A new law trial that is being brought in for the Six Nations is so small and technical that most casual observers won’t notice it.
But it is something that has been on the agenda for some time and it is hoped the subtle tweak to the law will reduce the risk of serious neck injuries.
The law, which will be implemented in the men’s, women’s and under-20s championships, now requires hookers to use a ‘brake foot’ at scrum time.
It is hoped this will reduce ‘axial loading’, which is when a hooker rests his head on his opposition hooker before the ‘set’ call at scrum.
When in this position, incredible force is being pushed through the hooker’s spinal cord.
It is hoped that the use of a brake foot will see the weight being pushed through the hooker’s leg, rather than their neck.
“The easiest way to explain it is this,” Welsh international hooker Scott Baldwin told WalesOnline. “Put your head up against a wall, take your arms off and just push as hard as you can into the wall. Then you’ll know what I’m talking about!
“Your head is on the opposition hooker’s shoulder and all the weight is going through there, putting extreme pressure on your spinal cord. That’s axial loading.
“On the set call, then it’s about who can kink their neck down fastest, dart down fastest. That’s obviously a really dangerous position to be in because across the front rows, you’ve got in excess of 800 kilos.
“The props have their arms, which they can take the weight through.”
He added: “Some teams will come up with split locks, which means their locks are taking their own weight, but some come off double knees.
“If you’re coming off double knees, the only way you can get up and forward is by putting all your weight through to the front row, so you’re fully loaded up.
“By keeping the hooker’s brake foot, it allows him to take more weight through his foot.
“There is going to be no way of measuring how much weight the hookers are taking through their foot but they have to be taking something, which is an improvement on what it has been previously.”
The dangers of axial loading, then, are there for all to see.
Which begs the question, why do teams do it?
“It’s just to gain an advantage,” said the Welshman. “If you have a brake foot, you’ve got to move it back before you can go forwards.
“If you’ve got both of your feet back, fully loaded, and the other hooker has a brake foot, the likelihood of him being able to get his foot back and then go forwards before you is slim to none.”
So with hooker’s now required to bring forward a brake foot, it is hoped that it will ease the pressure on their necks.
Baldwin doesn’t think it will stop players resting their heads on opposition shoulders, but at least some of the danger should be removed.
“In a perfect world, you come down temple to temple at the end of the crouch,” he said.
“On the bind phase, you keep your brake foot up while the props bind and take some weight through their arms.
“You should still have that clear daylight between head and shoulder.
“I don’t believe you’re going to get that and it’s very hard to referee it. But what you will see is because you have to keep your brake foot up, you can’t fully load onto the opposition.
“Ultimately, it has to come down to the players buying into it. If all the players buy in, then it’s quite an easy fix.”
Baldwin is living proof of the dangers that lurk at scrum time.
In 2019, he suffered a bulging disc in his neck which was millimetres away from leaving him paralysed but, after surgery, he was back playing in no time at all.
“We’d played London Irish at home and I did it,” he recalls.
“I was in pain but our first European game was coming up and I wanted to play against Clermont away, so I tried to play and about two scrums in I couldn’t do anything.
“I walked off the pitch and lay down in the changing rooms for the rest of the game. I couldn’t move because I was in so much pain.
“When I went to see the surgeon, he told me that if it was three millimetres to the left, I’d have been paralysed.
“My wife wanted me to retire but the surgeon said I’d be back playing in 10 weeks after having a new disc put in.
“It was a full replacement. My neck’s the best it’s been since I was 23!
“But I don’t do any of the axial loading during the week because I know it doesn’t affect anything and you get enough loading during the games.”
He continued: “Hookers aren’t supporting their own body weight. The whole reason they changed the scrum laws and closed the gap was to put less pressure on the necks.
“When I had my disc replacement, the surgeon I saw in Bristol told me he’d seen a surge in neck operations in front rowers since the law change in 2014.
“That was when people started loading through their necks because the big hit had been taken away and players were working with small gaps.
“Initially, when the laws first changed, we essentially scrummaged the way these new law trials for the Six Nations intended for us to scrummage.
“But the nature of the beast is that people find ways to manipulate the laws and improve their ability to win that set and have that heavy shot.”
The success of the law trial will determine if and how quickly it is rolled out across the rest of the game.
But Baldwin insists he is 100 percent behind the law being adopted globally.
“It was something that Joe Schmidt [former World Rugby Director of Rugby] wanted to push through before he left his role.
“Now I think the International Players’ Association have stepped in and brought it back to light. Joel Jutge [World Rugby Head of Match Officials] is massively behind it.
“There is big noise for it to get sorted. It’s a big fix.”
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