Return of scrums not such a big deal, says Hull KR’s Tony Smith

It was 19 months ago that they were suspended for Covid reasons and there has been general delight that scrums are now back, mainly for the scope to create more attacking opportunities.

But Smith, whose side host Huddersfield Giants in Sunday’s friendly, has realised not to expect any great panacea.

“We all voted for scrums to come back and I got a little over-excited about them,” he conceded.

“But it’s a bit underwhelming. It’s crept up on us all; in theory, there will be only five or six scrums (per game).

“We thought it was going to be some big deal. But if you recall before all this happened, we went along with the Australian rule where you can kick it into touch and it’s not a scrum but a handover. It reduces the amount of scrums that we now have.

“That’s why we kick it into touch so often nowadays. We do it so we can have 13 people in a line – or 12 and a full-back – and can get organised at set plays.

“So you kick the ball down into the corner and get your defence ready with baseball bats to batter the opposition.

“Before that handover rule, we used to go to a scrum so people wouldn’t kick to touch.

“The only time you’d kick into touch was to close out a game or a half because you really didn’t want to defend from a scrum situation, as much as you do for kicking the ball into a corner and killing your opposition off there.”

Now there are only scrums if there is a knock-on – and the player regathers – a forward pass or an accidental offside.

Smith added: “I’m suspecting there will be maybe five scrums in a decent game.

“We changed some rules. Some people were excited about not having scrums and it speeding the game up but it doesn’t. It actually encourages you to break the rules in order to get a slow play-the-ball and have a controlled set. Who would have figured?”

KR prop Will Maher will miss the start of the season after suffering a fractured eye socket but Matt Parcell, Will Dagger and George King all return against Huddersfield.