Dangerous scrum collapses will result in costly lawsuits

Published on Sunday 5 July 2009 23:31

ALLAN Massie is to be commended for highlighting the devaluation of the scrummage in his excellent article 'Frequency of scrum collapses must not be allowed to continue'.

The constant interruption in the flow of the game which the scrum collapse brings is hugely frustrating, usually resulting in any number of dubious penalties for reasons which can only be guessed at by the average spectator and for all we know, the referee himself. What a waste of time and effort.

However, what makes the case for change even more compelling is the issue of player safety, in particular the increasing incidence of serious neck and back injuries suffered by front row players. But if the risk of serious injury is not enough in itself to motivate the rugby authorities into promoting changes in the laws of the game designed to enhance player safety (and it should be) then the prospect of litigation should surely make players, administrators, referees and governing bodies all sit up and take notice.

Indeed this is where Allan Massie's article gets really interesting. He concludes that the referee is the one to blame for the scrum collapsing because he does not apply the law which requires the scrum half to put the ball in straight.

The result is that neither hooker strikes for the ball (there is no point) and instead the side that does not have the put-in at the scrummage will mount a massive eight-man shove in an attempt to disrupt the opposition forwards. The force that is generated by each side will more often than not mean a collapsed scrum and a collapsed scrum, as we all know, makes for a significant risk of neck and back injury.

If ever there was any notion that referees were somehow immune from legal action, that notion was kicked into touch many years ago. Sporting injuries have been the subject of many legal battles in recent times and in a number of cases it is the referee who has ended up in court. In one case, a young hooker successfully sued the referee of the under-19 match in which he was playing when he suffered a dislocated neck after a scrum collapse. At the point when the injury occurred, scrums had collapsed upwards of 25 times. The victim's counsel argued that the match was not played according to the laws of the game. In this case the referee was found to be negligent in failing to deal with persistent scrum collapses in that he had failed to enforce what were then new rules designed specifically to maintain safety in scrums for junior players, for example the crouch-touch-pause-engage routine. The player, who had been rendered tetraplegic, was awarded 1.92 million. The referee was insured through the RFU.

If Allan Massie is right, the potential financial consequences in terms of pay-outs is enormous.

ALAN W SHARP

Strachan Road

Edinburgh