IRELAND'S SCRUM PROBLEMS: Gavin Cummiskeytalks to Roly Meates and tries to throw some light on the dark art of scrummaging
PAUL WALLACE is clearly on the same page as Roly Meates when it comes to the direction Irish rugby should take with regard to coaching props, writes Gavin Cummiskey.
“I don’t think there is anything wrong with experimenting but I think it has been a wasted opportunity so far. They have stuck with John (Hayes) for too long. They should have brought in competitors before now.
“The guy who has been scrummaging the best of the tighthead props has been Mike Ross but he hasn’t been given a chance. I find that quite startling and frustrating really. He is the form tighthead prop.
“I think Tom Court has done a good job. The problem with Buckley, even though he is improving in the scrum, you still feel he is a potential weakness that teams can target.
“He is incredible around the park but looks best as an impact player later in games. He is such a big man that after travelling around the pitch for 30 minutes he gets tired, or whatever, and his scrum buckles a bit.
“What is really dangerous is a lot of the scrum coaching, in Leinster anyway, is Southern Hemisphere influenced. This is more about power scrummaging, where you make the hit and keep chasing through.
“Ireland, generally, doesn’t have the same size and power as South Africa and even New Zealand. Traditionally we have been better at getting our body height lower and getting into better technical positions but we have stepped away from that.
“A lot of the work Roly Meates would have done I think would be very effective. With Tony Buckley for instance, he needs to work on getting his hip height down. I know Paul McCarthy is working with him (in Munster).
“Just because Roly is out of the loop and from a long time ago doesn’t mean what he has to say isn’t beneficial.
“I would like to see us get back to more technical scrummaging as opposed to something we are not equipped. Lets be more intelligent about it again.
SEEKING TO make sense of Ireland’s scrum problems, I went back to the source. For all we know some poor unsuspecting postman or elderly dog walker may have glanced through the front window of a dental practice, nestled in the heart of Dublin 4, last Thursday afternoon.
If so, they would have witnessed two men locking horns.
Fellow members of my house fourths’ three-quarter line (circa 1995) will see the funny side of this impromptu scrummaging session with Roly Meates.
Meates began the interview/scrum clinic with a dictaphone acting as hooker and our mobile phones as props but Ireland’s wisest guru of the dark arts needed to show me how to bind correctly so I could grasp what he was talking about.
Firstly on the tighthead side and then as a loosehead.
Meates believes the new slowdown policy has been introduced to empower referees and “depower” the tighthead prop.
“Scrummaging,” he began, “you got to be in there and you got to have experienced it, otherwise, it is extremely hard to understand. And a lot of referees don’t understand exactly what is going on in most situations.
“So, when they introduced this ‘crouch, touch, pause, engage’, what (the IRB) were endeavouring to do was bring some degree of stability to the contact so that you wouldn’t get so many collapsed scrums.
“The statistics are showing that there is a reduced number of collapses but looking at it as an individual, I find the whole thing is very frustrating. I would be worried we will move to a situation like Rugby League scrums.
“Scrummaging is a key part of the game of rugby and a very, very good attacking platform because it is the only situation on the field where you have a two-sided – one-on-one – defensive situation. So, if you get quality ball in that situation it means space for D’Arcy and O’Driscoll . . .”
You get the picture. The worry is the lack of Irish tries off the scrum platform in modern times.
Another concern is the current influx of Southern Hemisphere props and coaches with a scrummaging philosophy that advocates power to the detriment of technique.
“When Leinster went to Toulouse (in 2005) I said to Keith Gleeson to get Felipe (Contepomi) to close (Freddie) Michalak down on the outside when they had a scrum in their 22.
“It was the worst scrum of the match but Felipe closed the gap on Michalak and Gleeson tackled him. I had said to Cameron Jowitt (Leinster’s blindside flanker) don’t bother coming around, come straight forward and the ball will be there. Michalak threw it into his hands and he scored under the posts.
“Now, is that not a case for precision scrummaging?”
Luke Fitzgerald will be pleased to hear Meates rates his dad, Des, as the best tighthead when it came to footwork. Not to be confused with the dazzling side-stepping of the son.
“The purpose of the whole blessed thing is to produce usable ball. When I coach the scrum I talk about the bind. I talk about the hit. I talk about the latent period after the hit and what you do.
“What I would do with the scrum after the hit is lower the height of it because if you push and go forward all your weight and your fulcrums are up high. If you scrum downwards your legs are on the ground and all movements can be done with control.
“If the tighthead prop comes in with the right foot up and he is turned he has lost one side of his body. Now, Dessie Fitzgerald was the only one who could do this well. He would put the inside (left) foot forward so all the direction was going on that foot.”
He rises to show me how a clever tighthead can snare his loosehead prey. “You saw the New Zealand prop (Pter Borlase) go up in the air in the Munster match against Australia last Tuesday?
I did.
“Now, that’s because he let the guy in there (he points to his left breast bone).
He explains how the correct use of the arm bind, and by extension the shoulder, can stop this happening.
“Missed tackles can turn games but the inevitability of scrummaging, and the difficulties you come into, and the whole psychological effect this has on the thing. I’m not narrow minded in this respect, I just realise the importance of it.
“You ask a backrow forward what he feels like if that scrum is piling back on him. It is absolute murder.”
We have smaller big men in comparison to other major rugby nations. Since the turn of the century Ireland have been converting locks into tighthead props (John Hayes and now Tony Buckley) thus abandoning the transformation of slighter props into devilish technicians, Paul Wallace’s dismantling of the gargantuan Os du Randt during the 1997 Lions series being the most famous case in point.
Meates is a retired coach, besides some consultancy work, but Reggie Corrigan and Paul McCarthy are currently active scrum coaches with the Ireland under-20s and Munster (the All Blacks chief scrum coach, Mike Cron, was down in Munster with McCarthy for a week last September).
The Kiwi Greg Feek is currently working with Leinster and Ireland. “The key issue for scrums, and how it affects the quality of ball for the number eight, is how do we get the scrum into a controlled position?” said Feek. “If we get a centrefield set scrum, 30 yards from the opponents’ line on our put-in we should be in with a great chance of scoring a try, IF the ball comes back correctly.”
Those with long memories will know the scrum has rarely been an Irish problem.
“Ray McLoughlin, Philip Orr, Dessie Fitzgerald, Paul Wallace, Nick Popplewell,” Meates lists the lineage of Leinster props before adding, “Clohessy.”
The sight of 23-year-old Cian Healy learning on the job does signify a bright future on the loosehead side. Earlier this week Belvedere College’s gift to Irish propping spoke of being sent to the gym during pre-season to “chew up all the steel” so he maintained his optimum fighting weight of 18st.
“We are just on a curve where it is going to turn into a pretty strong scrum,” said Healy. “The platform is laid and everyone is starting to buy into the way we are trying to look at going forward. It is just about that final click happening. Just about balance and set up coming together that will in turn result in a pretty strong scrum.
“You do really notice changes in yourself when you are put into tough positions in the scrum,” Healy continued.
“When exposed to a prop you have never faced before you are tested in a new way. It just keeps adding to your arsenal of what you have in the frontrow to be able to call upon, different techniques.”
We know of Stewart Maguire and Jack McGrath’s progress at Leinster, Dave Ryan in Munster looks promising, while the noises are good about Paddy McAllister and Adam Macklin (currently injured) up in Ulster.
This is offset by the need for Irish provincial coaches to produce results. Only McAllister is starting this weekend’s Magners League fixtures despite all Irish frontline Irish props being in camp. Mike Ross only made the Leinster bench after being with Ireland all week.
How damaging is it that so many South Africans and Kiwi props are now in the Irish provincial squads?
“The benefit of bringing in good players is it allows others to develop into good players so there is an advantage,” said Meates.
“But obviously if we had a situation, which we did last year, whereby three of the provinces had foreign tight heads playing . . .
“But you can’t empower people and then tell them what to do.”
An expert view is not required to know the Irish scrum was depressingly dismantled by South Africa and Samoa.
Presumably, the development of Leinster (via Cork Con and Harlequins) tighthead Mike Ross is continuing behind closed doors.
“Mike Ross is probably, in pure technical terms, the best of the whole lot of them,” Meates believes.
“The criticism of Ross is he doesn’t get around the field. But it is harder to coach a fella who gets around the field to scrummage than the other way around.
“As far as I’m concerned you have to have a tighthead who can do the job.
“The better he is as a loose player is just profit.”
And this evening?
“I think New Zealand’s interest is the ball so I think it is unlikely that a South African scenario will happen again. Obviously if the game is tight, which is unlikely, they will be well versed in what the weaknesses in Ireland are. They couldn’t possibly have missed the situation.
“I would expect them to move the ball quickly from set scrums unless they need to get out of a situation.”
