READING through Harry Pinner’s autobiography this past week and a recurring theme jumps out of the page during his description of some of the tight games of the late 70s and early 80s — namely the importance of Graham Liptrot’s ball winning skills from the scrum.

In those days the game revolved around getting a good supply of ball and it was never a formality that the team feeding would win it back.

Before I get too misty eyed and nostalgic, there were always problems and arguments at this confrontational form of restart.

The two packs engaging for a scrum resembled an amorous encounter between a pair of octopuses.

The props mauled and pulled each all over the park, while crafty rake Tony Karalius would more or less sit on the floor, loosely bound to the props, to make sure his foot struck the ball first at put in.

And then all you would hear was a universal bellow of “feeding” with the respective scrum halves lambasted for not putting it in straight.

If you think refs have it bad now policing the ruck, then that was child’s play (no pun intended) compared to the old scrums.

The only way they really sorted it was by a raft of clampdowns, sin-binnings, penalties and sendings off.

Although the six-tackle turnover was introduced in 1983, the years which followed saw a much cleaner but still competitive scrum.

In fact, scrums were probably the less messy they had ever been in the years before they the game under Super League brought in the unwritten rule that the team feeding gets the ball rendering their formation as pointless.

That, for me, is a shame.

Ok, it is not that I particularly like the scrum. Anyone who watches rugby union as a casual observer, rather than as a 15-man code aficionado, will highlight scrums as the least enjoyable bit of that game.

Everyone wants to see the ball going through hands, not the big fellas pushing and shoving each other all over the place.

But for me the two work hand in hand.

For one, if you have 12 big fellas locked into a set-piece genuinely competing for a ball, teams have the potential to ship it wide quickly from the scrum.

It is a glorious chance to put on a genuine attacking set-piece.

Sadly that never happens now, instead the ball goes to a big back row standing at six who drives it straight back in.

The other aspect is that the word 'completion' is the mantra repeated now, if you lose the ball throwing it about, then the penalty is a turnover, albeit dressed up as a scrum.

Would teams toss the ball about more, chip over the top if there was something on, take the winger on the outside or sneak an offload if there was half a chance of winning the ball back at the scrum?

Of course it is never going to happen.

Coaches are never going to spend hours teaching number 8s and hookers the dark arts of ball winning.

Competitive scrums in rugby league are as defunct as a three-point try, Blackpool Borough and BBC2 Floodlit trophy, so why go through the charade of forming them.

If nobody in the game wants them, why not finish off the evolutionary process and just get rid and start with a tap?