Richard Cockeril's view.l

[Lee Lifeson-Peart]

I saw this game on the telly and I too was surprised at the disparity in scrum performance between Leicester and Gloucester.

Ironically the one scrum Gloucester won was when the TH was replaced afor the YC and Mike Tindall went in the back row for Qera.

It's quite a forthright piece - as you would expect fro RC.

Does Cockerill have a point?

Cockerill sez......

 

[Phil E]

Not quite sure what his point is?

Tigers were totally doiminant in the scrums, and he is moaning that only 1 Cherry FR got carded.
Would he have prefered that more were carded, and they went to uncontested, therby taking away the Tigers dominance in that area?

Be careful what you wish for!

 

[Account Deleted]

Was all the "dominance" legal? Props not boring, TH bind etc? I wonder.

 

[Bryan]

View attachment Leicester v Gloucester Scrum Notes.doc

Had a look at the scrums in this game. My views are attached.

There were a couple decisions that I thought would have merited the option call to reset as the safer view. It wasnt always easy due to TV angles either. Furthermore, some discussion with AR input would be interesting...

 

[Account Deleted]

Interesting comments:

This one 23m50 - Scrum. YC #3 Red. Green get underneath from the getgo and red are struggling here. Red has nowhere to go but up, so bails and stands up to break his bind. One of the angles shows the Green #1 (Ayerza) let the red #3 "fall long" into the hit i.e. fully extend, at which point Ayerza has enough power to get under him and drive him up.

Green 1 drives up but Red 3 is pinged? Or am I misunderstanding you

 

[Davet]

You don't have to drive up to force a player up, if you get underneath and drive straight then as he goes back he also goes up.

 

[Bryan]

Ayerza has enough power to get under him and drive him up.

Green 1 drives up but Red 3 is pinged? Or am I misunderstanding you

You don't have to drive up to force a player up, if you get underneath and drive straight then as he goes back he also goes up.

This. The Red THP is at such a shitty height that Ayerza, by driving straight into his sternum, in strong enough to lift him up.

That all being said, if by doing so the LHP drives UP as well, I'd still Ping the THP in this case as he was the shittier scrummager in this game and was more at fault (for the most part!)

 

[Simon Thomas]

I had fascinating conversation yesterday afternoon with one of the AR's at the match, who was doing a last minute London Society 3rd team re-appointment as he was Spreaders reserve AR yesterrday. The other AR is my Society Chairman and will see him tomorrow evening at Committee.

lots of history between Small and Cockeril apparently, lots of discussion between To3 about each scrum decision when they did the formal review of DVD - no one gets it 100% right and it is very difficult, but the AR sure knew his stuff about scrum dynamics.

 

[Account Deleted]

You don't have to drive up to force a player up, if you get underneath and drive straight then as he goes back he also goes up.

I am gong by the wording of the post quoted: "Ayerza has enough power to get under him and drive him up." Which suggests to me a deliberate action,rather than an unintended consequence.

 

[Account Deleted]

This. The Red THP is at such a shitty height that Ayerza, by driving straight into his sternum, in strong enough to lift him up.

That all being said, if by doing so the LHP drives UP as well, I'd still Ping the THP in this case as he was the shittier scrummager in this game and was more at fault (for the most part!)

Even if he was not the one at fault at this scrum?

If he drives him up or Lifts him then That suggests to me an action contrary to

20.8 (i) Lifting or forcing an opponent up. A front row player must not lift an opponent in the air,
or force an opponent upwards out of the scrum, either when the ball is being thrown in or
afterwards. This is dangerous play.

If the result of driving forward is that the defender stands up that is different but the other prop is not "lifting" or "driving up" in such a scenario

 

[Bryan]

In this case, the LHP gets into a lower body position, such that upon engagement he's at a lower height than the THP. The THP is now driving down on the LHP, but if he fully extends, he loses the power. Once that happens, we have a LHP who is going to drive into the chest (or weak shoulder) of the LHP, and by doing so he forces his opponent to go upwards.

In short: Yes it's deliberate to get in a lower body position than your opponent as a LHP. Tight heads tend to drive down, looseheads tend to drive up (generality here; not a "always and every day" statement), but this is by virtue of heights into which they engage.

I would never have considered applying 20.8 (i) in any of the scrums in this match.

 

[Womble]

Think that you are missing the bigger picture here! Green loose head spends most of the game shutting the space between himself and his hooker, this forces the red tight head in on a slight angle and opens the Red tight head up! The head on head is a massive indicator that all is not well in the set and poor Smally doesn't read it! If you get head on head pre engage then stand them up and start again or it's sure to go pear shaped! Secondly, when set like this if the green loose head misses his bind then he will hit the deck as he has no where to go, happens about three times in the game.

 

[Bryan]

Think that you are missing the bigger picture here! Green loose head spends most of the game shutting the space between himself and his hooker, this forces the red tight head in on a slight angle and opens the Red tight head up! The head on head is a massive indicator that all is not well in the set and poor Smally doesn't read it! If you get head on head pre engage then stand them up and start again or it's sure to go pear shaped! Secondly, when set like this if the green loose head misses his bind then he will hit the deck as he has no where to go, happens about three times in the game.

Disagree - Smally resets them twice for head on head.

Green's LHP issue isnt that he misses the bind, but that he binds short to begin with. A few PKs could have been resets. That's my only real "referee protection" issue in this game.

The Red replacement THP was even worse at binding than the #3.

 

[Womble]

Bryan, the issue is where the GLH lines up on the set. The RTH has no where to go but in on a slight angle! It all goes down hill from there!

 

[Browner]

Not quite sure what his point is?

Tigers were totally doiminant in the scrums, and he is moaning that only 1 Cherry FR got carded.
Would he have prefered that more were carded, and they went to uncontested, therby taking away the Tigers dominance in that area?

Be careful what you wish for!

Perhaps his strategy is . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . develop a scrum based scoring strategy , suggest not getting the benefit of it to all that will listen , subliminally convince everyone that because of your strength then everyone else must obviously be offending , increase the number of decisions that go your way

"RC has low opinion of Ref's" is as current as "Stop press - world is in fact round"

He's not even candid about it . . . . . . I was at LT recently & overheard him !!!!! .... he should really be more covert

Didn't Alex ferguson condition/pressure officials into 'fergietime & home penalty ratio improvement - perhaps RC has been reading AF's management tactics journals ?