Paul Lewis: Red card the rolling maul

Rolling mauls are the perfect examples of obstruction - they are also perfectly legal. Photo / Photosport

The rolling maul is becoming a big turn-off in the World Cup - second only to the frustration produced by the spidery fingers of the TMOs touching everything that happens - and maybe rugby's governing body will now do something about the ugliest blight on the game.

Even the minnows are into it now, with Japan's success against South Africa a perfect example. Australia squeezed Fiji into submission with two more tries to rolling maul finisher David Pocock and there have been similar tries in almost every game thus far.

It's lunacy. Several players arrange themselves ahead of the ball carrier in perfect, flagrant disregard for rugby's laws of offside and obstruction. A player or players may not impede a tackler from getting to the ball carrier. Yet that is precisely what is permitted in a rolling maul.

If defenders try to counter it, they risk a penalty or a penalty try, a yellow card and possibly the disgust of their nation for losing the World Cup. The only way to stop it is to pull it down, as the ball carrier is hiding behind a battering ram of forwards (and, increasingly, backs as coaches have worked out little can be done to defend it). But that's exactly what provokes referees to award penalty tries and yellow cards.

The approved defence is to "swim" through the maul from the rear and attack the ball carrier, which is easier said than done when you have to push through a surging tide of hundreds of kilograms of players binding together to ensure you fail. "Swim" around the edges or join the side of the maul to attack the ball carrier and, you guessed it ... penalty try, yellow card.

The major sin of the rolling maul is it makes the defence defenceless, against all principles of any sport.

Rugby otherwise outlaws obstruction. Act as a dummy runner, crossing in front of the ball carrier and blocking tacklers, and it's a penalty to the tackling side. Accidentally run into a team-mate so he is briefly between you and the tackler, and it's a scrum with the opponents getting the put-in. But a rolling maul, formed offside and blatantly obstructing everybody else ... well, that's just peachy.

It's like rugby jealously guarding (as it does) the principle that a pass must be thrown backwards, but introducing a rogue law that says it's OK to throw the ball a long way forwards on condition that a prop is standing in the opposition 22m zone, wearing odd socks and singing a verse from Eskimo Nell. It is that stupid and far removed from the essence of the game.

There's also the aesthetic complaint, that these are the most boring tries and moves ever seen on a rugby field. They are about as creative as a bowel motion. All the rolling maul achieves is to push defenceless opponents out of the way.

The referees often get it wrong. As Richard Loe pointed out after the opening match between England and Fiji, England's rolling maul try involved a truck-and-trailer (when the ball carrier is separated from his colleagues, an illegal act) and therefore should not have been awarded. But, of course, in a game of endless recourse to the video ref, that one passed without comment.

It's got to the stage where the World Cup could well be won by this criminally stupid loophole. If so, please write to World Rugby and tell them you have bequeathed them your testicles upon death - because they clearly have no balls. They had the opportunity to alter or ban the rolling maul before the World Cup but chose not to.

World Rugby may change it after the tournament but it will look like they are only doing so because the minnows are working the trick against the big boys.

That's the other thing - to many Southern Hemisphere eyes, it looks an abomination in a game built on running and passing. In the north, however, players and crowds often seem happier when everything is locked in a morass of straining sinews with the game played in a dark space fans can't see. It makes you think of US satirist PJ O'Rourke's summary of the English as people of dubious sexual practices and bad teeth who used to rule half the world but still haven't figured out central heating.

Having said all that, it was a surprise to see Australia's first match against Fiji mainly characterised as a flawed effort. Apart from their rolling maul expertise, the Wallabies showed they have the best defence yet seen in this tournament. They bossed the breakdown in a way that brought to mind the defeat of the All Blacks in Sydney. They played Pocock and Michael Hooper together again and the latter, if he is not already the world's best No 7, is pretty close. Australia remain, to these eyes, the greatest threat.