Bok scrum coach, Pieter de Villiers.
The scrumming travails that dominated the headlines and media copy after the two Castle Rugby Championship matches against Argentina are now behind the Springboks and quickly receding from memory, according to their scrum coach Pieter de Villiers.
The unedifying sight of the much vaunted Bok scrum backpedalling in the Salta match against the Pumas, as well to some extent as the game before that at Loftus, precipitated a wave of panic among South African supporters.
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However, former French international De Villiers didn’t believe his scrum had suddenly descended from being technically the top in the world in 2013 to a bad unit because of just two bad performances, and the next match in Perth partially vindicated that theory.
Some strong scrums in the second half of that match swung the momentum South Africa’s way against the Wallabies, only for the yellow carding of Bryan Habana followed by an inexplicable error from flyhalf Morne Steyn, who failed to find touch with what should have been a relieving penalty, to conspire against the hard work that had been done.
The high-fiving that had gone on between backs and forwards when the scrum shoved the Wallabies backwards in the third quarter was forgotten with the immediate post-match reality that the team had lost the game. And it would have been a similar story a week later, when massive turn-around scrum a few minutes from full time against New Zealand in Wellington failed to bridge the narrow divide in the end scoreline.
But De Villiers and the big men haven’t completely forgotten those key moments, and the Wellington turn-around scrum disproved the theory that the good Bok scrumming against Australia had been down to the weakness of the opposition unit.
The memory of the destruction wreaked on the All Black pack in that moment is being used as a source of confidence for the team as they await the challenge they face in the return matches against the Wallabies and All Blacks on South African soil over the next two Saturdays.
And although he says the Wallabies have corrected some of the areas that may have enabled the Boks to gain scrumming ascendancy over them in Perth three weeks ago, De Villiers has no reason to believe the upward trend in the scrumming performances won’t continue when the Boks host the Australians at Newlands on Saturday.
“There have been a few changes in the scrum set-up that caused us difficulties that we weren’t quite ready for in the two matches against the Pumas,” said De Villiers at the start of the build-up week to the Australian test.
“Some teams prefer touching shoulders with the opposition in setting up, whereas other teams prefer to do what the law says, which is to go ear to ear. That is sometimes difficult for the referees to manage later in the game, when fatigue sets in, and the scrums have become a contest to outlast opponents.
“When teams get tired they tend to go closer to each other and then touch shoulders. It can make quite a difference to a team’s scrum if you are not used to it. We didn’t adapt to it against Argentina but we did in the games that followed. I was satisfied with our performances against Australia and New Zealand.
“What we did was go back to some of our basic principles in terms of height and sinking our hips to the front. It worked well for us in both Perth and Wellington. Having said that, it was noticeable when Australia played against Argentina that they had sorted some of their problems out and were setting very well. So they will have an improved scrum at Newlands.
“The Wallaby scrum set and reaction speed was good against Argentina, so they will definitely be a challenge, but if we can just repeat the basics of what we did in Perth I am confident we can gain the dominance we will be looking for. If we scrum hard and straight, then it makes for easier calls for the referee to make, and prevents us from going into that grey area where you don’t know what you are going to get from the referee.”
De Villiers confirmed that the late scrum against the All Blacks that nearly swung the game the Boks’ way was a big moment for the team.
“The players that had come off bench did really well. It created a points scoring possibility for us and gave everyone a lot of confidence. It proved that two games of difficulty in the scrums does not suddenly make you a bad scrum,” said the scrum coach.
There has been some pessimism about lack of front-row depth available to the Boks, but that is not shared by De Villiers.
“Jannie (du Plessis) is still going really well for us at tighthead, and Marcel van der Merwe showed against the All Blacks what potential he has. He was part of that big scrum. For Marcel it is just a case of gaining experience by playing. We’ve just got to let him get the game time that will enable him to grow.
“Frans Malherbe also proved when he was playing, before he was injured, that he can walk a future path with the team. The chances don’t come around that often because we have established and experienced props, but when they do, the players who come in must take them.”