It is the most difficult debate in rugby at present, and to introduce it, let me take you back to Twickenham last Saturday. How many times did we see Danny Care hanging around behind a pile of bodies waiting in vain for quick ball? It is the same situation for scrum-halves the length and breadth of the game as the breakdown descends ever more into shambles underneath prone bodies.

On Tuesday evening, the Parliamentary Rugby Group and the Sunday Times hosted the annual Obolensky Lecture, which this year was given by Judge Jeff Blackett. It was absolutely fascinating: the judge may be a bloke in a suit and a wig but he knows his rugby and the sport has been well served indeed by his tenure as RFU disciplinary officer.

But one item of his address struck me. In the areas where he told us that rugby had been cleaned up he particularly stressed the ruck. What he meant was that injuries in the ruck are now far less because the sport has dedicated itself to eradicating the concept of boots on bodies.

Taking this a stage further, the number of horrible injuries caused by savage, flailing boots and studs has gone down because referees have been told to operate zero tolerance when boots and bodies come into contact. Yes indeed, injuries are fewer. But the other outcome is that the ruck is dead, because we no longer see people giving the prone players a reminder with their studs. It has been said before, but prone players tend to react with a certain alacrity at the prospect of being rucked and tend not to remain prone for long.

As Care and all his peers find, there is no one to encourage the prone players to move and referees are not nearly strict enough with them.

Dare we re-introduce the idea of boots on bodies? I am not suggesting we allow players to kick other players. But I am coming around to the view that if we allow prone players to be raked by opponents who have already gone past them and are moving backwards, as opposed to players who are simply stamping downwards, then we could free up the game and bring back quick ball.

The judge, many administrators and many parents would point to the very thin dividing line between stamping and rucking and I would absolutely hate it if my campaign to bring the ruck back brought about any serious injury. But as Lawrence Dallaglio was saying the other day, rugby should bring back a small element of self-policing for those players who are killing the game at the bottom of rucks, and I feel that the International Rugby Board must remove some of the strictures for the sake of speed and spectacle.

Inspired move, or madness?

Absent genius

It might seem odd to make some kind of preview mention of Saturday's England-Argentina game with a reference to a player who is unfit to start. But I will miss particularly the brilliant Juan Martin Hernandez, the injured Puma. As I said last week, we should all wish the Pumas well, they are a fantastic rugby nation and will surely grow even bigger when they enter the Tri-Nations in under three years.

But Hernandez is a massive loss. Simply, he is for me the greatest back currently playing the game and he has a range of genius and talent which sets him ahead of both Dan Carter and Jonny Wilkinson as a fly-half.

I can imagine the hordes objecting from New Zealand, England and Toulon but Fernandez is a magnificent kicker, runner, passer and tackler. He is by a distance more physical in the contact area than either of the other two.