'I'd be pretty filthy': Wallaby takes aim at 'suits' wanting scrum changes
Rugby's big men have found a vocal supporter in an unlikely place after pint-sized Wallabies back Andrew Kellaway shot down the notion of a scrum clock for Super Rugby Pacific.
Representatives of all 12 teams as well as member unions and broadcasters met to discuss the future of the rebuilt competition last week, with potential rules changes at the heart of their intention to provide a better spectacle.
A 60-second clock to form a scrum was raised as a way to increase ball-in-play time, a sore point particularly in games featuring Australian teams in the first edition of the expanded season earlier this year.
Suggestions like a player draft and removal of yellow cards for knockdowns have found support.
But veteran Wallabies prop Allan Alaalatoa and Andrew Kellaway, who could play fullback against South Africa in Adelaide on Saturday, were far less accommodating of any plans to rush scrum time.
"We've got to be careful, don't we?" Kellaway said.
"It's a niche area of the game where you've got guys doing a specialist skill.
"We're asking these blokes to compress a spine for a living.
"And someone in a suit has the nerve to ask them to hurry up.
"If I was Al, which I'm not fortunately, I'd be pretty filthy about that.
"I think there's so many other areas we can pick up in the game. The breakdown is another one before we have to start going picking on the scrum."
Alaalatoa was more diplomatic but acknowledged that only those who put their heads in dark places could understand what was being asked of them.
Alaalatoa was more diplomatic but acknowledged that only those who put their heads in dark places could understand what was being asked of them.
"We don't want to set up a quick scrum and then engage because then we put ourselves at risk of injuring our neck or our back," he said.
"We understand we need to put something in place to make it more attractive to the crowd.
"We need to implement that first at training, or take one year to at least practice that, because I feel like if we don't get it right, someone will get injured.
"If we don't implement that at training we are probably going to be high-risk come game time."
The 50-22, goal line drop-out, golden try extra time and 20-minute red card have all been relatively successful since being introduced in Super Rugby.
Kellaway said changes to the deliberate knockdown laws, exposed by Izaia Perese's head-scratching yellow card in Australia's Test against England in Brisbane earlier this year, would be welcomed.
As would a televised, pre-season player draft that would allow young talents stuck in a long queue at one club to flourish with game time at a Super Rugby rival.
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Nah, that just needs some more variation. Chip kicks, grubber stabs, all those. Will Jordan showed a pretty good reason why the rush was bad for his link up with BB.
If you have an overlap on a rush defense, they naturally cover out and out and leave a huge gap near the ruck.
It also helps if both teams play the same rules. ARs set the offside line 1m past where the last mans feet were😅
Go to commentsYeah nar, should work for sure. I was just asking why would you do it that way?
It could be achieved by outsourcing all your IP and players to New Zealand, Japan, and America, with a big Super competition between those countries raking it in with all of Australia's best talent to help them at a club level. When there is enough of a following and players coming through internally, and from other international countries (starting out like Australia/without a pro scene), for these high profile clubs to compete without a heavy australian base, then RA could use all the money they'd saved over the decades to turn things around at home and fund 4 super sides of their own that would be good enough to compete.
That sounds like a great model to reset the game in Aus. Take a couple of decades to invest in youth and community networks before trying to become professional again. I just suggest most aussies would be a bit more optimistic they can make it work without the two decades without any pro club rugby bit.
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