To be fair, the improvement has been against the Kiwi sides sans their R&R-ing All Blacks.  So that too has to be balanced out.  The new scrum laws appear to have had an bearing too - making the distance between having a really good scrum, and a not so good scrum not so great.  The team not putting the ball in has an advantage usually here, and so they should, with the non feeding hooker being able to set both legs back to push, thus giving his locks a better platform to push against, and also adding his power to the eight.  The scrum feeding the ball has the hooker with hips swiveled ready to hook, and just the one leg able to exert in force until the ball is struck.  So not having a massive hit sees these points come into play a touch more, thus scrums being more equal.

Would the Reds forward pack have dominated the Hurricanes so much if the windy city boys close in defence was beefed up by tight forwards Andrew Hore and Jason Eaton, and more terrifyingly, Jerry Collins, Rodney So'oialo and Chris Masoe?  I think not.  'Picking and going' and running into these guys time and time again is a tad harder than Nili Latu, Thomas Waldrum and Luke Andrews - hardly a trio to put defensive fear into an opposing forward pack.  Removing those five forwards from the Hurricanes pack makes it a fair to middling NPC eight, as opposed to a Super 14 finals playing pack of forwards.  Still, you can only play against the side that is put out in front of you, and beat the living snot out of them if you can - and they did.

The Crusaders pack, sans Richie McCaw, Reuben Thorne (go on, you had noticed he wasn't there admit it), Greg Somerville (injured, not R&R-ing) and Chris Jack was not bullied to the extent that the Hurricanes were, but they certainly knew they had been in a battle.  Especially at lineout time, but that happened against all comers for all Kiwi packs last year too, so no big deal!!  At times the Reds really out the heat on and buckled that Crusaders scrum, which last season you would not have expected.

The Brumbies game against the Blues, with the Blues pack missing Mealamu and Woodcock was a more even battle, with both packs at times getting the nudge on at scrum time.  The Blues pack though, even without this pair of All Blacks fields an all All Black front three, so that is a pretty good effort from the essentially rookie props that bookend veteran rake Jeremy Paul.

Some of the improvement would have come from experience too, with another season under their belts, the Aussie tight forwads are learning the tricks of the trade.

Anyway, all the above aside, I think the Aussies forward play has improved.  Their old stagers who have been producing the goods yea in and year out are still doing so, but there is also plenty of new blood lifting the levels of their games to test candidacy at the very least.  Can this me melded together to form a competitive pack come the international season though?

The jury is still out, after all, it is very early days in the Super 14 season.  But at the moment, all portents are good for Australian rugby, pointing towards a forward pack that should be able to snare enough quality ball for their very dangerous backline.

So beware world rugby, the Aussies are growing a forward pack with a spine again.