how does the hooker protect themselves from being bored?

Rugby CoachCoach

hooker never bored there always doing some thing

Simon JonesCoach, England

Helen, I think Gavin was having a chuckle there! The referee has the job of ensuring front row players all bind on to the opposition front row straight so boring in on the hooker is illegal. It is hard for referees to see all that goes on in the front row but they should be able to easily see the angle of front backs and so sort out boring. To ensure your side isn't penalised make sure your players talk to the ref about what they are trying to do. Ensure too that your hooker talks to their props so they can help protect them. I hope this helps you. Simon

Rugby CoachCoach

Helen, Most hookers will 'encourage' the tight head from coming in towards him by asking their loose head to mirror the opposition tight heads body angle & get under his chin a bit. If that fails then the time honoured method of a 'polite friendly warning' in his ear before 'direct defensive action' will normally do the trick ! although this approach is against the laws ...so is Bore'ing so the tight head will unlikely complain. Any such 'flashpoint' will normally bring the referee around to have a look whats going on, and insodoing the hooker will have protected himself cos the opposition tighthead will now scrum straighter under the referees more watchful eye. Coaches and ref's will frown at this explanation, but experienced front row'ers will all nod when they read this.

Dave RobinsonCoach, Australia

G'day, Helen

I'm sure I met you when I coached with Aussie Rex Lawrence in Calgary in the 1990s -hope you are well

The other method to combat boring was "heads together" where the loosehead hooker would bind almost on top of his loosehead prop's shoulder so that their heads were close together. In conjunction with Kevin's mirroring suggestion, this meant the two players might combine to create a 2vs 1 force against the offending THP and reduce the THP's target area. It also might exaggerate the THP's inward angle and perhaps make it either an ineffective force as he drags his lock away from his forward momentum or make it more obvious to the ref that he wasn't going in straight in the first place.

I'm not sure how this would go nowadays with front rows having to pop their shoulders but you never know...

Cheers and all the best to you