Aviva Premiership
Warriors chief Hill slams scrum 'lottery'
ESPN Staff
January 2, 2013
Worcester boss Richard Hill and captain Chris Pennell pose with the Premiership silverware, Aviva Premiership season launch, Twickenham, England, August 24, 2011
Worcester boss Richard Hill has called for action to be taken surrounding the scrum © Getty Images
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Worcester Warriors boss Richard Hill has hit out at the state of scrums in the modern game and has labelled them a "lottery".

Hill has called on rugby's authorities to address that specific area of the game and also look at whether there should be a change in the laws. He believes that rather than giving free-kicks at scrums, referees should let the game flow.

"There has to be a change to the laws because, I'm not being funny, it is a lottery at the moment," Hill told Worcester News. "Any coach, player, forward or forwards coach will say to you that you might as well toss a coin to decide what happens at a scrum.

"One week you will do one thing in the scrum and not get penalised, but the next week you will do exactly the same and get penalised. Every scrum in a game is literally a lottery - you always think 'there will be a free-kick here' but you have no idea who it is going to go to. That cannot be right, you have to play a little bit more advantage and let the game flow."

Hill added that he believes the recent introduction of the call 'crouch, touch, pause, engage' is partly to blame for the increased number of penalties and breaks in play caused by scrums in recent seasons.

"It is very frustrating, I really don't know what is going on," Hill continued. "How many times can a team get a three-quarters move from a scrum? We hardly ever work on moves from a scrum because you just don't get them.

"Every scrum is a free-kick, a penalty or a complete mess - it's so hard and I have no idea why. I think it started when the health and safety hit us with this 'crouch, touch, pause, engage' nonsense. Every time a scrum goes down, the referee has to reset. In the old days, if it went down, it went down and you just used to play on. So, in my view, don't blow for a free-kick, just let the game flow and it would be a much better game if we just did that."

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