“YOU LOOK FOR things. You look for the loosehead’s shoulder, where’s their hooker setting up, what’s his angle? What’s the tighthead going to do here? And then you pack down.
“It’s all about feel, if you know what I mean, so what does it feel like here? You can’t see the outside picture of what your actual body shape looks like, you have to know what it looks like by the feel of if.
“And then it’s crouch, it’s bind, you’re feeling what the loosehead is trying to do to you. Is he trying to bind long and lift you up? Is he trying to put a load of weight through you? Is the hooker kind of coming at my left shoulder?
“And then it’s the engage, and then the fight happens.”
I can’t imagine many people thought Tadhg Furlong got where he is today from just being tough as barbed wire, but anyone who did will have been set straight if they watched the Four Days in November documentary.
In an incredibly revealing 30-odd seconds, Furlong does his best to describe the thoughts going through his head before a big scrum. The words alone don’t even do it justice though. You need to see him as he describes it, closing his eyes occasionally as he visualises a loosehead and a hooker plotting against him.
Saturday was another impressive day for him. Nothing spectacular, but for the most part he held his own at scrum time, putting in an enormous 73-minute shift for a tighthead, and packing down for all 11 scrums.
It was the other side of the scrum, and the battle between Rabah Slimani and Jack McGrath, that will have had Nigel Owens pulling his hair out. They made it very difficult for the referee.
The seeds of doubt
The opening scrum of the day may have planted the seed of doubt which saw Slimani win penalties at the following two. Slimani often tries to drive diagonally in to the left, trying to split the hooker and loosehead, and that might have been on McGrath’s mind here as he puts a little too much weight on his right foot and slips to his knee.
Obviously we’re speculating slightly here, but that slip may just have been in Owens’s mind when the sides packed down again.
France were awarded a penalty which seems very harsh on McGrath, with Slimani’s short bind pushing him down to the ground.
We can see below that instead of a regular bind, Slimani seems to just sling his arm on top of McGrath’s shoulder.
McGrath’s bind is long, on the hips of Slimani, while the Frenchman’s arm is pointing straight down towards the ground, forcing downward pressure on McGrath.
And in the clip below we can see how he swings his right shoulder down towards the ground, causing McGrath to collapse.
In the commentary, Owens is heard to tell McGrath that he dropped his bind and angled towards the ground, saying “arm away and angle”, although it’s difficult to see how McGrath’s bind causes the collapse.
Even when we freeze it at the exact moment the scrum begins to drop, we can see how McGrath’s bind looks quite good. Normally when a loosehead is losing his bind, his elbow will point down towards the ground, roughly similar to the yellow line below. As we can see from the red line, McGrath’s bind is still quite high as they collapse.
France opt to go for a scrum once again off that penalty and this time, McGrath and Slimani stay upright, with the scrum caving in on the far side.
The binding is the same here though. Slimani has his arm slung over the shoulder of McGrath, who is keeping his own bind very high, which allows him to keep his left shoulder up and counter against Slimani’s downward pressure.
However, we’re also going to look at McGrath’s legs. Just as in the first scrum of the day, he’s trying to prevent Slimani from getting in at Rory Best by putting most of his weight on his right leg, so he can push off it and keep Slimani straight.
By doing that, it means that the angle at his hips is around 90 degree on his right leg, but wider on his left leg at around 120 degrees.
By having a wider angle on his left leg, it means that his foot is further back from his body than usual, making a collapse more likely. We can see how that happens at the next scrum of the day. As McGrath steps off his right leg, you can see how his left leg falls.
After awarding the penalty, Owens can be heard to say, “They’re all on their feet and your legs are far behind, straight to the floor”. Again, Slimani’s bind appears to be on McGrath’s shoulder and it’s likely that it had an effect on the scrum collapsing.
You could argue that there’s a penalty here for either side though. There’s the two of them in it, and it’s a nightmare for a referee.
Parity restored
At a break in play a few minutes later, McGrath can be heard trying to plead his case with Owens, saying that he’s trying to stay up but, but that Slimani is “pushing me down”. It looked like that little chat had an instant impact when Owens penalised France at the next scrum shortly after.
Again, we can see Slimani’s short bind, pointing towards the ground, and Owens awards a penalty almost instantly.
However it was actually France’s loosehead Cyril Baille who was penalised after losing his bind. If we freeze it, we can see how his left hand is on the ground, propping himself up.
Ireland opted for the scrum again, and it led to Conor Murray scoring the game’s only try. Just as he had in all of the previous scrums, Slimani binds short, and appears to pull down McGrath.
However it actually served to hurt the French. Dropping the scrum just created a messy situation, where France lost potential defenders who had been sucked into the collapse.
In the second half, the camera showed us how Furlong was getting on, first with Baille, and then when Eddy Ben Arous came off the bench on 40 minutes.
It’s a pity we didn’t get any replays of their side in the first half, because it appeared to be a really good tussle.
Having spoken so much about Slimani’s bind, this example from Furlong shows us how a tighthead’s bind should look, with Furlong getting a long reach, and keeping his arm parallel to the ground.
In keeping with the first half, McGrath and Slimani’s side collapses, and when the pair pack down again a few minutes later, it’s clear that Owens is beginning to lose his patience. First he turns to McGrath and says, “Get your legs strong”, before telling Slimani, “I want to see that (his bind) up”.
Those words seemed to work as they stayed upright. On the near side, Baille got a really good nudge on Furlong, but Ireland managed to get the ball in and out safely.
We can see below how, as Murray is feeding in the ball, Baille has done really well to get in under Furlong’s chest. Furlong’s head is just slightly above his hips, leaving space for Baille to attack.
And as the scrum develops, he drives in under Furlong, causing him to pop up. Luckily, Jamie Heaslip’s control is excellent as the scrum starts to retreat, and he gets his hands on the ball just in time.
Turning the screw
It was Baille’s last action, coming off two minutes later for Ben Arous. Ben Arous has been a thorn in Ireland’s side on a few occasions in the past, but he struggled in his three scrums on Saturday. His first action was to give away a free kick for a penalty, before contributing to an Irish penalty on the next drive.
If we look at the initial set-up, both he and Furlong are lined up nicely, with straight backs and long binds.
However straight away he begins to turn in towards Furlong, who is starting to split him from the hooker.
And the more he tries to drive, the further in he angles, to the point where he is perpendicular to the scrum.
And with Ben Arous now disappeared into the scrum, Kevin Gourdon has nobody to bind to, eventually roaming offside. This leads to an Ireland penalty, and Johnny Sexton kicking them into a 10-point lead.
Owens didn’t penalise Ben Arous directly that time, but was aware of his crooked drive, informing him at the next scrum that he had caused his flanker to be offside by angling in on Furlong.
But the Frenchman struggled with Furlong again on this final drive, collapsing to the ground under pressure before Ireland retrieve the ball.
We can see below how he’s struggling to keep his bind, with his elbow pointing towards the ground.
It brought an end to a mixed bag of scrums for Ireland on Saturday, with a comfortable second half making up for the early penalties they conceded.
However, France have provided Ireland’s scrum with the most difficulty in each of the last three championships, and compared last year’s game in Paris, they navigated a tough set piece well.
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