Critics may consider it a metaphor for the modern game. Those on the fence may venture that it is rugby’s way of going somewhere slowly. Proponents of the maul, however, would rather suffer under stampeding studs attached to eight sets of tree trunk legs before wishing it away.
A rampant maul is certainly one of rugby’s more arresting sights. The ball-carrying team stealing the march on opponents who had not set their defences in time, is normally an unstoppable force, unless the team on the back foot deploys nefarious tactics.
Unsurprisingly the maul isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. Former All Black flyhalf and assistant coach Wayne Smith, who now takes charge of the Black Ferns, has long looked at the leaves and holds the firm view it will drive viewers away. On Kiwi website stuff.co.nz, Smith, one of the game’s brightest minds, said the maul is a blight on the sport. Smith, a longtime devotee of open, attacking rugby in which the ball is given air and not suffocated under a blanket of heavy-set and puffing men, believes it is time the game’s governing body kicks the maul into touch.
He basically referred to its use as sanctioned cheating. It is hard to disagree with his assertion that the maul is organised obstruction, which often sees six if not seven teammates of the person in possession, in front of the ball carrier. The opposition has very little legal recourse to turn the tables.
Smith does not believe the maul holds any aesthetic value and that it will leave viewers cold. His views, however, will leave some of rugby’s traditionalists hot under buttoned collars.
Mauls, like scrums, tend to stir emotion. I had the misfortune of watching England, in their 53-3 thrashing of the Springboks at Twickenham in 2002, deploy a maul that saw them march the visitors, who were a player light after Jannes Labuschagne was banished from the field, back at a rate of knots. As if the sight of the usually physically imposing Bok pack backpedalling wasn’t enough punishment for South Africans in the stands, a local got out of his seat near the press box with the murderous battle cry: “Kill them! Kill them!”
When it comes to the maul, South Africans are bound at the hip. SA teams have historically excelled at that discipline against foreign opposition, so any attempt to diminish the maul would be deemed unpatriotic.
As with most things in the sport, the maul has gone through tweaks but none which adequately addressed the underlying problem that it detracts from one of the sport’s central tenets — a fair contest.
The maul has become the go-to tool when teams hope to advance the scoreboard by five points or more when they get a penalty in the opposition’s half. They kick for the corner, secure the line-out and move the ball to the custody of the hooker at the back of the maul.
The dice, opponents like Smith will argue, is loaded too much in favour of the attacking team once the maul is set. The defending team, having to be bloody-minded and co-ordinated in the knees, hands, heels and elbows defence to beat off the threat, is all but deprived of access to the ball. The inexorable near crawl to the try line, however, usually leaves would-be defenders defenceless.
Smith’s comments are likely to have the game’s traditionalists bristling. It is after allone of the game's primal battlegrounds and any attempt to outlaw or emasculate it will meet heavy opposition.
When it comes to the maul, South Africans are bound at the hip. SA teams have historically excelled at that discipline against foreign opposition, so any attempt to diminish the maul would be deemed unpatriotic.
It is perhaps no coincidence that the most proficient exponents of the maul, SA and England, advanced to the final of the last Rugby World Cup. When the heat is on and margins are tight, the maul offers a near impenetrable human shield with a sting in the tail. It is likely to form an integral part of team strategy at this year's RWC that kicks off in France in September.
Lawmakers are unlikely to tinker with a heavy hand this close to their global showpiece. In future, instead of outlawing the human caterpillar, lawmakers can chop some of the legs that have made the maul such an potent attacking weapon. Teams who sack (collapse) it after the initial window expires, should perhaps be sanctioned with a scrum instead of a penalty, or worse. Another way of limiting its potency might be to prevent the attacking team from scoring without the ball emerging from its protective blanket first.
The maul isn’t going anywhere any time soon. Turfing it out is not on the agenda, but lawmakers will have to find ways of making it a maul for all.
