All Blacks: Scrum shambles must be addressed

All Blacks halfback Aaron Smith watches on during a scrum against France. Photosport

Victory over the French produced patches of attacking beauty mixed with lingering frustration. Elements of a throwback to the dark days of shambolic scrums sure didn't help the latter.

Scrums may not be sexy to the masses but they remain integral to the fabric of rugby. Try downplaying the importance of this area and Mike Cron will have you in a headlock begging for mercy quicker than a European bullet train covers 100m.

In recent times, particularly in the Southern Hemisphere, scrums have generally become stable, contestable platforms largely used launch attacks from.

When performed properly, and both teams want to engage, scrummaging battles are appreciated and embraced by most rugby followers.

But nobody wants to see excessive time wasted with resets and dithering. And that's what we got in the All Blacks' 38-18 win at State de France, to the point where the 78,561 strong crowd regularly grew understandably restless; turning to singing and Mexican waves for entertainment.

World Rugby is thought to have conveyed concerns about French tighthead Rabah Slimani's binding prior to this test.

The All Blacks largely enjoyed the upper hand at scrum time in Paris, with Slimani eventually sent to the bin for repeated infringing. But later on, the visitors had their issues, too.

For the punter, it made for stop-start messing viewing throughout.

"For us coming up against a Northern Hemisphere team it's taking a little while to adapt to that and some of the different strategies they have in place," All Blacks prop Wyatt Crockett said. "We talked about it during the week but going up against it is another thing. This will be great for us to take the lessons from. Having that in the bank now will stand us in good stead for the next couple of weeks."

Referee Angus Gardner dished out seven scrum penalties, but never really had control despite stopping several times to hold prolonged discussions about rules of engagement with the respective front-rows.

The upshot was far too much dead time and frustration - something we should have moved on from by now.

"I thought our scrum was good," All Blacks coach Steve Hansen said. "There was a lot of difficulty coming from the French tighthead he was collapsing a lot and as a result got put in the bin for it. We got penalised twice for closing the gap that seems to be a new thing for the referees they seem adamant they want that. If they want it, we have to give it to them so we have to be a bit smarter about that.

"When it mattered we scrummed really well."

Hansen is referring to the French scrum five metres out from the All Blacks line in the closing stages which was demolished. While they came up trumps on that occasion, which provided the catalyst for Waisake Naholo's final try, by no means did the All Blacks have it all their own way.

"We had our share of bad ones as well so it's a matter of making sure we can be as good as we can with every scrum," Crockett said. "There's plenty to work on for the next couple of weeks."

Issues confronted by the All Blacks' first-choice front-row will now be handed onto the likes of Atu Moli, Jeffery Toomaga-Allen, Tim Perry and Nathan Harris, all of whom have been tasked with stepping up against the French XV in Lyon on Wednesday (NZT).

One way or the other here's hoping this area is cleaned up.