FRONT ROW FILE

[jazza93]

I dont think they can get much better in the scrum, you would think if something was wrong they would fix it. The coaches do a lot more work on the scrums then some of you think.

[jazza93]

Its not like they lose their own feed they do just enough work on the scrums to keep up with other teams.

The tight five make the force line out one of the best. They probobly do more work on the line out because thats were they can get turnovers and put the other team under pressure.

[Bronski Beat]

Its not like they lose their own feed they do just enough work on the scrums to keep up with other teams.

The tight five make the force line out one of the best. They probobly do more work on the line out because thats were they can get turnovers and put the other team under pressure.

For sure, but dominance at the breakdown?

[BLR]

The tight five make the force line out one of the best. They probobly do more work on the line out because thats were they can get turnovers and put the other team under pressure.

While the ELV's marginalise the lineouts while increasing the importance of scrums....we are going in the opposite direction of where we need to...

[Ecky]

For sure, but dominance at the breakdown?

Isn't dominance at the breakdown the loosies' job - not the tight 5?

Seems to me (I was a back in my day, but pretend to have some knowledge of what's going on at scrum time to give the appearance I am a really good ref) that there's a technique issue Australia-wide with the front rows in particular, not the whole 5. And I agree with whomever it was that said it stems from Eddie's day. Seems the focus went away from good scrum technique to try for a more mobile and expansive game.

And it would follow that those with good scrummaging technique can use those skills post-breakdown to drive the maul or drive over the bodies in a ruck etc.

I agree that losing Ben darwin was a very big loss. maybe the can employ him or someone like him

[Bronski Beat]

While the ELV's marginalise the lineouts while increasing the importance of scrums....we are going in the opposite direction of where we need to...

Yeah, for some reason they are just not firing on all ten...

[KenyaQuin]

Exile's pointed out the crux of the matter and that is the tight 5 have stopped hunting as a pack. We have a situation now where the maul is quite literally being rucked out of the game, and where backs are being encouraged to act as loose forwards and forwards as roving backs.

In the good ol' days of mauls, the pack and essentially the tight 5 were "encouraged" to move together. Mauls were in and in many cases were spontaneous and the tight 5 had to literally be tight to make these mauls work effectively.

What we are seeing now is that with the focus shifting to quick ball play and hence a greater reliance on rucks, the tight 5 are getting looser in general play and fanning out a little more than they used to. The rationale here is that the ruck requires less players, meaning more players (ie forwards) can be dispensed in to the backs and therefore more options of attack.

The problem with this is that its getting easier for the forwards to get isolated in the tackle with their only support (if any) being a back(s) who really is not equipped with the skills or size to protect the ball. This has made it easier for the tackler to quickly regain his feet and have a go at the ball.

The other problem with this is that there are now more defenders in the line so we need to have more rucks to suck them in..and on it goes.

My suggestion for fixing the tight 5 is

1) Get them away from playing 1st receiver and have them more often than not running on the 1st receivers inside and especially on 1st or 2nd phase ball.

2) Surprise the opposition and set up a few mauls, even if stationary, hopefully this would suck in a few more opposition players and more importantly will allow the forwards to act as forwards and make them tight(er).

3) Get a bit more beef in the frontrow. I know Ex thinks its a matter of technique and direction, however imagine if you have technique, direction and SIZE..now that would be ideal.

Ofcourse, none of this is revolutionary and I'm not inventing the wheel here, still you do wonder sometimes whether the coaches are watching a different game. If I had a genie who would grant me 3 wishes, one would be to take me back to EWF coaches' review-of-the-game-video session for the past 3 games (crap, that might use up all my wishes).

[NTT]

yay a serious rugby chat ........ IMO the tight has two glaring weaknesses .... the scrum and rolling maul. 90% of scrummaging is mental attitude. The other 10% is technique. The mentality of the force scrum at the moment is all about not being embarassed, not attack. With two inexperienced guys in there its gonna take time to develope. The technique problem seems to be that we almost always engage higher than the opposition. Which might have something to do with the fact we hardly ever bind up before the opposition. That gives a mental message to our guys that the opposition is ready to get into it. By the time we pack down we're 'following' the opposition's lead. It might be time for our forwards to start reclaiming the initiative in the scrums and send out the message that we control the scrum, not the opposition.

[prop53]

Scrums have changed so much over the years, and the scrum is 8 players not just the tight 5. Thats the first and most important point to remember. Now we have the flankers more looking at the next play or ball then holding the scrum in as they should be. Our No 8s are getting ready for receiving the ball instead of concentrating on pushing and holding the second row in. Our props both sides technical are not getting their bodies into the correct position most of the time ie: hips and head position our tight head is allowing the opposition to get the first and most of the time illegal bind on and seem not to be able to combat this. Ive kept it short for your discussions. Final thing our props seem to play in what they call fat alley (out to the wings) so they are not there much of the time for when support is needed when most of the play is in the centres. Well thats my two bobs worth

[NTT]

as for the rolling maul ... well its the same technique problem as the scrum. They start too loosely bound and with bad body height, which makes the maul easy to defend. The maul needs great discipline to perfect. The key to a rolling maul is early momentum. Without it the defence wins. The forwards should be looking to start the maul quickly, bind in tight and start shifting the direction of the maul when the opposition starts to slow our momentum. .......As for the breakdowns, the forces gameplan revolves around quick ruck ball. Therfore the cleanouts are usually performed by whoevers there at the time. And the midfield hitups are used to try to generate quick ruck ball for the backs on the next phase. If the ball is slow, the force usually try to restart the attack by forward runners a couple of channels wide of the previous ruck to suck defenders in to allow the backs to run at the disorganised defensive line.Only problem is teams have worked out that slowing the ruck ball down kills our gameplan

[NTT]

Also i don't think eddie jones can be blamed for the lack of frontrowers in aussie rugby. There has never really been an importance on having dominant forwards when we produce so many dominant backs. Kids learning the game are taught running with the ball equals fun. Therefore opposition teams and countries started to attack us through the forwards because they couldn't beat us through the backs. Personally i think the ARU should consider setting up a specialist forwards academy that focuses on the 15 to 17 year old age group to really start getting the kids ready for super rugby. Maybe give the job of overseeing the academy to an englishman or saffa. They're the 2 dominant countries in terms of forward play.

[BLR]

Coming from being a prop as a kid nearthtop I think you are quite right, the emphasis is on running the ball eg. being a back, I didn't score a try in 5 seasons and it was like there was something wrong with me, it wasn't really explained that props are there to scrum not to score....

[NTT]

i played lock for about 15 years or so and can count the number of tries i scored on one hand almost. it was only in under 12s and younger i got a lot of tries and that was back before the walla rugby rules they play these days. but then again i liked playing lock because you got to be in the play more often, making the big hits, lineout jumping, rucks, that was my time to shine. the structure of a rugby team aswell as each positions importance to the team and their role within the team is where i think juniors coaching should start placing more emphasis to make everyone feel involved. another area that has always been a problem is the number of juniors who stop playing rugby when they turn 17, 18 ,19 but thats harder to fix i fear

[James]

I honestly cant give a reason to why our scrums etc are poor in terms of the Force and Australia wide (being a winger myself all foreign goings on inside a scrum)... From a Force perspective you would think with the players we have that our scrum would be able to hold their own but it just hasnt happened in 3 seasons. OK they are somewhat inexperienced but all have had 3 years in S14 now (bar hockings, Wykes) and I personally havnt seen much improvement come scrum time!!!

I believe it comes down to a coaching/ technique issue were these guys are just not improving at scrum time.... the worst thing that happened to force over the last three years is losing Ben Darwin as forwards coach (I honestly believe we wouldnt be having this conversation if he had spent 3 years shaping our forwards.)

Maybe it is time to recruit a solid experienced scrummager for next season into our front row to show and teach the rest how its done...

Sorry but I couldn´t disagree more. Recently we have had Gareth Hardy out so Takiari, Whalley and Cowan are making the 22. Now Whalley has about 15 Super rugby caps, Takiari about 20 and Cowan about 10. Thats nothing compared to most. The unfortunate thing is that we are losing those guys who are experienced (like Angus Scott) who can ease the introduction for the other guys. I thought Darwin did a good job but we used David Fitter and David Te Moana very often as tight-heads back in the first year and both of those guys were big and tough and could scrum but didn´t cut the mustard around the park and couldn´t really be relied about to last 80 minutes. I don´t know do you want a decent scrum or do you want forwards who play 80 minutes (remember how many games we lost in our 1st year in the last 20 minutes?).

I agree with you though that we do need to recruit a solid experienced scrummager but who? Perhaps Tim Fairbrother is an option but I think all the others in Oz are locked down.

[no.8]

Couple guys who are worth a look at:

1. Aaron Broughton-Rouse - Eastwood (Waratahs 2007) (182cm - 113kG)
2. Laurence Weeks - Sydney University (Sydney Fleet) (NSW Under 19's) (181cm - 114kG)
3. Brett Naylor - GPS (Tornadoes) (183cm - 118kG)
4. Scott Baker - Axemen Captain (193cm - 115kG)

Some will need more work than others...