Sundays are for young uns. When I first started going it was Saturday afternoons and there were no such things as floodlights

Did you lot never go to midweek games? Part-timers.

I don't miss contested scrums - they were horrible, messy affairs and with todays athletes, would be a hotspot for injuries; aren't there moves afoot to change them in RU due to the number of neck injuries picked up by forwards?

The rules as they stand now are fine, if they are enforced properly; for example, stop players moving off the mark to ptb, which they now seem to do virtually every time, putting the markers out of position and obtaining an unfair advantage for the attacking side.

I'd also like to see the liberties that players take in the ruck dealt with - at present, the ref walks them through every step of clearing the ruck (held, movement, release etc) which results in the ridiculous spectacle of players clearly holding the tackled man down, whilst looking at the ref, waiting for him to issue the next instruction. Tackle the player, get up, let him the play the ball - or be penalised; it used to be simple.

Finally - find some way to deal with the now ubiquitous forward pass; in 2012, when your phone is more powerful than the computers that flew men to the moon, I refuse to believe there isn't a better way to ascertain if the ball has travelled forward, or not.

sundays whats that got to do with attendance levels

and I didn't say it because of scrums more than the way the change in game is played now a days.

scums are not scrums they are just cuddles that they can just peel off to get back into the game

Don't forget the tackled player holding on in an effort to make it appear as though the tackler will not release him. An equally ridiculous spectacle, and one that is more likely to milk a penalty.

But they do trap at least half the players on the field in a very small area, which gives a lot of space to the halves, centres and wingers to do something, if they'd take the risk, or ship the ball out quickly enough.

Fair point, but I think that what you're describing has come into the game as a direct result of what I described; players expect to get held down now and know they won't get a quick ptb, so they hold on for a penalty as a form of compensation. If the defenders were required to clear the ruck more quickly, the attacking player would focus on getting up to ptb, rather than trying to react to being held down by overtly demonstrating that he is being held down.

Aussie coaches have broken the system with their wrestlemania tactics; it could be fixed by reverting to an expectation that you'll complete a tackle then get up, not that you'll lay on as long as possible, then roll and climb all over the tackled player and wait for the ref to tell you what to do next.

The 'contested' scrum became a farce in the late 70s/early 80s, which led to the change of interpretation (even though the rules stayed pretty much the same). The scrum was reformed 2 or 3 times and then a penalty was awarded. With the advent of the turn-over, the number and importance of the scrums was reduced significantly.

It still has a role to play, but to hold up RU scrums as an example of how it should be done is fallacy as they never go against the head either and just waste time and energy and require specialised 'atheletes'. I would just make the refs police the packing down, make them bind properly or award a penalty, which would slow down players escaping from the scrum and increase the effectiveness of the situation. From a spectators perspective the current scrums are untidy and seem half-hearted and pointless.

As for forward passes, when I played I'd always assumed that the difference between RL and RU was that in RL flat was forward and this seemed to be the interpretation used although, as I discovered when I did a coaching course, it was never true. A minor change in the wording of the laws would have a significant effect, i.e. the ball must be passed backwards rather than the ball must not be passed forwards.

I agree that the technology to automatically detect a forward pass would be possible. You could combine the GPS system with an accelerometer in the ball which could detect any acceleration of the ball in a forward direction at the time of the pass. It would make a good project for an electronics student and if I were more switched on I would have patented the idea before disclosing it on a public forum.

And would you like black and white telly and horses with carts.

No thanks. In recent RU internationals at least 20 minutes of the game is wasted in setting the scrum!

RL scrums have never been pretty (not in the last 25 years) even when they were "contested". Its just a different way of re-starting the game, as opposed to a tap or ptb.
In yawnion the scrums take forever, but on tv they go back to the studio for a chat and so time passes more quickly.
During the game on Sunday there were 2 or 3 occasions where Smith just put the ball round the second rowers leg and carried on. The ball never entered the scrum, even by todays standards.
Instead of a scrum we could just hand the ball over after a knock on, as we do on after the last tackle, although do we really need to speed the game up any more ?

You're right it's miles from slow, it's completely pedestrian

Get rid of the scrum, outdated rubbish that is boring to watch.

If huge score lines become the norm, a reduction in the number of tackles should be considered.