Scrummaging 'one of the risks you have to take'

GARETH NICOLLE, the rugby player who was nearly paralysed in a scrum accident in December, disagrees with calls for them to be banned. The 27-year-old prop forward broke his neck while playing for Guernsey against Tottonians a week before Christmas.

It was feared initially that he might never walk again, but after a successful seven-hour operation, he has made a miraculous recovery although he can never play rugby again.

Some players, such as Matt Hampson, have not been so lucky.

The Leicester prop has been lying paraly-sed in a hospital bed for the last year after a scrum collapsed, injuring his neck.

That sort of case has led to Alan Jones, the former Australian coach, calling for scrums to be taken out of the game.

But the affable Nicolle believes it would be a shame if that were to happen.

'I don't have an issue with it,' he said.

'It's one of those risks you take when you play rugby. A centre in a high tackle could get hit with an arm in the neck or a full-back could have his legs taken away from under him when catching a high ball and land on his neck.

'As an ex-forward, I would be sad to see the scrum go.'

Nicolle's injury did not come about from a collapsed scrum but when he was pushed forward with his head down into the opposing prop's shoulder. He described it as a 'freak accident'.

It is reported that there are more than 36,000 injuries in school rugby matches every year, with dozens of them serious. Some players are left par-alysed for life.

Most of these injuries are caused by collapsed scrums and Jones said that as the set piece was so one-sided, there was no real point to it.

'Perhaps the game has to think about getting rid of the scrum,' he said.

'If the team in possession before the scrum is the team in possession after the scrum, then why submit the body to that kind of risk?'

The comments have come in for criticism from the likes of ex-England prop Jeff Probyn, who claimed that the scrum was an integral part of the game. Nicolle agrees.

'It's an important part of how one pack can take the other pack to pieces,' he said.

'If you push their scrum back two metres, you have won the psychological battle.'

An alternative to banning the scrum completely would be to make it uncontested or 'depower' it to something similar to rugby league where the scrums are not such a battle of attrition as they are in union.

'If they change it to a rugby league scrum, it would be a shame,' said Nicolle.

'Some people have said that under a certain level, maybe four or five levels under international standard, they should be playing with depowered scrums. But I can't think of how you can do it.

'This problem is partly when rugby turned professional. Players throughout the game have become bigger, faster and stronger as they spend more time in the gym and as a consequence there are now more severe injuries.'

With regard to his own recovery, Nicolle is becoming a victim of his own success as recuperates at home.

During his operation, he had three pins and four plates inserted into his neck and on Monday he went back to London to see his surgeon who has told him to take things easier.

'I'm doing well,' he said.

'I had my six weeks post-discharge with my consultant. He was pleased with my progress but he wants me to calm down a bit. It's a case of being bored: there is nothing to do.

'I've still got a lot of recovering internally to do but it is getting back to how it felt before the accident.'