A version of this article was printed in the Irish Examiner’s Heineken Cup rugby preview supplement on April 5th, 2013 (not available online)

 “Crouch…. Touch…. Set!”

The front rows engage and collapse. The referee whistles. The crowd groans as yet another Heineken Cup scrum ends with a reset, a free kick or a penalty.

To many rugby-watching eyes the sequence above has been a more regular sight than ever before. And they might be right. Looking at the list of the most-penalised players in the pool games of this season’s Heineken Cup would certainly give anybody food for thought as based on statistics from the Amlin Opta Index every single one of the top sixteen is a prop forward.

While forwards will always be more likely to be penalised than backs due to the often shadowy nature of their work at the breakdown, to not see a single flanker or number eight among the list of most-penalised players offers two alternative scenarios:

a)      Back row forwards in the Heineken Cup have taken a collective vow of abstinence from acts of foul play.

b)      Heineken Cup referees are whistling front rows off the park.

Perhaps that the top 16 are all props is simply a fluke, a numerical accident of fate. Well, if the list is expanded to the top 31 (all players who conceded seven or more penalties), fully 23 of the top 31 are props or hookers.

Listing rugby felons by the simple measure of penalties conceded is rather a blunt instrument; it’s fair to say that in today’s game props typically don’t spend as much time on the field as players in other positions.

Adding game time to the equation is illuminating. Of the top 34 players listed by minutes played per penalty conceded in this season’s Heineken Cup, 28 are front row forwards and of those just three are hookers. But the most interesting thing is that of those 34 players, only eight are also included in the top 31 penalty offenders.

That’s two lists of most-penalised Heineken Cup players, generated in different ways and with very little overlap, both dominated by front row forwards. Whether they spend lots of time on the pitch or not very much at all, props are getting pinged in a very big way.

Mike Ross said in a tweet that they were “pretty sobering statistics; it looks like every prop in Europe features”.

No matter how you slice and dice it, that’s a damning indictment of how the scrum has fared in Europe’s flagship club rugby tournament.

Hopefully the IRB and ERC are taking notice.

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N.B. to see the full list of stats referenced above, visit The Most Penalised Players from the Heineken Cup Pool Stages