High time to replace the line-out with a scrum

To lose one Grand Slam may be regarded as a misfortune, to lose two looks like carelessness, while to lose three, to yet another Celtic nation is reminiscent of the worst excesses of the French revolution; or so Lady Bracknell might have put it. But it is not the end of the world for England – though after reading some of the papers you might have been forgiven for thinking that this was precisely what it was – any more than it is the beginning of a new age for Ireland.

Still, the Irish played magnificently. They reminded me of the Lions in South Africa in 1997. Led by Kevin Maggs, who had as fine a match as the captain, Keith Wood, they tackled everything that moved, often before it moved, sometimes before it was anywhere near the ball either.

Faced with commitment of this kind and a largely complaisant referee, England should have tried to calm things down a little. I am not, by the way, accusing the excellent New Zealand ref of being biased against England or towards Ireland – far from it – but merely pointing out that modern officials see it as their primary function to keep the game moving.

Jonny Wilkinson did not seem to possess either the wish or the wherewithal to slow the game down. The simplest and most effective method of accomplishing this is, paradoxically, to alter the alignment of the backs. It is paradoxical because, to slow things up, you get the backs to adopt a more old-fashioned attacking formation.

This gives them more time to think, and compels a team like the Irish on Saturday (or the Lions in 1997) to run further forward to make a tackle or, as often happens, create an obstruction. It also falls foul of the modern "in your face'' fashion and the doctrine of the sacred nature of the gain line. Such a sensible ploy is therefore unlikely to be adopted widely, or at all.

In the interest of keeping the game moving at all costs, flagrantly crooked feeds are now tolerated, as they were on Saturday, without being penalised in any way. Indeed, they are not severely penalised at all, being followed, if detected, by an indirect free-kick. When last, in an international, did you see a genuine strike against the head, as distinct from a disrupted scrum leading to an unexpected change of possession? Soon the scrum-half will merely have to bounce the ball off the outside leg of the loose-head prop, as in rugby league, and it will be off and away again.

The line-out is going in the same direction as the scrum has lng gone. Certainly, England missed Martin Johnson, though his replacement, Simon Shaw, did not let anyone down. And Malcolm O'Kelly chose this occasion to show that he had at last succeeded in expelling his Lions experience from his system. I hope that Scott Murray and Jeremy Davidson likewise emerge purged of their Australian disappointments.

The striking aspect to the line-out was not so much that Ireland did better than England (it would be going too far to say they dominated it) as the way poor Phil Greening was blackguarded by Brian Moore in the commentary box and by numerous papers afterwards, all for failing infallibly to find his man. At half-time he was substituted by Dorian West who performed little better, if at all, in this area of high endeavour.

It has become ridiculous that a hooker should be judged, and judged solely, not by his nippiness round the pitch, where Greening and West yield to few, still less his competence in the scrum, which has now been fixed in advance, but by his ability to chuck the ball to a colleague some considerable distance away. A boy of 12 can put the ball into the front row straight, though today he is no longer required to possess this simple skill. A natural ball-player, a David Beckham, say, or a Mark Waugh, could not always manage what a hooker is required to do unfailingly throughout a match.

The function used to be performed in a more or less slap-happy fashion by the wingers. Quite often, indeed, it was the only time they touched the ball during the match. The French scrum-half, Jacques Fouroux, threw the ball in himself and, as coach, had his scrum-half do the same. There is no law which lays down that the hooker should do the throwing-in.

The trouble is that the lineout is now seen as a source of guaranteed possession, as the scrum became many years ago. In that case, why do we need it at all? Why not replace it with a scrum 10 metres in, with the put-in following the existing laws on the throw-in? That, you may say, would deprive a lot of beanpoles of gainful employment and make the game even more like rugby league. I am not convinced that this would be entirely a bad thing.