So after another week of Super 14 Rugby, I'm lefting wondering what it is exactly that officials want to achieve out of scrums this year. More to the point, what they hoped to achieve out of changing the referreeing of them.
If they're trying to encourage teams to learn to read a ref, and that their scrum success is all about anticipating the engage call, and that risking the early engage is the way to win, then that's cool. That's where they're going. The result is a lot of inconsistent reffing and that scrums across the competition are a mess - no worries.
But if its about timing, and maybe reducing the risk of injury, then whats wrong with a '3 2 1 engage' call, or something along those lines. It'd eliminiate the guesswork and make it all about timing/skill, and less about guesswork and risk.
Sure, some people are going to hate it, but in the end I think a lot of them would learn to hate it a lot less than seeing 10 minutes per match wasted resetting scrums.
Link: Richard Loe: Tinkering makes a mockery of the fans
Tags: NZ, Rugby