- Amendment to Law 19.10b outlaws the practice of FRs placing their heads onto opposition players’ head or shoulders between the call of ‘bind’ and ‘set’ on engagement
- Effectively immediately
- Foul play framework also streamlined after U20s World Championships
- Disciplinary sanction list amended to bring foul play involving head/neck contact as a mandatory mid-range offence
Effective immediately, World Rugby has announced details of a minor amendment to the scrum law, reducing the ‘axial’ or rotational load on front row players on engagement.
The amendment to Law 19.10b outlaws the practice of front-rows placing their heads onto opposition players’ shoulders between the call of ‘bind’ and ‘set’ in the engagement sequence. The sanction is a free kick.
This has been approved by World Rugby’s Executive Committee after a recommendation by the Rugby Committee to adopt key outcomes from the recent Laws Review Group (LRG) meeting recently in London.
The amendment is driven by research and evaluation undertaken by the NZRFU, the RFU, England’s Premiership Rugby and the Rugby Players’ Association who all presented to the LRG. The research identified an increase in axial or rotation loading on spines during the current scrum engagement sequence. International front-row players including Ken Owens (Wales), Rory Best (Ireland) and Jamie George (England) were all involved in the research.
In 2013, the scrum engagement sequence was introduced as part of a successful focus on reducing the risk of injury. The “Crouch, bind, set” sequence has delivered a 25% reduction on compression forces, a significant reduction in scrum injuries and a more stable scrum.
What does it mean for front rows? Here’s All Black front row coach, Mike Cron explaining:
World Rugby Chairman Sir Bill Beaumont said, “This latest small, but important amendment to the scrum law based on robust research could have significant welfare benefits for front-row players at all levels and therefore the World Rugby Executive Committee was overwhelmingly in favour of approving the Rugby Committee’s recommendation into law.”
High tackle framework streamlined
The High Tackle Sanction framework has also been tweaked following feedback from the recent World Rugby U20 Championship in Argentina. They have now removed the element on the high tackle flow, which previously used ‘direct v indirect’ contact as a factor to check. It was felt the process was taking too long so has now been shortened. The revised framework can be downloaded by clicking on the image above.
Mid-range disciplinary sanction for foul play head/neck contact
The final element is an amend to the disciplinary guidelines. The mandatory mid-range sanction in the Regulation 17 sanction table now includes both head and/or neck: “Any act of foul play which results in contact with the head and/or neck shall result in at least a mid-range sanction.”
RugbyReferee.net comment
Whereas many laws are there to prevent or prohibit matters linked with the opposition, this is one that is designed to protect the player themselves. It’s a pragmatic change designed to keep front row players safe. How do we referee it? Probably the same as we always have. We’ve used the phrase “no head on head” for a while now – both because it’s a flashpoint, but also just potentially dangerous. This is now backed up in law. As ever, we’d always encourage referees not to go hunting for this to make a point. Spot it. Manage it. Penalise it.
So we’ve got two sets of 8 all lined up and ‘we’ call “crouch” – F/R’s no head on head/head on shoulder, No2’s adjacent heads to left and so on.
On “bind”, No1’s and 3’s go ‘long-arm’ on their opposite number and upwards of 1200-1300Kgs depends on 4 human arms (+32 legs) keeping everything up, apart, stationary and stable before ‘we’ call “set”. Now we’ve a situation where there will be 4 heads hovering in space waiting to time a synchronised ‘duck’ when they hear “set” – sorry but I fear more risk of collapsed scrums (which for me just don’t happen) and significant chances of jammed necks.
Sanction, F/K at the “crouch” stage but does the same apply at the “bind” stage?
Give it a break, please!!
I’ve experienced no such safety issues with the new ‘old’ Law where I found F/R’s came to their own solution to keep things practical (and safe) and maintain the square/stable/stationary platform where there was no particular advantage to be gained from ‘cheating/dark art’ in some way or other. Once engaged it has been relatively easy to spot any subsequent scrum infringement and warn/penalise as necessary.
Sorry but I just see it as even more tinkering but I suppose as usual it depends on the level of competition with a tendancy to legislate for the top end of the game where margins are small and consequences are upwards large to immense.
I look at this and think that the players now have a bigger distance to “Hit” the opposition and this could lead to a firmer more stable platform or more injuries. I’m with the first comment, at my level the players seem to sort themselves out with some guidance and we don’t get many collapsed scrums. We will see.
Why not just save the IRFU,and every national RFU, and change the Union to League!. Because that’s exactly what’s happening! What’ll be next, no contact in the tackle? Understand player welfare, but this is ridiculous, the idea of having the front rows heads next to each other was to eliminate the hit. Now, you’ve got to be looking for props with extendable arms, and your back to the big impact again, only this time around, each pack will have an even bigger run up to make the hit,which will cause more damage, not only to the shoulders, but you’ll now have straight head on head, as there’s no way you’re going to get a stable pack with the new law!! We might as well all get a velcro belt, and 2 tags, and go back to playing Ripper Rugby, that way, no one will have any issues with being involved in a contact sport, which is fast becoming more on the lines of netball, and any other none contact sport out there.
There’s no problem with heads being next to heads, it’s just no heads on shoulders or head on head. In reality, no major changes required.
Sorry, can’t agree with that at all “no major changes required”? It’s a significant change for the front row and impacts on the scrum as a whole – and the ref.
I’m amazed there have only been 3 comments so far.
I went with the ‘ear to ear’ mantra (it was part of my pre-match brief) when the engagement sequence previously changed. It’s not a case of tail wagging dog but the front rows (age grade through adult teams) decided to find some way to gauge and execute that instruction ie head on shoulder (not head crown on head crown) – we have to get a game played and I eventually allowed that as a pragmatic and fundamentally safe approach.