USUALLY, HAVING YOUR reputation go before you is a bad thing.

But last night Romania reaped the rewards.

The most dominant scrum of the world’s Tier 2 sides picked up the majority of the decisions at the set-piece from referee Jaco Peyper, using every trick in the book to milk penalties.

Chief among them was loosehead Mihai Lazar of Castres, who pulled the wool over Peyper’s eyes several times last night, and should he feature against Ireland in Wembley this weekend, Greg Feek will be hoping Craig Joubert has been studying the tape from the Olympic Stadium.

Lazar has been the fulcrum of the country’s scrum success in the last two years, but his repertoire in the tight is largely filled with illegal moves.

His go-to move – which won them a penalty on the opening drive of the night – is to step out to the left and drive in at an angle, creating the illusion that he’s moving forward.

If we look at this still from the first scrum, we can see the position of Lazar’s left foot which is marked with a red X. The position of this foot will be crucial to the way the scrum moves.

Source: World Rugby

But as soon as Morgan Parra feeds the scrum, we can see how Lazar takes a large step out to left, and pushes off it to drive across Uini Atonio. While Lazar’s left foot is ahead of its initial position, it’s moved diagonally to the left, whipping the scrum out.

Also, it’s important to watch the position of where his bind is, on Yannick Nyanga, rather than Atonio. It’s almost impossible for a prop to bind on a flanker, while still being square and straight.

Source: World Rugby

Eventually, the scrum folds inwards from Lazar’s angled drive, but Jaco Peyper saw fit to award a Romania penalty.

From looking at the other side pof the scrum, that decision becomes even more inexplicable.

We’re not sure what Romania’s scrum-half Florin Surugiu was trying to do to Morgan Parra, but we’re fairly certain you can’t do this…

Source: World Rugby

The immediate reaction would be that Peyper didn’t see it and should have had more help from his touchjudge, but before the next scrum it became clear he let it slide.

Usually refcam is an utterly useless gimmick, but this time we can get a first-person view of Peyper telling Surugiu to cut out his handsy behaviour, making his decision not to penalise him even more baffling.

Source: World Rugby

But despite keeping a closer eye on Surugiu, Peyper continued to let Lazar do what he liked.

This scrum followed an identical pattern to the first, but there was no penalty to Romania.

Once more we can see how the sides set up straight, with Lazar’s left foot again circled.

Source: World Rugby

And just like last time, as soon as the ball is fed, Lazar takes a large step diagonally to the left, before pushing back off it across Uini Atonio.

We can see below while Lazar has stepped up, his body is perpendicular to the rest of the scrum, while once more he’s bound onto Yannick Nyanga. He didn’t win a penalty this time, but crucially, he didn’t concede one either.

Source: World Rugby

The biggest problem with Pepyer’s interpretation of Lazar’s scrummaging is that in the second half he came down hard on France for this exact offence, despite the fact that the French drives looked far more legal that Romania’s.

He penalised them twice in quick succession, and we’re going to look at the second of those penalties to show the differences between France’s drive, and the two previous efforts of Romania.

As usual, we’ll look at the initial picture for perspective. The red circle marks Vincent Debaty’s left foot, while the yellow line is there to gauge the direction of his step.

If his next step crosses that yellow line, it would indicate that he’s moving out to come back in, but if he stays within the line, it means he’s driving forward and legal.

Source: World Rugby

Below, we can now see the position of Debaty’s foot following his first step in the scrum. He’s stayed within the yellow line (which I’ve made sure to draw at the same height on each of the slides), and it indicates that he is moving forwards, rather than sideways.

Source: World Rugby

His next step is the same again, each time staying within the line.

It’s also important to note Debaty’s shoulders. As we can see, despite the scrum having rotated slightly, his shoulders are still square to his opponent’s, as opposed to Lazar in the previous scrums, who would be driving at an angle to his opposing tighthead.

Source: World Rugby

If a scrum has wheeled like this, and both props on the side of that the scrum has moved forward are square and straight to one another, the player on the backfoot is generally guilty of wheeling – in this case Romania’s tighthead Paulica Ion.

However Peyper decided that since Nicolas Mas (France’s tighthead) was not moving forward, it was he that was wheeling the scrum around, when in actuality Romania’s Paulica Ion had turned it, to prevent France from going further forward.

It was another poor decision in a poor all-round performance from Pepyer at the scrum. Usually quite clued-in at the set-piece, his night was summed up when he penalised France’s Eddy Ben Arous (this time correctly) for angling in. Taking captain Yannick Nyanga aside, Peyper told him that “number 1″ had been going in at the angle, and this was his last warning. The player with number 1 on his back – Vincent Debaty – had been sitting on the bench for the last 10 minutes.

The trick of stepping out, and coming around the angle is something that Lazar uses regularly. In Romania’s meeting with Georgia back in March in the European Nations Cup, Lazar again used it to win some dubious penalties.

This early scrum won his side a penalty five metres from their own goal, and it followed a very similar pattern to their scrums against France. Again the initial picture shows us how they set up, with the line through the middle to be used as the axis.

But we can see that as the scrum whips around, there is so much wrong with the Romania formation. The entire Romanian second and backrow are driving with their bodiesfacing out of the scrum, essentially swinging around in an arc, while the Georgian front row all appear to have square, parallel shoulders.

Also, the position of flanker Valentin Ursache in the red circle is laughable. He literally isn’t even in the scrum any more.

Somehow though, it’s Romania who win the penalty.

And if we look at the scrum in one full movement, it’s clear that Romania completely swing the tail of the scrum around, convincing the referee that they’ve gone forward.

Despite playing 70 minutes of their game against France last night, it would be a big shock if the Castres looshead didn’t start, or at least play 30 minutes off the bench against Ireland on Sunday.

His scrummaging – whether it’s legal or not – is a huge source of penalties for them, and with nearly 50 caps for his country, he is their undisputed first choice in that position.

His replacement last night Andrei Ursache will also more than likely be involved, being able to cover both tight and loose.

If they are to make a change in the front-row, it may be for veteran tighthead Paulica Ion, the 32-year-old Perpignan stalwart with more than 70 caps to his name. The previously mentioned Ursache is available to cover tight, while Horatiu Pungea featured there as a substitute against France in the second half.

Being their most crucial element of the front row, I would expect Mihai Lazar to start at loosehead, and if Ireland can neutralise him, they can attack the more vulnerable Romanian tightheads, and kill off Romania’s most potent weapon.