Last Sunday at the Aviva the rugby world watched in disbelief as a deeply flawed law forced high farce onto the Six Nations match. Early in the match, Italy had lost both hookers. The starting hooker, Gianmarco Lucchesi received a serious arm injury and his replacement, Epalahame Faiva was red carded for a high tackle. With no hookers available the referee had no option but to call for uncontested scrums.
At this moment confusion descended. As Italy were the team that could not scrummage, the Georgian referee, Nika Amashukeli was forced to implement a law that was so obscure that very few were aware of its existence. The law stated that Italy had to remove another player.
Amashukeli, who did a commendable job in his first Six Nations match, had his hands tied by the ridiculous mandatory sanction World Rugby had linked to the scrummaging law. It was a situation that was confusing, frustrating, unjust and embarrassing for the game. Viewers across the globe turned off their TVs and fans at the game left their seats never to return. It was a marketing catastrophe as the honoured institution of the Six Nations descended into a sham.
Ironically, the law that caused the chaos was created by groups within World Rugby that are fixated on maintaining the power of the current scrum laws by mandating a full contest. When the law was implemented it actually created the opposite. Italy were unjustly punished into a no contest situation.
These protectors of the current scrum laws have unjustly skewed them towards the countries that have powerful scrums. World Rugby’s desperate internal politics, obsessed with maintaining the power of dominant scrum nations, created the outrageous situation that reduced Italy to 13 players. This ass of a law refused to recognise that there could be circumstances in a match that might legally force a team to not be able to safely scrummage in a match.
This is an incomprehensible position of law for a governing body to hold. In the final scrum of the match the talented Italian outhalf, Paolo Garbisi, was farcically forced to pack into the scrum as a lock, while the tiny replacement scrumhalf, Alessandro Fusco, became the smallest Italian international number eight; leaving only four defensive Italian backs.
Roles Reversed
Imagine the outrage if that picture was reversed and it was Ireland who were forced to reduce to 13, if Johnny Sexton had to stick his head into the second row, with Craig Casey packing down at number eight. Then Italy trot in a facile try for an infamous victory. The outrage would not yet have ceased.
Shamefully, World Rugby’s laws humiliated Italy into that exact scenario.
Last Sunday the rugby community garnished a glimpse into the tangled and politically disconnected world of rugby’s dysfunctional legislative processes. The Italian Job that ruined the game showed that World Rugby is an organisation that is not only almost incapable of creating new laws that attempt to keep pace with the evolution of the game, but it is also internally gridlocked to the extent that it has obviously and blatantly failed to delete so many obsolete or poorly structured laws that are no longer fit for purpose. Just like the one that ruined last Sunday’s match.
It is no coincidence that the shambolic law that created havoc was centred around preserving the power of the scrum. The scrum has come to embody World Rugby’s political paralysis on legislative reform.
I have stated many times in this column that in the 1980s and 90s all technical scrum infringements were free kicks. No shots at goal or kicks for touch were permitted. This empowered running rugby and stopped games being won or lost because of refereeing decisions based on technical aspects of the scrum. It was a popular and hugely successful law.
It is essential to remember that the purpose of scrums is simply to be a contest that restarts play, not to dominate play. Scrums were never intended to be a shoving marathon between behemoths that produce a tsunami of penalties with the ball scarcely seeing the backline.
In recent years countries with dominant scrums have relentlessly, and successfully, pursued changes to the scrum laws that favour them. They have methodically replaced almost all free kicks from technical errors into full penalties.
Currently, countries who gain penalties with dominant scrums either kick three points or go to touch to maul for tries. This has created the unimaginable situation that international hookers are now three times more likely to score a try than an international centre.
The current scrum laws have had a catastrophic effect on reducing the time the ball is in play as swathes of time are wasted. We are forced to accept that scrums take at least 90 seconds, many times up to three minutes and matches can be won or lost on penalty kicks awarded in a refereeing lottery - all based on technical interpretations from laws that have been created by legislation that favours a few elite countries.
This has resulted in packs endlessly pushing while searching for penalties that have nullified attacking backline play from scrums, which is the best attacking platform in the game.
Despite numerous calls from World Cup winning coaches, leading past players and rugby intellectuals from across the globe, World Rugby’s legislators have refused to reform this blight on our game.
Who is benefiting from having powerful scrums and is it in their interest to have the scrum laws reformed? South Africa have won three World Cups based on a hyper powerful scrum, an equally dominant maul and a high percentage goal kicker who grabs three points from technical scrum infringements.
Even though England were dominated by South Africa's scrum in the last World Cup final, traditionally the English game is set-play dominated, with an accurate goal kicker as their centre of power. Jonny Wilkinson, Owen Farrell, Marcus Smith. Need I say more?
Do you believe the scrum turkeys are going to vote for Christmas and reform the scrum laws? The evidence clearly says the opposite.
The nations with powerful scrums are so desperate to maintain the scrum law bias towards them that they created a law that is so outrageously unjust, it states that, if for whatever reason, including injury and red cards, your team cannot field a fully contesting scrum you will have a player removed from the field.
That incomprehensibly unjust concept is what we witnessed last Sunday.
Which countries run the ball and would benefit from reform and rightfully returning all technical scrum infringement laws to free kicks? Ireland for a start. Fiji, Tonga, Japan, Samoa, Scotland, Wales, Australia.
The small would benefit so the giants oppose. As Thucydides said 2,500 years ago: “The strong do what they can, while the weak do what they must.”
