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So guys, we've had our first full season under the new(ish) scrummaging laws featuring the altered engagement sequence. Do you guys think they've had a positive effect on the game?
I'm not sure if it's due to the most recent change or not, but I find it annoying when teams seem to scrum to get a penalty, not the ball. Haven't been watching rugby long enough to be able to say whether or not one seemed better than the other. I'm sure finding it difficult to adapt to doing it myself. I've always used the hit and drive to my advantage, the pause for the ball is still screwing me up.
I voted too soon to tell.
Agreed.
I would've liked to have seen the feeding watched for a bit longer (they to notice at the start of the season and it petered out) and there often problems with the early shove, but it's infinitely better than it was previously - rarely, if ever, get 10 moon scrum sequences.
I'm a little bit split by the new laws. On one hand, we do have less resets, the game is cleaner and more fluid from this, no doubt.
But on the other hand, it alters something that had been the same way forever, and some players have suffered from it. It's hard to identify which type of frame/type of prop exactly, but it certainly has dragged some way down. France is the side that may have suffered the most from this, and it's hard to tell just how much as lots of other reasons come into play as to France's absolute downfall in that area in the last year. I think of Nicolas Mas, who was pretty much the best in the world at his position for some years, who said "you're taught how to do something for 15 years and then they decide to just change how it's done..." so I feel for some of the more technical props who are disadvantaged by the new rules. Changing the rules of anything is going to render some considerably diminished for sure, regardless of the competition.
I guess those props who had to go through the transition in laws, some of them will suffer from it, and we'll just have to wait for the next generation that'll grow up on those laws.
This is untrue. 'The hit' is a relatively new phenomenon, only really coming to prominence towards the end of the 2000's as a weapon in the game. If anything, the new engagement laws actually make the scrum far more similar to the pre professional set piece, as can probably be better elaborated on by smartcookie or someone.