and Wallaby supremo-in-waiting Les Kiss all but acknowledged the fact in the aftermath of his side\u2019s crushing 32-12 loss to the Crusaders<\/a> in Christchurch.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe game certainly puts you in a despondent mood,\u201d he said. \u201cThey punished us. Their set-piece and scrum particularly put us under pressure and we couldn\u2019t adapt quick enough.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn terms of the season, there are a lot of pleasing things. We have a game that\u2019s compelling when we get it going, maybe the conditions tonight and the set-piece pressure just pushed us off that tonight. We needed to be a bit more direct and earn the front yard before we went out the back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once again, there was a high correlation between scrum success and scoring opportunity. The Reds scored their brace of tries in the same period when they won their only two scrum penalties [67th-76th minutes]. But by then, the Crusaders were 27-0 ahead on the scoreboard and leading 5-0 in scrum penalty countback. As the influential Reds number eight forward Harry Wilson<\/a> muttered miserably after the event, \u201cWe didn\u2019t fire a shot until the last ten minutes\u201d. No scrum, no win.<\/p>\n

The Reds may have been missing Matt Faessler<\/a> at hooker, Alex Hodgman<\/a> at loose-head prop and young bull Massimo De Lutiis<\/a> on the other side of the front row, but would their presence really have made such a difference to the set-piece outcomes? All three had started in the 43-19 thumping by the same opponents in round four, after all.<\/p>\n

Richie Asiata and Zane Nongorr are an active part of the Wallabies discussion with the British and Irish Lions<\/a> tour imminent, but the three All Blacks<\/a> in the red-and-black front row had their measure from the start of proceedings in Christchurch.<\/p>\n

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The drive is coming straight across the Reds front row from right to left, with the Crusaders promoting their tight-head Fletcher Newell<\/a> as the spearhead of the home scrum effort. The white hat of second row Josh Canham<\/a> is already clearly visible as the power ramps up and all three Queenslanders disappear under the pressure. That scrum alone may have done for the chances of Asiata, Nongorr and Canham representing the green-and-gold against the tourists.<\/p>\n

It meant a succession of easy exits for the Crusaders and it did not get much better when George Bower<\/a> replaced Tamaiti Williams<\/a> on the home loose-head.<\/p>\n

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Once again, the left side of the front row caves in under acute pressure in the first instance and Canham is caught in a poor pushing position behind them. Replace Newell with either Will Stuart<\/a> or Tadhg Furlong<\/a> and it will not get any easier versus the Lions.<\/p>\n

Superiority at scrum time has a happy habit of informing other areas of intense physical contact such as the driving lineout and the breakdown, and the Brumbies<\/a> were in the ascendant in all three aspects against the Hurricanes<\/a> in the third play-off game of the round. They scored two tries direct from the maul and four tries were shared between their starting front-rankers James Slipper<\/a>, Allan Alaalatoa<\/a> and Billy Pollard. All three were going well enough in the scrum to feel very sprightly in the open.<\/p>\n

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That is no mug manning the Canes\u2019 tight-head, it is currently the best planet rugby has to offer in the shape of All Black incumbent Tyrel Lomax.<\/p>\n

Although \u2018Triple A\u2019 Alaalatoa didn\u2019t mention the scrum specifically after the game, he did pinpoint the other two areas where scrum superiority permeates.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe last time we played, we didn\u2019t get many A-zone opportunities [entries to the opposition 22], so we wanted to take as many as we could today, and our A-zone was really good today,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt felt good to earn ourselves another week. We knew that it was going to take everything we had physically. We spoke a lot about our tackle area and we knew we had to be good in that area, and it was a much-improved effort from the last time we played them.\u201d<\/p>\n

When you\u2019re physically comfortable at scrum-time, you can start to plan your moves without risk, and belief begins to snowball.<\/p>\n

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Easy, quick \u2018channel one\u2019 ball produced between the feet of the number eight and open-side flank generates a one-on-one tackle, and a straightforward bust down the Canes\u2019 10 channel by Brumbies inside centre David Feliuai.<\/p>\n

Referees may have been attempting to minimize the stoppages created by scrums in Super Rugby Pacific, but only one of those [Kiwi Ben O\u2019Keefe] will be handling a Test in the forthcoming Lions series. The other two [Italian Andrea Piardi and Georgian Nika Amashukeli] are products of URC culture and they will police the set-piece far more vigilantly. They will not care about driving \u2018the flow of the game\u2019 nearly as much. More staccato, less legato.<\/p>\n

The importance of scrums magnifies as \u2018the point of no return\u2019 moves closer, and Joe Schmidt will not want a repeat of the third Test in 2013, if push comes to eight-man shove, or a game-defining penalty. That should in turn nudge the Wallabies boss away from the Reds and the Tahs and towards the Brumbies; away from everyone bar Faessler and Angus Bell<\/a> towards Slipper, Pollard and Alaalatoa \u2013 with Tom Hooper<\/a> and Will Skelton<\/a> behind them.<\/p>\n

The Reds\u2019 campaign ended not with a bang but a whimper, but the boys from Canberra are still hammering away on the heavy bag, making the most of themselves and every shot at the title they get. They are Australia\u2019s sole remaining contenders and Schmidt needs more of the same for the Lions, if the Wallabies are not to enter another hollow valley, and the broken jaw of a lost kingdom.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More legato, less staccato. The governing principle of Super Rugby Pacific 2025 at the refereeing \u2018audition\u2019 before the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":172044,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4102],"tags":[4151,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-172043","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114657212969661648","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=172043"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172043\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/172044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}