Precisely what takes place in the scrum, especially at the pointy end of the front row, remains somewhat of a mystery. There’s a reason those with intimate knowledge of this set piece are said to dabble in the “dark arts”.
The details are not imperative for most England fans. What is important is that the English pack has been getting it wrong for some time now. In fact, the 10 other tier one Test nations had a better success rate last year than England’s score of 85% from their own feed.
“We’ve had to look at ourselves on a deeper level,” said an introspective Mako Vunipola at England’s training base in south‑west London. “We knew that the scrum wasn’t where we wanted it to be. But we didn’t realise how bad it was. There was a bit of a shock.
“As a group of front-rowers we take pride in [the scrum]. It’s tough to hear. The only thing we can do is go up. We’ve seen improvements in training and the transference to games. We know that we’re on the right path.”
Clearly England are taking this seriously. Their forwards coach, Richard Cockerill, who will be moving on to Montpellier after the Six Nations, was also put forward to speak to the press this week. The message is clear – something needs to be done.
Steve Borthwick has spoken about making incremental changes to a team he said “weren’t good at anything,” under his predecessor as head coach, Eddie Jones. In order to rectify the plethora of shortcomings, Borthwick has chosen to build from the ground up.
“Steve made it very obvious what he wanted our team to look like and what English rugby, when they’re at the best, is based on,” Vunipola said. “We obviously want an attack, defence, kicking game, all that. But it’s on the bedrock of a foundation of a set piece. We as a forward pack didn’t give the backs that.”
Borthwick is a coach who focuses on the finer details. He’ll shift the thumb position of a lineout lifter by a few inches to help stabilise the jumper or adjust the angle of a ball carrier’s shoulder to better present at the ruck. Has he similarly tweaked the English scrum?
“There’s loads,” Vunipola said when asked to name just one alteration Borthwick has made. “I can’t list them all. The main thing probably is body height and that’s not just in the set piece, but in everything that we do. We want to play low: tackle low, carry low, clear out low.
“And every job we have is based on going high to low. Every time you think you’re going somewhere, Steve has a very keen eye for spotting minute details. As players, we have to adapt to that.”
Perhaps Vunipola is keeping schtum on trade secrets. England have already gone public on their work with leading referees, including Wayne Barnes, to get on the right side of officials at scrum time.
“That gives us clear directives,” Vunpola added. “The group that we have, we’re very confident that we can test anyone on our day. What we have to do is make it a contest enough so the referees see that we want to go forward and that has improved a lot in the last two games.”
A shift in attitude has helped too. The feedback received was that England’s scrum was “reckless”. According to Vunipola it was also disjointed. “There were a few too many times where we were pushing as a six or seven rather than pushing as an eight,” he said.
They will need to be cohesive next Saturday for their trip to Cardiff, where they have not won since 2017. Vunipola didn’t play in that 21-16 win but he was a 56th‑minute replacement two years earlier when England won by the same score. Not that he remembers it.
“The one that sticks in my mind is when we lost to them by 30 points. That one hurt. The one during Covid wasn’t great either, where we conceded 40 points again. We know that they’re a good side and especially when things aren’t going their way they’re even better. The memories of Cardiff, some of them are pretty bleak.”
