> English players form solid masses of men in a scrummage and engage in a desperate kicking and pushing match until the ball pops out unexpectedly somewhere, leaving the struggling mass ignorant of its whereabouts, still kicking blindly where they think the ball may be.
Further reading: http://www.tony-collins.org/rugbyreloaded/2015/6/16/the-walt...
TL;DR: In the mid 19th century Scrums did kind of suck (the possessor did not release the ball, sending the ball backwards was controversial, and it was twenty-a-side, so it was a mass of bodies just trying to move the ball towards opposite sides). Britain Rugby eventually responded to this, but in a different way compared to Canada and the US.
The US difference was largely impacted by a single college's preference for playing eleven-a-side, which opened the game up even more than the fifteen-a-side that was adopted in Britain.