Pondering the scrum during le Crunch, 1st half.

Joe Marler (centre) and Nicolas Mas battle on the pitch (c) PA Photos

I thought it would be interesting to look at the scrum battles during le Crunch to see how they told the story of the game and the ultimate French victory. This was a battle not just of great front rows but of great packs that are among the best in the game. The game itself was a great spectacle, provided you are a French fan or at least anti-England, and worthy of a repeat view (especially now that you will be more informed from reading the post). 

Watching the game a second time, even with a focus on the scrums I still found it hard to see all that was going on during the first (well, technically second) look. I will say that a second or third look was needed to capture the infractions and it was impressive that Nigel Owens and his officials caught the more glaring issues and penalized the players accordingly. In almost every scrum there are probably 2 or 3 things that could be called (mostly flankers unbinding early) but it is usually the action in the front row that incurs the ire of officials, so this post will really be focusing on those engagements and trying to look at some of the technical aspects that resulted in penalties. Well, my interpretation of the engagements and penalties. Even if you don't like scrums this should be interesting.

*I have a bunch of screen shots but I only looked at the BBC feed, so if the Canal+ (?) footage provided different angles, well, guess you're shit out of luck. 

Statistics: Figured we would take a look at some of the scrum statistics from this game first before delving into the game to provide context to the stats. On the surface, France won the scrum battle comprehensively, taking all 7 of their feeds, while England was 3 of 5. Joe Marler and Mako Vunipola, the England looseheads, were both penalized once, while tighthead Dan Cole was dinged twice. As we will see, France's dominance may have been the reason young Henry Thomas was not sent onto the pitch (which begs the unanswerable, "then why is he there?", but alas). French substitute loosehead Yannick Forestier was penalized but it was not for a scrum infraction, so basically France had no scrum penalties, England 4. Not very often in top tier rugby will you find things so unbalanced (even when Australia plays!). 

An interesting but probably coincidental feature of the game was that scrums tended to be grouped. Nothing for 20 minutes, then 3 engagements in the span of 6 minutes. 1 scrum in the first 17 minutes of the second half then 5 in the next 10 minutes. Just leads to an interesting ebb and flow to the game.

TO THE SCRUMS! 

Scrum #1: The first scrum of the game is always important as it allows the giant mass of meat that are the packs to size each other up. Scrumming is a vicious and unforgiving event, and a genuine battle awaits you when you enter the Stade de France, even for a renowned operator such as Dan Cole. 

So here we are, 21 minutes into the game, France already up 13-3 and the first scrum is called in England's half. The ball is in, the right side collapses and the arm is up in France's favour. As a quick aside, I feel it is unfair to penalize a prop on the very first engagement of the game. Yes, they are professionals, but it is very much a "feel" event, and I thought there should have been a reset here. But officials high up and pundits across tv land hate that word so here we are. 

So here we are at the first scrum. Owens is right over top of the engagement, so he as good a view as you're going to get on the first go. Jean Marc Doussain hasn't even put in the ball and it is going down. Cole, for those that may not know, is the England (white) prop closest to us, and we've caught him right at the moment that his face begins descending into the ground. His shoulders are now below his hips and with the push coming from behind him he has nowhere to go but down. You can see that he has released his bind (saving his shoulder from separating ;-) ) and that his right foot is up on his toes, as he is slowly losing his footing. Below is a rough diagram of Cole's position and the direction of his body because of the push.

With the directive to increase penalties at the scrum to increase the flow of the game and minimize overall scrum time (for which I do not have a number, sorry) that is taken up in games. So, straight arm in the air, and France have a shot at the posts. Doussain slots the kick and France are now up 16-3.

Scrum #2: 5 minutes later, another French put in, this time deep in their half on the 5 metre line. It's a pretty scrum, ball is in, both sides are stable and Louis Picamoles is picking off the back and moving the ball to Bastareaud for a crash ball before a clearance. Small, smart move by France. Also uneventful, so we move on. We're looking at fuck ups for this post *thumbs up*

Scrum #3: Hard to believe but little over a minute later and here we are for another engagement. Don't remember what led us here, but also: not important. This is England's first put in and first chance to take advantage of the set-piece. The ball is called in and there is no hook from Dylan Hartley, which some people may criticize but he probably doesn't feel comfortable with the idea of his knee dislocating when the scrum collapses because he moved his feet. And this was probably a smart choice, since it is Joe Marler's turn to go down.

  

So above with the tape that you can fairly make out is Joe Marler, England loosehead prop, about a second and a half before his head meets the grass. The ball appears to be in between his legs, and it looks like his right knee is already on the ground. His proximity to the ground would almost be desirable if he was in control. But he is not. Were his hips and knee in a straight line down he might have been able to salvage this scrum, but you can see the pitch is coming up and there is no more traction he can gain, and with Nicolas Mas, the France tighthead, now on top of him, all he can do is grunt and "sorry fellas", because that is a penalty and turnover and France can put the ball back into England territory. 

I tried to draw out Marler's path from above to provide some clarity for how he ended up in this position. Below we see Marler as the red '1', the black arrow above Mas, bleu 3 ;), represents the direction Marler wants to turn Mas, inwards, getting him off-balance, moving the loosehead side of the scrum up and opening a chance for a pick up the left side. 

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Marler's tries to walk around to get on outside and on top of Mas, but is unable to. The black arrow shows the path he takes; instead of engaging completely square, his body ends up directed towards the gap between the 3 and 2 when he's lying prostrate on the ground. Here's the view from above, you can see Marler's position relative to the French pack who have remained square. Owen's sees this, or the assistant referee does, and dings England. Full arm, Jules Plisson drills the ball down to the England 22 and France has a chance to up the pressure on the English. 

So here we are, three scrums in the first half, all in a span of 7 minutes or so, and the French are on top. The only really thing England might feel hard done by is the Cole penalty, but Owens has established what he wants from the packs and it is now up to them to deliver it. I'll cut this post into sections and end this part with the whistle to call half time.