NO COUNTRY FOR FAT MEN

I was more than a little surprised to hear John Inverdale eulogise about the quality of Rugby played on the opening weekend of the Six Nations. I have always considered Inverdale’s comments to be well-informed and objective, but I can only conclude that he and I must have been watching different matches.
Those who made the slow journey over the Severn Bridge – and wasn’t that a terrific piece of scheduling? – wearing white shirts, had little more to cheer about than those who travelled to Rome wearing green. All that was achieved by England and Ireland was a win; the manner by which both teams spluttered towards two tournament points will not have had the South Africans or the New Zealanders quaking in their boots.
In fact, despite Scotland’s valiant and, at times, hugely skilful performance against a magnificent in-form French side, I really don’t think any of the home Unions should bother to turn up to the World Cup, come 9th September.
However, the main problem with this weekend’s rugby, and I fear, the game in general at present, is not the players, or the officiating, but the game itself. Allow me to be direct: LET’S GET RID OF SCRUMS.
Scrum are an anachronism; they are good for the game in the same way that trenches, in 1916, were good for warfare, and both serve the same purpose: to hold an immobile and archaic collection of endomorphic participants in one place so that those who with the brains, speed and skill can attack.
Now, before you throw up your arms and say that they are essential as a contested method of re-starting play after a technical infringement, let me tell you - they are not. Sergio Parisse, the hugely talented Italian No8, received so much ball directly to his feet on Saturday afternoon, that one could be excused for assuming that the ball was metal and that he had a magnet in his boots. How on earth can you contest that? And with the advent of meaningless statistical analysis in rugby, the one useful statistic is that which records how much game time has been wasted on scrums. This is often in excess of ten minutes; that’s an eighth of the game, for goodness sake. Most of this time is consumed by having the things re-set as these monoliths collapse under their own physical excesses and rip up the playing surface.
Let me offer you two alternative scenarios for re-starts. The first is to convene an “in-field” lineout in place of a scrum. Lineouts are still contested in the game of Rugby Union, crooked throws are generally punished and, best of all, there is a 20 metre channel separating both sets of backs. Simply add two further dotted lines to the each side of the pitch, five metres in-field from the fifteen metre line, and throw in from the fifteen. The attacking backline is thereby presented with a unique opportunity to attack without forwards cluttering up valuable space. You also would have a lineout with a blind side which would further increase attacking options.
The second option is to award a free kick; this must be taken within ten seconds of being awarded, and, as we have dispensed with the front row, there will no longer be the traditional “injury” break when a free kick is awarded. I would suggest one further departure from the traditional free kick: the first pass may be in any direction. Have a think about that one…the potential for a forward pass would randomise the use of space by players and speed things up. It would also reduce the tedious grunt of “pick and drive” which advances play about as far as the Allies went in four years on the Western Front. All defensive players must be 10 metres back from the infringement but attacking players can stand where they like. Before you accuse me of being completely insane, just think of the “de-restriction” allowed by the free hit in limited overs cricket, and the potential for excitement which this innovation created.
Of course there is a problem with all of this: there will be no more props. And so, a game wherein there is a role for players of all shapes and sizes will, alas, no longer exist. The short, tubby boys who morphed into short, tubby men and have kidded us for centuries that there is something intrinsically good in the “black art” of making the opposition’s scrum collapse will be, forever, side-lined.
But this is not a bad thing – no one, these days, wants to play in the front row anyway. I know this from having introduced the game to several generations of schoolboys; they all wants to be Johnny Wilkinson, or even worse, Gavin Henson.
I, for one, would prefer to watch Shane Williams catch a fifty metre down-field pass and weave majestically through athletic defenders, than see Rugby’s version of “Potato Head” Rooney exploit Flood’s saunter between two mis-matched monoliths.
But until either the Health and Safety mafia or the Australians manage to ban scrummaging, this is what we’re faced with.