Free-kick or penalty at scrum time

Bent arm or straight arm?

The scrum used to be the fierce essence of the game. If you were worth anything your were in the scrum, scrummage, scrimmage or hot. You stood, head up and fierce, chest to chest with your foemen, hacking the ball - and your opponent's shins.

Gradually it has been depowered. Now it is regarded by some as just another way of starting the game. Put the ball in skew and there is only lip service. Lift your foot whenever you like, my china. Foot-up is a distant memory at the back of some pea-brained dinosaur. Protect the loosehead - that's your job. Safety's the thing.

Safety is hugely important. There must just be a balance between safety and the physical soul of the game, between broken necks and the game for all shapes and sizes.

There was a time when it was tough to be a loosehead. It required strength, technique and resolve. Now it is the tighthead who is in danger of extinction as survival becomes harder and harder for him while his captain keeps calling for a right shoulder.

There was a time when foot-up would incur a penalty and lose you the match. Then along came the free-kick, something like a mark but as a punitive measure. That, too, underwent many changes till now it is a way of giving a side the ball to turn it into general play immediately.

Now you are the referee. In each of the following cases you are going to punish the Ugly Reptiles with either a penalty or a free-kick. You have to say which. The Ugly Reptiles are playing against the Dainty Insects. So there you are. You have blown your whistle. Now you have to do something with your arm to show which it is to be - bent arm for free-kick and straight arm for penalty and do it clearly, not with some vacillating, ambiguous, in-between gesture.

That's not hard. After you have made your decisions, look at Law 20. The answers are all there. If you like, compare the answers with those we have provided.

1. You call ENGAGE! The Dainty Insects go forward to engage but for some reason which is not obvious the Ugly Reptiles remain standing.

2. You get them to crouch and hold. Before you can say EBNGAGE the Ugly Reptiles lurch forward into the Dainty Insects.

3. Crock O'Diall, the Ugly Reptiles hooker, goes down so low in the scrum that his head is almost touching the ground.

4. The ball is in the scrum, stuck in the front row near the mouth of the tunnel. Ali Gaitre, the Ugly Reptiles flank, swings out his left foot and heels the ball back to his side.

5. Before Cocky Roach, the Dainty Insects scrum-half, can put the ball into the scrum, the Ugly Reptiles pack pushes the Dainty Insects pack away from the mark.

6. Iggy Wahna, the Ugly Reptiles tighthead prop, binds in the scrum with his right arm inside the left arm of Mossie Keeto, the Dainty Insects loosehead and pulls Keeto outwards.

7. The ball is in the scrum and the Dainty Insects are winning the ball. The whole of the Ugly Reptiles front row suddenly pushes upwards, forcing Spy Durr, the Dainty Insects hooker, up into the air.

8. Julian Gekko, the Ugly Reptiles loosehead, is under pressure and puts his left hand on his left knee.

9. The Dainty Insects put the ball into a scrum. To effect a wheel the Ugly Reptiles pack gives way on the right and Iggy Wahna, the Ugly Reptiles tighthead, pulls Mossie Keeto, the Dainty Insects loosehead. The scrum suddenly wheels as a result of this.

10. The Dainty Insects win the ball and hold it in the scrum. In an effort to catch the Dainty Insects off-side, the Ugly Reptiles scrum-half, Green Mamber, goes through the elaborate motion of passing the ball back to his fly-half while the ball remains in the scrum.

To go to the answers, click here.