Scott happy with body of evidence

Rugby reporter

Wednesday 13 March 2013

Rugby might have changed beyond all recognition in some regards, but when the Scotland skills coach Steve Scott claimed he was looking forward to a fair fight at scrum time when Scotland visit Paris this weekend, it was tempting to wonder if the poor fellow had taken too many bumps to the head during his own time as a player.

Steve Scott says Scotland's forwards will continue doing what they did against Wales last weekend given that France's front-row â€œlove scrummagingâ€. Picture: Craig Watson/SNS

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Alasdair Reid

In fairness, the former Scotland hooker never actually played against France in the course of collecting 11 caps for his country between 2000 and 2004, but it is not exactly a secret that the French capital is also the global epicentre of set-piece skulduggery, a place where visiting props heave sighs of relief if they come away with nothing worse than a swift uppercut from a malcontent in the opposition's deuxieme ligne.

Indeed, you might as well piddle in their Pernod as accuse some grizzled French front-rowers of relatively recent vintage of playing by the rules, so proud are they of their mastery of mauvaise conduite at scrum time. What Scott wanted to say – but couldn't, for obvious reasons – was that he expected the French to be a little more straightforward in their scrummaging technique than the Welsh masters of the dark art that Scotland came up against in their last RBS 6 Nations outing. Scott couched his opinions in diplomatic language, but it is pretty clear that he, and the rest of the Scotland coaching team, believe that Wales conned referee Craig Joubert into giving them a stream of free kicks and penalties at Murrayfield four days ago.The issue on Saturday was that Wales appeared to hold back for a critical fraction of a second when Joubert's call of "Set!" should have brought the two packs together. The impression, then, was that Scotland were jumping the gun, and were duly penalised for it. After giving Wales two early free kicks, he raised the sanction to a penalty, and at one point even threatened Scotland pack leader Ross Ford with a yellow card."We won't change what we're doing," said Scott of last Saturday's match. "We're going to France and everyone knows that French front-row forwards love scrummaging. They love the contest of scrummaging. So nothing changes for us. Scotland have a very good scrum. Let's not blame the referee. Nothing changes because of the team we're playing this weekend. If we were playing Wales again then obviously things would have to change, but we are playing France, who have a very good scrum and are very quick in engagement. That suits the way we want to scrum."The statistics of last weekend's game underscore the grimness of the spectacle endured by a capacity crowd of more than 67,000 spectators at Murrayfield. Of the 12 scrums contested, only three served the purpose of getting the ball back into play. That pattern was the major contributory factor as the match produced an all-time Test record 18 penalty kicks at goal. It has since been calculated that scrums and penalty kicks took up 37 minutes – almost half the entire game.Yet Scott was unapologetic, even claiming that the crouch-touch-set sequence, which replaced the crouch-touch-pause-engage order at the start of this season, has brought improvements in the scrum. Few in the crowd would sympathise with his point of view, and a number of senior figures in the game are now calling for radical change. John Beattie, the 25-time-capped former Scotland No.8 (and father of current No.8 Johnnie Beattie) has called for the elimination of the "hit", suggesting that the front rows form up first, with the second and back rows following."I personally think scrums are better now," said Scott defiantly. "I wouldn't say they are spot on, but I think there are fewer resets. They are not holding the players there as long because they have taken out that [pause] word. My opinion is that they have sharpened the scrums up. The players are down there, set and ready to go. Looking at it, I feel it is better."Yet part of Scott's defence of the scrum was that Scotland have been winning penalties there. Statistically, he has a point, but not one that would be particularly persuasive to most rugby followers. The fact that the set-piece has degenerated to the point where teams are now more interested in harvesting penalties than winning clean ball is the nub of the problem for many paying spectators.While Wales might have gained their set-piece edge through mischief and deception, they won the battle at the breakdown by far more straightforward means. Wales won nine turnovers to Scotland's four and they also did a wonderfully effective job in slowing down Scotland's possession in contact. Those two elements speak highly of the effectiveness of Sam Warburton, the Wales openside flanker who was named man of the match.Kelly Brown has been deployed at openside in this championship, but the Scotland captain would be the first to admit that it is not his natural position. The restoration of openside specialist John Barclay to the squad gives Scotland intriguing options in that area, but the likelihood is that the back-row blend of recent weeks will be maintained. Scott said: "I think the breakdown is improving, but we need to win some ball and we need some territory as well. Once you get some ball then you can win the gain line and the breakdown becomes far easier."Every team will have issues around the breakdown, it is an area that will always be a focus for us."

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Scott happy with body of evidence

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