Some basic scrum ploys

To relieve the boredom of the modern game of rugby

This week Rugby365s coaching guru looks at some basic scrum ploys, some of which he believes can relieve the boredom of the modern game of rugby.

With defences being as tight as they are, it is important to introduce variations that will pull defenders out of their channels in order to put your man free into that channel or to put two of your players into a channel to play against one and so on.

I am a firm believer that the most useful ball is a set-piece ball because from a set piece your opponents are to an extent tied down to certain areas. Should the set piece ball be a quick one, their forwards will still be tied down to a restricted area, thus widening channels and opportunities for the attacking side.

Once you go to ground, you limit your oppostunities as the opponents slow down the emerging ball so that they can get defences organised. When I hear commentators extolling the virtues of a side that manages to go through seven phases without losing the ball, I know that that side is a ground team - it goes to ground on every opportunity merely in order to subtract your defenders and add to their attackers in the belief that in the end, through their recycling patience, they will have sucked in enough of your players to give them an extra man somewhere.

Sadly for rugby, it works a lot of the time but there is nothing that destroys rugby as a game for the players and a spectacle for the onlookers more than this form of Neanderthal rugby. I hear coaches and captains calling for patience - don't try to break the line too early in the succession of phases, is what they are saying. Slowly and patiently keep possession of the ball until the opposition fall asleep with the monotony of it all- and then, pounce! The sad thing is that I see some schools beginning to play in a like manner. Give us a few more years of this and we shall have destroyed all the flair and talent that is yet extant on the rugby field.

If you feel as I do, but perhaps even if you don't, may I recommend to you an excellent, highly entertaining and amusing (yet having an underlying seriousness about it) book written on the theme of the changing game and the loss of the old rugby virtues. It is named Muddied Oafs, the Last Days of Rugger, brilliantly written by Richard Beard, who in his fairly late thirties is still playing the game of rugger, as he prefers to call it, now somewhere in Japan having played all over the British Isles previously. He just cannot give it up!

However, I am going astray. I cannot recall having covered this subject before - if I have, it was long enough ago to bear repetition.

Here we go - simple moves from the base of the scrum:

Have you tried putting your right-hand flanker between your No.8 and left-hand flanker - that opens up all sorts of possibilities? If you sit down with a pencil and piece of paper you will see what I mean. The ball is better protected because the No.8 is now protected by the right flanker who is now on the left and his feet are the offside line therefore opposing scrum-half cannot really interfere with your scrum-half moving to the right; it also allows more space and momentum for the moved right flanker if and when he gets involved in moves.

However, look at it and see the potential. Here are a few:

1. Scrum on the left-hand side of the field with room on the blindside for a wing and one more. Ball at No.8s feet. as he detaches from the scrum he flicks the ball between his legs to his scrum-half who has suddenly moved back and to the left, to break down the left side with wing in support. Opposing scrum-half is so busy with marking No.8 at whose feet the ball is that he is left out of the game. I have used it myself at Currie Cup level and it has been used against us at Currie Cup level with enormous effect. The last thing you expect is a flick through the legs - it is so quick! Takes much practise but is well worth it. Helps if you wheel forward on the left (loosehead).

2. Put your right-hand flank between left-hand flank and No.8 remembering that everyone behind the front row must bind on a lock. Ball channelled back between this man's feet; scrum-half stands between opposing scrum-half and right flank, now on the left in new position, so he is protected. He picks up, corkscrews round the left of the scrum, closely supported by number 8 who is completely unencumbered by defence as flanker has moved into opposing scrum-half and has corkscrewed with the ball putting into no. 8's hands; he has scrum-half with him and left hand flank come into the game as you cross the advantage line, on the inside or outside of ball carrier. It is an excellent move from inside your own 22 when you want to keep possession from the scrum, cross the tackle line and set up a good attacking ball but, in fact, I have found it has worked anywhere in the field. Once you have the idea you can bring in all sorts of variations. The last place a side expects you to attack on from a scrum is the left - perhaps that's why it works.

3. I still find the quick put in straight to No.8 who picks up immediately and runs right and wide almost impossible to defend against as long as the ball is quick in and out! He has support on both sides.

4. As in 1, except the No.8 does not play the ball through his legs but picks-up and passes to No.9 who has dropped late backwards and to the left. Again advisable to move other flank in to protect No.8 from scrum-half. The others I am sure you know: 8-9 and 9-8 with accompanying variations such as 9 picking up running wide playing back inside to No.8 and No.7. No.8 picking up running across the field to scissors with fullback or blindside wing etc. Have you tried the one where in the middle of the field backs line to the right, inside centre deep and almost behind fly-half, No.8 is again protected by flanker on his wrong side. No.8 picks up and plays to inside centre who has from his deep position runs across to the left to take the ball as a fly-half. Fullback come in from deep on the left absolutely straight to take the pass and still have a wing on his outside- or he can support the wing who has taken the ball from the inside centre. Scrum-half can be used to obstruct in a genteel way his opposing scrum-half and he is also there on attack on the inside. Some of these cannot be used by schoolboy sides because the benighted people who make the laws and bugger up our game do not allow anything other than a 3-4-1 formation in the scrum for schoolboys (nor may they wheel!) so the blindside flanker may not move across to between the other flank and lock.

Today's solutions are certainly tomorrow's problems.