By losing on the Castres pitch, the Toulouse team showed how complicated it was to win a rugby match without dominating in the scrum. This melee which gives all the salt to our sport.
Know that we understand the reasons why, every year or almost, World Rugby comes up with new rules to make rugby ever more attractive and spectacular. And, even if some “purists” will constantly put up a bit of resistance, it must be admitted that the vast majority of lovers of this sport applaud with both hands when it comes to making this game more fluid and, in some ways, more enjoyable. It is at this price that he will continue to win the hearts of an even wider audience. But, if we must love rugby, it is also for what makes up its essence. And nothing is more representative than his ultimate test of strength, namely this famous closed scrum. This fierce fight, eight against eight (except when the boxes go that way…), which says so much about the domination of one team over the other since the dawn of time. The adage has gone down through the ages: “No scrum, no win”. Yes, rugby has changed so much, evolved so much… But, on Saturday evening, the illustration of this truth once again burst into everyone’s faces at Pierre-Fabre. Especially Toulouse, penalized six times in closed scrums. The consequences? Deprived of ammunition, each time sent home in the second half and damaged in terms of confidence, they ended up cracking: two tries conceded, yellow card for Aldegheri in the name of the accumulation of faults from the first line, etc. Not that we should put everything down to this fragility but it was undoubtedly the key to this match. And this is perhaps what will remain the charm of this sport forever.
