It happens often. A player knocks the ball on for a scrum, the dominant pack convert that into a scrum penalty and the outhalf kicks three points for his team. From what should have been an inconsequential, minor error can become damaging in the hands of a strong scrummaging team.
Some might see it as a pushing contest, and perhaps in its simplest form that’s what it is, but when the scrum concentrates the bigger players in the field in one place all bound together, it becomes something else, a platform for backs to launch attacks. It can be friend or foe.
Ireland scrum coach John Fogarty knows only too well the consequences, positive and negative. The Irish set piece, he says is “all right”. That’s as far as he goes. It’s complex, although he says the Irish players may occasionally make the sequence – a moving part of eight players – more complicated than required.
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“It was very frustrating in the summer [the tour to South Africa], it wasn’t good enough, we didn’t return enough as a team,” says Fogarty. “Sometimes we can get in our own way, overthink things. Sometimes making things simple [is best].
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“I think we had a good shape ... we scrummage at a really good height at the moment and that leads to us building weight. That’s important. We’ll always tidy up the pictures and images. We’re always trying to be more aware of what the referees are looking for. It’s really important to have a good relationship, a two-way relationship between referees and coaches, particularly at scrum time, so that we can get into scrum contests.
“In the first game against New Zealand we got into some nice, good scrum contests. They’ve been all right. We want to create something for the crowd, we want to create something for the team as a scrum. There’s good buy-in. We’re in a good place and we need to get more out of the gains, perhaps.”
Against Argentina Ireland won four scrums and lost none, while Argentina also won four and did not lose any. Quits there. Against New Zealand in the first match of the series, Ireland won seven scrums and lost one with the All Blacks earning eight and winning all of them.
Between 2008 and 2013, when Declan Kidney was Ireland coach, the importance of the scrum was unparalleled, the tighthead a high king. It was perhaps an apocryphal tale, but with centre Brian O’Driscoll playing on the team and regarded as perhaps the best in the world, still prop John Hayes was, people said, the first name on the Ireland team sheet.
For that reason, Ireland is casting the net wide for frontrow players and with prop Thomas Clarkson earning his first cap last weekend as Cian Healy drew level to O’Driscoll with cap number 133, Fogarty’s thinking is that props are not what they used to be, or, they can be what coaches want them to be. But recently Ireland’s loosehead depth at Test level has been questioned.
“We’re watching very, very closely. Paddy [McCarthy] in Leinster. Leinster have quite a few,” says Fogarty. “Jack Boyle has been in camp with us and has done a great job. He’s been very competitive, I think he’s learning on the run and he’s someone that we’re excited about, he’s someone Leinster are excited about. Michael Milne is a guy we’ve had in camp before, and then there’s Tom O’Toole who we’ve explored and consistently went down the line of loose and tight[head].
“It’s very exciting. We went on an EI [Emerging Ireland] tour. Alex Usanov is someone that I was almost going, ‘Jesus, we’re playing against the Cheetahs and [Western] Force and how is this kid going to get on?’, and he did incredibly well.
“We brought Jordan Duggan on that tour, and we brought Jordan because we wanted to make sure he’s getting a nudge. Sometimes players, maybe they don’t believe they can make the step, maybe they don’t believe they’re on coaches’ minds.
“We’re not a huge country, we’re looking at every single loosehead that’s playing competitive rugby in the provinces. Mikey Milne competing hard, Jeremy Loughman, Jack Boyle, we’ll see what we do with Tom O’Toole ... I don’t see looseheads and tightheads the same way any more.”
No longer just pushers and lineout lifters, the modern twist is an all-singing, all-dancing, sidestepping prop, who can hold together a steady scrum. With Tadhg Furlong and O’Toole fit again, there may be some of that on view come Saturday.
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