THE ROLE OF THE TIGHT HEAD,  SCRUMMING IN GENERAL.

written Sunday 01/04/07

Been plenty said about the scrum in 2007,  from where I sit and observe,  it has become a bit of a joke with this four call thing to engagement by the referees.  The first thing the players have to contend with is the inconsistency of the speed of the call from the referees.  It really is terrible if you stop,  listen and take note,  even within a game.  It doesn't matter what the stats can say,  resets are rife.

With all this collapsing going on,  surely the danger has increased,  all those safety laws,  and I am all for safety,  by the time the ref actually calls it up,  and heaven forbid resets it,  the danger is past,  if you have got to ground safely,  or got your head up and out,  you are safe,  why reset.

Anyway,  not going to dwell too much today on the current plight of the scrum,  more on the role of the tighthead.  Refs often get this penalty thing wrong because they know nothing about scrums.

We have coaches out there telling tight heads to bear down on the looseheads neck,  interesting,  and why?  Is that not going to do two things,  take the scrum down,  and stop you from going forwards.

There are many tactical things you can achieve attack and defence wise from a scrum.  Just want to focus  a little here on going forwards and disrupting opposition pill.  The tight head has the unique opportunity to do both,  and not by bearing down on the loosehead's neck,  to me that is dumb.

I spoke to a tight head last year who thought he was doing the right thing by pulling the loosehead down because it stopped them from going forward,  same both ways.

Tighthead for mine needs to have a lower body set than his opponent,  needs to snap the space,  for scrumming is about space too,  quickly and close out quickly,  drop the right shoulder and right knee,  basically a short twist of the body,  keeping shoulders above hips,  to stop the loosehead achieving his target of head under sternum.  From here,  if you want to manoeuvre the scrum lower it must come from a total body position shift,  not from the hips.  Watch Al Baxter,  he never should complain,  he hits and bends at the hips and falls down,  his fault,  not good enough,  deserves to be penalized.

From his good explosive hit,  in and up,  not in and down,   and successful close out,  the tight head can now lead the entire scrum forward,  and disrupt the opposition ball by dislodging the loosehead off the hooker.  Once you have that happening,  it is very uncomfortable for the hooker in lifting one foot off the ground to strike,  and correctly done by the tight head will see the opposition hooker either kick the ball into the opposition scrum or be forced to operate with channel one ball all the time,  which is not ball you want from a scrum.

Tight heads who only have a pulling down in their repertoire are not only operating illegally,  if they are not being penalized,  they are disadvantaging their own side in any case.  Coaches that coach the pull down method are not too bright in that particular area of the game.

If any of you have the ability to,  get some tapes of Olo Brown in about 1996 scrumming at tight head for New Zealand,  scrums were way better way back then and he was a master craftsman at tight head.

While you may not and possibly do not agree with the authour and his thoughts,  the authour doesn't really care,  and freely admits he may not be 100% correct.  However,  the basis of what is said is factual as best we can determine on any given day.  Always challenge the status quo,  better things evolve when current systems and ideals are questioned and challenged.  Make change positive,  strive to make positive change.