(Photo by Hannah Johnston/Getty Images)
The renowned “scrum doctor” Mike Cron has re-signed with the NZRU, and he will continue to work with the All Black’s and New Zealand teams to ensure continued success in their set piece.
The former police detective is widely recognised as arguably the greatest scrum technician in world rugby, and his relationship with Graham Henry is one of the key reasons for the All Blacks recent modern rugby dominance.
It is difficult to award a particular scrum as being the strongest in the world, in a set piece that can be widely difficult to interpret; but the reality is that the All Blacks in this area are regarded as being the best in the world—or at least in the top three.
While he is considered amicable and an overall “nice chap”, when it comes to the scrum, he takes no prisoners, and is known as being notoriously hard to please—exacting meticulous standards from his charges.
Indeed, Cron has been known to make front rowers were bra devices with chains and wear boxing gloves to prevent incorrect bindings. He has taken apart what was previously regarded as just a single aspect of the game, and made it into a thorough and painstaking process which reaps rewards.
Against Wales last year—arguably the All Blacks toughest match of their northern tour—Cron widely regarded the work of the All Black pack as being instrumental in their second half ascendancy and pack authority over the Red Dragons.
“I really liked that. They were working like a hand in the glove and I think they really sucked the goodies out of Wales. That was a really huge influence for that opening 20 minutes in the second half when our work took the legs out of them.” Cron remarked.
In the same manner that repeated defence can tire a team, the pressure of close to one tonne of eight forward’s weight pressing at extreme force against each other takes more out of opposition packs than anything else.
"Wales then became slower and less effective at cleanouts in other parts of the field and all that psychology adds up," he said. "The pack's scrum work was a big factor as they sucked the energy out of the opposition."
Equally, Cron had a lot of work to do without Carl Hayman and Greg Somerville - two of the world’s great modern front row forwards - there to apply their craft.
0 Comments
Loading more comments...
This comment and all replies have been deleted This comment has been deleted Undo delete