Quote: DaveO "The current scrums are not the same as a tap penalty because half of both teams are all collected around the scrum and that makes them worth retaining in their current form IMO.
If you sort the scrums out you slow the game down and get an increase in penalties and it slows it down in Union by rl]a lotrl]. Contested scrums as in RU take a long time to set in the first place to try and make them safe and there are lots of infringements and not just technical ones but ones where the ref blows up because of safety issues.
Scrums get collapsed and often they will get wheeled around. If one side is superior at scrummaging then you see much more of this along with things like one of the forwards pop up because he doesn't like the pasting he is getting in the scrum which also can result in a penalty and so on. The whole thing can take several minutes and just reduces the time the ball is in play considerably. The setting, re-setting and high penalty count is all a consequence of the power and fitness of the players today and trying to balance that with safety.
I think the only thing you could do in RL is feed the ball in down the middle and allow the hookers to strike for it but have the forwards not push and so just hold the scrum steady. I am not sure its worth the bother since we seem to have evolved our game to actually want the team with the feed to get possession.'"
That is what I was on about Dave..if we want the team feeding to get the ball to speed things up..then as I said before just award a tap penalty.
