When you sit back and think about it, it's an offense just as dangerous as a spear or a high tackle or sweeping the legs off a jumper in a line out.
It involves driving your opponent head-first into the ground, when they don't even have their own arms to break their fall.
And after he's fallen, fifteen grown men collapse on top of him, leaving serious injury to somebody a distinct possibility.
It's cowardly and it's cheating and it's as clear as almost any other infringement taking place in a rugby match, but it's ignored to the point of being accepted.
You can see it from your tv screens without the aid of a replay or a close up, and when the referee stands and watches it from two feet, often times he penalises the victim and rewards the perp.
It's happening at underage level and at club level and even at International level. It's the biggest reason for the majority of collapsed scrums, and it doesn't even require a law change to be stamped out. It just requires application.
If you haven't realised now, I'm speaking about a tight head's bind.
I've been a prop ever since I started playing rugby 10 years ago. I'm far from a world beater and at times I can have the aggression and energy of a sloth after a hefty meal.
I play tight head occasionally, but for the most part, I've found myself at loose head down the years.
It can be a difficult position to play, and it comes with it's natural dangers. You're constantly under pressure to keep up the scrum, and because your head position is outside that of the tight head, a fall or a slip or can lead to two packs of forwards landing on top of you.
So when the tight head prop you face takes your safety into his hands and pulls your binding arm downwards, you're facing into a position where you, or a handful of other players are falling head-first into the ground and just praying you land safely.
Coaches should be stamping it out at the start, and referees should be pinging it at every scrum, but the IRB have become so blinded by the engagement sequence, they've neglected almost everything that happens after it.
Instead of teaching teenagers how to scrum safely and fairly, coaches are advising their players to drop the bind and be cute about it. It doesn't matter that it's cheating, and if somebody gets hurt, it's just part of the game.
They're not monsters though. They're just oblivious to it's dangers. They teach their players to tackle low, and attack the shoelaces. They treat high tackles in training as seriously as they would in a match, and spear tackles are treated just the same. It's dangerous. It's not part of the game and they teach their players never to do it. Sadly, when it comes to the scrum, it's pub rules.
It's condoned by the coaches because it's ignored by the referees.
And it's ignored by the referees because they've never had to face it. Props, by our nature, have some timber to spare. We winter well, and the fitness required to referee at a high level is something beyond most social league prop forwards. The major problem with this is that almost all referees, from underage to International, have no grasp of the shenanigans and tricks of the trade that take place in the front row club.
They've never crouched, touched, or engaged, and don't know what it feels like to have somebody try their hardest to drop you head-first into the ground.
In every televised rugby match I watch, I see tight head props pulling their loose head to the ground, and winning a penalty because of it. Forget the fact that it's cheating. It's dangerous play.
My solution is simple: hold scrum workshops. Gather the referees onto a rugby pitch and show them how it happens. Get them to scrum against one another, so they can properly understand the binding and the boring that takes place every time it's re-set.
Find some retired members of the Front Row Club (preferably Italian or Argentinian) to show up and teach them all the old tricks although getting an ex-pro to reveal the "cute hoorisms" of the front row would be tougher than getting John-Joe Shelvey to "grass someone up".
It's a practical exercise that will bring an infinitely better knowledge of the set piece to the referees at every level. It's applying the same logic of being a player to being a referee. I'm not holding my breath though.
The players learn how to scrum by scrummaging. The referees learn by watching videos.
When you consider it all, it's a miracle there aren't more serious injuries coming from collapsed scrums, but that's no reason to dismiss it.
High tackles and spears tackles are acknowledged as dangerous and are penalised as such. Neither offence regular causes serious injuries to players, but are penalised and punished because of the dangers associated with attacking the neck of a player. Binding on a player's arm should be treated exactly the same way.
Sadly, I can't see change coming. The IRB know that it's something that tight heads will keep on doing. It's just like pulling shirts in the box in a game of football. Everyone knows it happens. Even the referees do. But they know that if they were to finally clamp down on it, the game would become a farce, and just a succession of penalties one after the other.
So all that's left to do is wait.
We've to wait until an International prop or a second-row dislocates a shoulder or breaks a neck or maybe something worse. They'll call it a "freak accident", just like the one that's left Matt Hampson paralysed. They wont realise that it's entirely preventable, that negligence from a prop or a referee and the "win at all costs" attitude has potentially ruined a life and not just a career. But at least, maybe we'll see a victory in the fight to clean up the scrum.
And if that happens, that victory will have come at a price.
Check out Neil Treacy's Blog - A Drug Called Sport.
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