KEY POINTS:
International Rugby Board - meet Brendan Cannon. Brendan, meet the IRB. Brendan? Where are you going? Put down that gun. Brendan!
Cannon is the hooker for the Western Force who ended up prone and looking very Moby Dick indeed after a scrum collapse in the Super 14 match against the Crusaders. He was initially cleared of a serious neck injury and talked about playing in the World Cup before a specialist gave him a reality check and he retired from the game last week.
Those of you with reasonable memories might remember the IRB introducing the changes to the scrums this year in the context of safety.
You know - crouch, touch, pause, do the macarena, engage. That palaver. Rugby's scrums are about as appealing as a bus crash. Only safer. Allegedly.
Cannon doesn't think so: "In some ways it has probably brought an element of danger to it," he said, "because the front row have to be balanced there for a longer period of time. You may not get many guys to speak publicly about it but I think there is a general frustration there."
No matter how well-intentioned the new scrum laws are, they are not any safer.
We have been assailed by all sorts of scrum statistics regarding fewer resets, fewer collapses and more scrum penalties since the IRB brought in the new measures. What does it all mean? That the IRB has a good communications unit who know the value of being pro-active.
The plain fact remains: when 900kg scrums smash into each other, it's not exactly a safe procedure. When props - as many do - slip their bindings to get a re-set or even a penalty against the other blokes, there is always the danger of scrum-neck-spine-ground collisions.
The scrum (apart from league scrums which are more like group therapy sessions) will never be safe; not while there are collisions, even muted ones; while props slip binds; and while referees are powerless to prevent scrums from collapsing. Safe? They're having a Turkish, aren't they?
It's a safe bet, however, that being seen to do something for safety is a good way for the IRB to justify their gin bill. It's politically correct and it protects the game from a horrid spectacle from which mothers shield the eyes of their little Jonnys or Daniels - kids who might otherwise be the next Wilkinsons or Carters but who might be lost to the game if they saw Brendon bending his neck.
Yet all physical sport has a kind of implied consent to it. Everyone who plays rugby knows that there is a chance they will be injured. A sport which is pretty much based on collisions has a good chance of handing out a few injuries.
Now let's look at another hooker retirement last week - that of England World Cup winner Steve Thompson. He also suffered a neck injury, this one gained after landing head first after being whirled about in a tackle. Will the IRB now be introducing measures to soften tackles? No, of course they won't.
Unfortunately, the new scrum laws are yet another chapter in a sickeningly long volume: Changes To The Game Of Rugby That Didn't Need To Be Made.
Successive generations of geniuses have twiddled and tweaked rugby's laws until they have turned the game into a confused and confusing spectacle, particularly around the hideous tackled ball rule, a thing of such mangled logic and bewildering action that no one knows what is going on.
Some of these rule interventions have been effective. Like cleaning up the lineout which used to be a dark and nasty process which would likely end up as a penalty.
But rugby has a terrible record with rule changes. They are made for the good of the game but haven't produced a good game.
It's time those who run rugby really earned their salt.
The game is under real threat at the moment - declining audiences, club & player rebellion in Europe, the boring hiatus between World Cups, player rotation so that once-proud test matches are meaningless training runs and, now, the 'product' (as the IRB and rugby unions are so fond of calling it) is beginning to pall.
Defences hold sway, the ball is simply not in play long enough, there are dreary spells. In one Super 14 game, as instanced by Eddie Jones, a scrum reset took 1m 30s - almost 2 per cent of the game taken up with one scrum.
The only people who do not seem to be aware of the crisis are the IRB. They are looking at yet more law changes designed to fix the problems - but they won't apply until after the World Cup.
Why? If there's a problem, why not fix it before the World Cup? The European season is over so, of course, nothing will happen but why have they waited?
To hell with the bureaucracy - the need was urgent.
Instead, we will have to endure a World Cup of crouch-touch-pause-engage-reset-yawn.
