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Fed up with skew feeds at scrums? Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus reckons that infraction is going to be policed more carefully, but only where throw-ins are wildly off-centre.
Law 19.15.f dictates that the scrumhalf feeding the ball into the scrum can align their left shoulder on the middle line of the scrum, which effectively places the line of the throw-in a shoulder-width closer to their front row.
Then Law 19.22 stipulates that the hooker of the team with the put-in must strike for the ball.
But we all know that the ball is often tossed into the scrum far deeper than the hooker’s feet.
“We’re still trying to get that to be fed straight and everybody hooks,” said Erasmus, who attended the World Rugby ‘Shape of the Game’ conference in London early this year. “That would be great if we get there one day.”
“I think the toughest thing, to be fair to the referees, if it’s the last minute of the game, they have a scrum on their own goal-line to defend, and the guy threw it in this much [marginally] skew; do you ref it as not in straight or do you say ‘play on’?
— Rassie Erasmus
Erasmus was making the point that referees were going to police mauls a lot more closely to halt illegal actions like obstruction, plus dragging and pulling, explaining that this law hadn’t been applied strictly — like the scrum-feed rule.
“We were really hoping that [the scrum put-in] could be straight, but for various reasons that could not be,” he said.
“I think the toughest thing, to be fair to the referees, if it’s the last minute of the game, they have a scrum on their own goal-line to defend, and the guy threw it in this much [marginally] skew; do you ref it as not in straight or do you say ‘play on’?
“I think the problem is just the one that goes [particularly skew] and the hooker doesn’t hook at all. I think they’re trying to get it really right and I understand why it’s so difficult to referee.
“I think it’s going to get better ... the referees are trying to get it right.”
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