The roll of the pack in modern RL

[cpwigan]

Scrum half and stand off Excile?

Historically the scrum half was smaller often not as fast as the stand off who was generally a bigger and faster player especially over long distances. The scrum half had to be able to feed scrums and worked with his forwards in general play. Defensively over time he started to act increasingly as a sweeper nehind the front defensive line. The stand off was always seen as the support player, the player linking forward and back play.

Generally, the ball was passed more from touchline to touchline so both halfbacks often stood next to each other to allow the ball to be passed such distances.

In the modern era, teams try to play from a central position and the ball rarely travels more than half the width of the pitch so the difference between the two positions has become far less obvious. Morseo one plays left side, the other plays right side. A halfback today tends to able to wear 7 or 6 and it would be hard to tell the difference.

[exile in Tiger country]

Thanks for that CPW. I've been following Rugby league and Wigan for just over 5 years now, and think I have an understanding of most of what goes on now, but could never get my head round that diffeence. Thanks again.

[DaveO]

cp. Thanks for taking the trouble to reply to my post. I think I understand and will look out for the formations you pointed out.

Dog with a bone where scrums are concerned though! Generally speaking I find Union to be unsatisfying and fairly predictable, with one exception; the scrum. It gives the side defending the "put in" the opportunity to "steal" the advantage, by dint of a good hooker.

Union scrums are IMO a disaster. In order to get the competitive scrums you mention they now have to be very, very careful when setting them up due to the size and strength of the professional players. This takes time and often does not work anyway.

As I mentioned in another thread I saw Wales v Ausralia RU game and the Australan pack was dominant to the extent the Welsh simply could not hold them. The scrums went wheeling round, collaspsd and had people breaking off too soon forced out and penalities resulted.

If you have contested scrums it becomes necessary to police them strictly and penalise infringments readily.

All in all they slow the game down to a degree I don't think they are worth it.

As I also mentioned elsewhere a doctor associated with the RFU called for uncontested scrums to be introduced some time ago as he now considered them too dangerous. I doubt he still has a job with the RFU but they now have had to adopt this ridiculous crouch, touch, pause, engage mechanism to try sand set the scrum safely.

They also have to make sure that they bind on properly and so on or penalties result.

All in all there are so many rules and so much messing about setting them up it just isn't worth the effort for the supposed contest. I say supposed contest because with two evenly matched packs then it's rare you get a turnover and with two unevenly matched packs as were Wales and Australia then it's a complete farce.

Union scrums in the amateur game may give you the contest you are looking for but at pro level they are becoming as big a source of concern in terms of slowing the game down as is the constant kicking being deemed poor from a spectators point of view.

Dave