The Scrum

[Eugene Wrayburn]

How do you place your feet at different distances to the opposition and shove without shoving at an angle?

You ever seen a sprint start?

[Mikey Brown]

How do you place your feet at different distances to the opposition and shove without shoving at an angle?

You ever seen a sprint start?

Yes, thanks. You ever tried squatting hundreds of kilos with one foot in front of you and one foot behind?

How do you place your feet at different distances to the opposition and shove without shoving at an angle?

They same way sprinters push of their blocks without moving at an angle.

That doesn't seem like a direct comparison. Props will presumably still want to push as hard as they physically can and I don't see how you can do that from that position. Nevermind how difficult that would be to enforce.

Trust me, you'd have to try playing prop to understand. To the best of my knowledge Moore hasn't. That's not to say standing with your feet inline is a good technique mind, it isn't.

One leg in front of the other adds stability and prevents the prop from going face first into the floor if they break their bind. It amazes me how often we see a front row go down with one of the props flat on his stomach.

Also, the added stability means that if a bind is broken the player has a chance to re-engage allowing the scrum to continue rather than constant resets and penalties.

In this case I'd say Moore is making perfect sense.

I did actually say that standing with your feet inline is not a good idea ftaod.

What I was indicating was that unless you've played prop you don't understand the sheer forces that are going through you. It isn't simply one man pushing against one man. It should be you, your lock and flanker and half of your no8 pushing against the same number on the other side. That's 3.5 men vs 3.5 men. All going through your back and shoulders. Your oppo is trying his level best to get you in an uncomfortable/painful position, as are you to him, so that those forces can be thwarted. Sometimes you see feet parallel to the tunnel because the prop is trying to push as hard as he possibly can, you simply can't push as hard with one leg forward, but you are more stable as far as the up and down forces are concerned. Legs parallel makes you vulnerable to the scrum going up or down, with the results that we can all see, and is why props try NOT to do it. Moore has never propped, to hear him banging on about this as if all props are thick as mince is just so tiresome.

[Eugene Wrayburn]

Your question was why they wouldn't go in on an angle. It's because they push equally with both legs, just like a sprinter does out of the blocks. The principle is the same whether they are pushing 1 pound or 500.

[Mikey Brown]

The sprinting analogy seem irrelevant. You run with one foot in front of the other.

To exert all the possible power you can in a scrum, you surely want be aiming all your power/weight perpendicular to the (imaginary) line between your feet. No? Is that not like the squat with 1 leg unable to fully extend / exert it's full force?

[Eugene Wrayburn]

The sprinting analogy seem irrelevant. You run with one foot in front of the other.

To exert all the possible power you can in a scrum, you surely want be aiming all your power/weight perpendicular to the (imaginary) line between your feet. No? Is that not like the squat with 1 leg unable to fully extend / exert it's full force?

It's irrelevant if you pay no attention to it I guess.

Have you ever watched a one legged paralympian swim straight?

[16th man]

There's also the fairly simple fact that a sprinters blocks are fastened down. You can push on them as hard as you like, they're going to stay put and give you a platform to push from. Grass and soil won't do the same.

[Beasties]

The sprinter's starting position is irrelevant to the forces of propping. If you're a TH and you have your right foot forward (as you should for stability purposes) you simply can't put as much power through that leg as your left. It's how the body works. No analogy will actually override the experience of doing it.

[Eugene Wrayburn]

The sprinter's starting position is irrelevant to the forces of propping. If you're a TH and you have your right foot forward (as you should for stability purposes) you simply can't put as much power through that leg as your left. It's how the body works. No analogy will actually override the experience of doing it.

Actually it depends on the gap between the feet. He's not talking on putting the leg right under the body, but about having a gap between them. This does not cause you to drive at an angle - the issue we're actually discussing. Biomechanically you do not generate most power with your legs already at their greatest extension.

[Mikey Brown]

I can't tell if you're just misunderstanding this to make a point or if you really didn't know what I meant in that original post? I wasn't suggesting you'd simply push in the wrong direction because you've planted your feet at a different angle, I'm saying that to get maximum power from both legs they need to be able to extend to the same degree (and I'm not saying that needs to be full lock, either) surely? To achieve that maximum power without your feet being parallel to the line of the scrum I would think you'd end up directing your power towards a point other than perpendicular to that line.

I really thought the squatting analogy demonstrated what I meant. There are so many conficting variables with a one-legged swimmer that I don't even know where to start on that.

Saying all this, maybe we've just pictured the proposed change quite differently? It seems to me it would need to be fairly drastic to make a substantial difference to player stability, and would always be a trade off between that and power.

[Beasties]

Actually we seem to be going down an irrelevant sidetrack here. Props move their outside foot back out of instinct to try to get max purchase, it's something they have to consciously try not to do to aid stability. It isn't a crucial matter when we're debating improving scrums generally when compared to say speeding up the engagement.

[El Tigre]

I can't tell if you're just misunderstanding this to make a point or if you really didn't know what I meant in that original post? I wasn't suggesting you'd simply push in the wrong direction because you've planted your feet at a different angle, I'm saying that to get maximum power from both legs they need to be able to extend to the same degree (and I'm not saying that needs to be full lock, either) surely? To achieve that maximum power without your feet being parallel to the line of the scrum I would think you'd end up directing your power towards a point other than perpendicular to that line.

I really thought the squatting analogy demonstrated what I meant. There are so many conficting variables with a one-legged swimmer that I don't even know where to start on that.

Saying all this, maybe we've just pictured the proposed change quite differently? It seems to me it would need to be fairly drastic to make a substantial difference to player stability, and would always be a trade off between that and power.

The 'squat' position does explain exactly what props are currently doing and leads to the issue of binds being broken and scrums collapsing when they reach full extension. There's just nowhere to go at that point other than face first into the ground.

I'm not saying that one foot should be under the body of the player but a slight staggering of the feet allows a dominant prop to essentialy walk forward with any momentum.

This was generally the approach in the halcyon days of short round fellas propping. Professionalism has a lot to answer for

[Gloskarlos]

Nobody pushes anything heavy with both legs at the same distance behind them. Imagine pushing a car - you have one leg more locked behind you and one leg further in front to get best purchase and actually move the vehicle - you are pushing - not leaning. Of course there degrees of separation.

[kk67]

One of the biggest problems is the gap. The heads of the frontrow should be overlapping at the 'crouch'. If there's daylight between them at the crouch then they'll be off balance at the 'bind' and face down in the mud at the 'set'. Clancy in particular does not seem to understand this.

Generally I don't have a problem with the scrums at the moment. It's a helluva lot better than it was and the pre-bind sequence should also be making it a lot easier to ref'. However,.....once any new law comes into effect there are instantly 1,000+ coaches trying to cheat the new law. I'm afraid that will always be the case no matter how the ref's or World rugby try to legislate for it. If there are a large group of people deliberately trying to cheat.....there's not much that can be done.