MLR’s New Trial Laws: Destroying Scrums and Changing Rugby Forever?
February 15th, 2025 saw the opening weekend of Major League Rugby’s (MLR) eighth season, and with it came new World Rugby approved law trials. Said trials removed the scrum option from four infractions. No longer will a knock forward/forward pass into touch, a knock forward/forward pass into in-goal (and then grounded by either team), a failure to play the ball after five seconds following a “use it” call, nor an unsuccessful end to a maul have the option of being followed up by a scrum.
Unsurprisingly, this announcement was met with outrage and cries of ruinment of our beloved sport. Fans have furiously typed responses talking about how these will bring the death of the scrum, and how this will just lead to us playing Rugby League (League) instead of Rugby Union (Rugby). I will get into the differences between the two in a later work, so for now just know that they are practically different sports with Rugby having scrums and League not having scrums.
These concerns are not unwarranted, mind you. There has been a concerted effort by World Rugby (pushed mainly by a few Southern Hemisphere Unions scared of losing players and fans to League) to reduce the amount of time spent scrumming in a match. All in hopes of speeding up the game and attracting new fans to the sport. Such as the new Law removing the scrum option after a free kick, which was put in place by World Rugby on July 1st, 2024. Meaning if a team is awarded a free kick following an infraction caused by the opposition scrum, the awarded team cannot choose to have another scrum.
What’s that? I’ve sparked your interest? You’re dying to know how those first round matches of MLR under these new laws went? Were there NO scrums? Has the sport been ruined forever? Or worse yet, were they playing League?! Well, to put it simply, no.
There were definitely still scrums. In fact, according to James Deeley, and The Rugby Network’s X post, there were almost the same exact number of scrums per match as last season’s opening weekend. There will always be handling errors, especially since MLR teams don’t have proper preseasons, which will lead to scrums. Just look at the NOLA vs Anthem match as a prime example. Two teams wanting to throw the ball around. While exciting to watch, the more passes made means more chances to create handling errors. Again, more handling errors leads to more scrums.
To be completely honest, while watching the matches the trial Laws didn’t really seem to have much of an impact. There may have been more lineouts and tap and goes, but they weren’t really noticed because match play moved so smoothly. Sure we didn’t see any push-over scrum tries, or a team being awarded a penalty try due to the opposition scrum committing too many penalties near their own try line. We did see teams with the stronger forward pack be able to exert their dominance, though.
We still saw dominant scrums completely annihilate opposing scrums. Again, go check out the NOLA vs Anthem match. We also saw penalty tries given, just for collapsing mauls instead of scrums. The fact that there were less scrums wasn’t noticed by these eyes. That doesn’t mean we’re not on a slippery slope, though.
The powers overseeing Rugby have been slowly disincentivizing the scrum pretty much since the sport was invented. The sport of Rugby was mostly just scrums. Two sets of forward packs would engage in a scrum like they do now, but the hookers would try to kick the ball forward (instead of hooking the ball back with their feet) in efforts to advance the ball. The goal was to advance the ball while keeping it within the scrum. The backs only got the ball when it would pop out randomly. Once the ball carrier was tackled a new scrum was formed, and it would start all over again.
Will the progression of getting rid of the scrum continue until they no longer exist as in League? Maybe? Probably not though. As I mentioned above there are Rugby Unions who would not mind seeing fewer and fewer scrums, but there are more unions who absolutely adore scrums. Scrums are unique to Rugby, and if properly used could be used a tool to bring in more fans. Rather than being the perceived hurdle preventing new fans.
I would like to see specialized scrum announcers and officials. Every time the two packs are about to scrum the announcer could go into detail about the tactics each of the front rows were about to use to try and get the upper hand. Something like, “Now keep an eye on the elbow of this player”, or “This prop has been getting pushed around, let’s see if he shifts his body position this way to apply pressure here”. It would enable both new and old fans to engage with the scrum more. The NFL will break down what linemen are doing correct or incorrect at the line of scrimmage, so why can’t rugby do the same thing?
As for the specialized officials, we all know that most refs at any level probably did not play in the tight five and probably don’t have a whole lot of experience at what is actually happening during scrum time. I would suggest bringing in some kind of scrum official whose only job is to come on during a scrum and ref the scrum. Someone who actually played in the front row and knows the “dark arts”. After the scrum is over, they would leave the pitch. If the camera angles are adequate enough, the TMO could also be the specialist. I would prefer some actual be on the ground though.
With all of this being said, are these Law trials going to get rid of scrums and ruin our sport forever? No, they’re not. Will they lead to more drastic measures that could remove scrums from Rugby? Most likely not. Hopefully my advice will be taken, and scrums will help bring people in. We’ll just have to keep watching to find out for sure, though.
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