As scrum after scrum is reset, experts agree that the rules regarding scrums and 'the hit' are complex and unworkable as teams try to gain advantage. Lives could be at risk. Paul Ackford writes in the Sunday Telegraph.
"Phil Keith-Roach, who was responsible for England’s scrummage during their successful 2003 World Cup campaign and who now coaches Sale, believes that the problem of collapsed scrums at the elite level is now so serious that “lives are at risk” unless the International Rugby Board acts swiftly to address the dangers.
"Collapsed scrums, euphemistically and inaccurately labelled resets, have blighted a number of recent matches, including England’s encounter with Scotland, where it took nearly three minutes before the ball was back in play at one scrum because of the number of collapses. But Keith-Roach’s concerns go far beyond a distorted and tedious spectacle.
“The IRB are diabolical,” he said. “They say they are interested in player welfare but I think they are putting people’s lives at risk. If we continue to have unnecessary forces on engagement someone is going to break their neck. The doctors who operated on Trevor Woodman and Phil Vickery [the props who started for England in the final of the 2003 World Cup] say that you can build all the musculature you like in the gym but you cannot increase the strength of the disc. They also tell you that an ordinary person can break a neck by having 100kg hit them at an inappropriate angle. Well, something like 1,000kg goes through a tighthead at scrum time. It’s only got to go marginally wrong and something terrible happens.”
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