Watching Hull vs Wigan - I am sure on two occasions that Hull have only put 5 players (once with the feed, once against) into their scrum... hmm. Is this how much of a farce our scrums have descended into in that we cannot be bothered to either put six men into the scrum or even officiate and notice the numbers in there?

Is that before or after they had a man sent off?

After.

I have made a mistake if the rule allows them to have one less at the scrum and mods, feel free to delete this ill advised, erm, topic.

Yeah they definitely can opt to not have a man in. I only noticed it this season when Amor was sent off on good friday.

If you are going to criticise the referees for something, I find it helps if you take the time to make sure you have a clue what you're talking about first.

It's been a rule for as long as I can remember. Surprised that was the first time you noticed.

Correct you are, and I put it down to the astounding discipline of modern-day players in that it is a scenario I rarely come across.

What alerted me to it was interestingly enough, the Wigan players clearly badgering the referee for saying that they were one short in the scrum. I shall take solace in that I wasn't alone in thinking it looked odd - again, I accept I was completely wrong.

More often than not teams will go 1 short at the scrum when they're a man down in order to preserve their defensive line.

I'd like to see clubs play against this more by using the scrum against the team with fewer players in it. Keep the ball in the scrum and push the scrum backward to gain ground.

Though this would require a change in the rules to allow the ball to be kept at the back of the scrum by the loose forward. But I think it may be a positive change and allow the scrum to be used more in general.

The laws relating to scrums refer to the maximum number of 'backs' (ie the number of players that are NOT in the scrum) that are allowed when there is a scrum. The maximum number of backs is 7. So if you only have 12 men on the field for example you only need 5 in the scrum leaving the said max of 7 backs.

Fair enough.

Pretty sure it was every scrum though, not just the one or two you mentioned.

In fact someone with a more intimate knowledge of the rules than me might be able to correct me, but I don't think it's even optional. I think you have to take one out of the scrum if you're a man down. Or maybe I've just made that up, but there's something at the back of my mind anyway.

Quite an ironic post given your criticism of No36

Not really. My criticism was about their rant about the state of the game and the referees based on something they had got wrong, not their knowledge of the rules. If they had come on and asked why Hull only had 5 in the scrum then I would have just answered politely.

Anyway, you didn't answer my query?