Article from the “RugbyIQ Coaching Blog with Gary Gold”

Facing the real problems

Good day to you, rugbyiq.com friends! What a year we’ve had… Unfortunately, it didn’t end too well for us with a defeat to Ireland, and there seem to be a few question marks over our side – in particular our scrum. This week, as promised, I will attempt to show you just where the Springbok scrum stands in relation to our opposition from 2009.

First up, it was obviously very disappointing to have come back from the tour having won just one of our three Tests in November.

It is post-mortem time, as it would have been had we come back with a 100% winning record, but we do now at least have the time to reflect on just where it went wrong for us – in particular in Toulouse and Dublin.

Hopefully, we will rectify those mistakes in our post-mortem process, and for that very reason I would like to respectfully disagree with those comments suggesting that we could not have learnt anything from this tour.

On the contrary, as painful as losing is, it is unfortunately when one tends to learn the most – possibly because we may tend to analyse our faults deeper off the back of defeats. On reflection, and I am sure Peter and Dick will agree with me, we have certainly learned more from our two defeats out of two visits to the northern hemisphere in the last year, than we did from the four wins…

It would very naive and arrogant of us, as coaches and no doubt the players too, if we did not take away plenty of food for thought, from this tour. I can tell you that we have and – as I mentioned above – we will be looking to fix those errors next year.

In last week’s blog – in the build-up to the Ireland Test – I had a look at the various selections in our starting XV. I alluded to John Smit’s move from tighthead back to hooker, saying it was not because he had failed in the No.3 shirt, but rather because of the match situation (our opposition and because of injuries).

As promised, I intend to illustrate further this week just why his move to prop is certainly not the disaster made out by all and sundry and, at the same time, why I think the hype around the Springbok scrummaging abilities – or rather the supposed lack thereof – is slightly off the mark and is possibly being over-played.

However, before I get down to this, let me stress in the harshest way possible; I do not believe that our scrum is the most powerful in the world and I will admit that we have not been firing on all cylinders or certainly to the level that we would have wanted to. I have no doubt, however, that we can improve our scrum and that is something high on our agenda ahead of the 2010 international season.

Before we touch on the scrums, it is important that I share with you some facts from international matches that have taken place this year – in order for you to get an holistic view of what actually happens in modern-day Test rugby, and hence where I believe our serious coaching energy should be placed.

Here goes:
– On average, there are 60-70 breakdowns (i.e. rucks, mauls, etc) on attack during a Test match.

– There are, on average, 65-75 ball-carries per Test match. That means our players will enter a contact situation – where a player either passes, off-loads or goes to ground (and then has to recycle the ball) – sixty-five to seventy times in 80 minutes. (Well, actually the ball is in play for 40 minutes only, but let’s not get totally pedantic – I think you know what I mean!)

– Whether we like it or not, there are on average, 30/40 kicks in every Test match; kicks to clear our line, but also those that need to be chased and hopefully retrieved. Those kicks, in turn, play their part in ensuring we can have between 17-20 lineouts, on our own ball, per game.

– Also, on average, each team out there needs to make about 85 to 95 tackles per Test match.

– And, finally, when it comes to scrums, there are on average, some eight to ten scrums in Test matches at present.

Do you see now what I am getting at? Do you see which areas significantly affect the outcome of a match and those that do not have as significant a bearing, although all are still incredibly important?

Against France, for instance, our ball runners lost the ball in contact 10 times. TEN TIMES we just handed the French ball whilst we were on attack, so in turn our defence was totally disorganised. Ten times… that is more individual turnovers than scrums we had in that entire game (we had nine scrums against France) – clearly we need to improve that facet of our game. (In the 2009 Super 14, 50% of ALL tries came from turnovers – it makes sense why, it is when one’s defence is at its least organised.)

At the same time, in order to become a more consistent and world-class team we need to cut down our high penalty count. Against France, we had a penalty count of 5 v 13 (against us) – with 12 points coming from those 13 penalties in a game we eventually lost 15-20. Again, we have to be ruthless on our discipline, especially in our own 22m where most world-class kickers will punish you. This fact is also slightly skewed, because we thought Wayne Barnes was particularly harsh on us – but hey, cowboys don’t cry, and there was no way he got 13 penalties wrong.

We also need to take our try-scoring opportunities better. Points-scoring opportunities do not come around that often in Test match rugby – a world-class team needs to take its opportunities in the ‘red zone’ (in the opposition 22), as we did so regularly during the Tri-Nations, or at least convert 95% of the opportunities into points. An example of taking one’s chances came in the Test against France when we had a vital lineout five metres from the French line. I have no doubt we could have driven over from there, but we lost the lineout… and thereby the match.

As a coaching staff we are certainly not against criticism – as long as it is constructive and valuable and, most importantly, accurate and specific about where we are falling short.

Alright then, back to the scrums, have a look at the table below. The table, basically, is a summary of all the Test-playing nations we played against in 2009 (except the B&I Lions, as they are not a regular Test-playing country, and we all know how we fared at scrum time against them) – explaining how our scrum has progressed according to theirs.

Funnily enough, and possibly the most painful irony of the year, is it seems that most pundits out there thought our scrum was excellent against Ireland – yet we still ended up losing the match. How ironic that this should be the case in the week when I am attempting to highlight exactly how significant a dominant scrum is.

Again, before I continue, I have to stress once again – scrummaging is important in the modern-day game, but it is not the most telling facet of play. Yes, a strong scrum could certainly give you a psychological advantage during a match, of that there is no doubt.

We need to improve the amount of ball we actually play off – we need to get that percentage up to 92%+ at least (currently on 89.5). Interestingly, Italy have the best success rate in terms of the amount of ball they play off, 95.1%, but unfortunately had been winless in their last ten outings before beating Samoa this past weekend.

Significantly, however, we are second on the list in terms of actually getting the ball out – i.e. the least re-sets. Of course, it’s nothing to boast about, but it does show just how small the margins are in international rugby, yet it is significant that Australia are clearly the worst. This suggests, as has been suspected for years, that Australia are perennial scrum collapsers should they not get the hit they require, and have the most resets.

So as mentioned earlier, we have managed to play off 89.5% of our scrum ball, which means we have not off 10.5% of our ball, as I have already said this figure does need to improve by at least 3-4%, but it is also interesting to have a look at the same facts on all opposition ball; that is when it is our opponents’ scrum, and we are defending. That fact interestingly shows that our opponents, off 130 scrums against us, were able to play off 88.5% – which means we were able to turnover 11.5% of opposition ball. A memorable example was our scrum that turned over the All Blacks in Durban which led to Fourie du Preez picking up the ball and playing Morné Steyn who scored on the left-hand side of the uprights and, in turn, won us the game. Without getting too caught up in numbers, it is interesting that we can play off more ball than we allow our opposition to play off, albeit only 1%.

I do believe, however, that the quality of our scrum ball, which is not illustrated in any stats table, can improve significantly with an accurate set-up, quicker hit and a more powerful leg-drive. That improvement would then be able to give Fourie a better quality of ball for our backs to run onto and, in turn, will necessitate the opposition loose forwards being bound for longer – thus making our ability to break or penetrate the advantage line more significant. That, I concede, is not happening enough at present, and am the first to admit we really do need to improve that aspect, because quality scrum ball is great ball to attack off.

I hope these examples have allowed you some deeper understanding behind the perceived scrumming woes in the Bok side.

Some people might accuse me of being over-defensive… I am not. I have truly tried to be as honest and objective as possible, by using these facts, I hope one can now see that, although we need to improve, we are not losing Test matches because of our supposedly ‘dire scrum’.

Before I sign off this week, I must just add this: When we started our coaching website at the end of last year, our aim was (and still is!) to produce a coaching aid for aspiring coaches, players and supporters who want more in-depth information and, possibly – dare I say it! – even to assist the odd learned journalist who honour us by visiting this very website.

This site is a forum to debate the game at an intellectual level – dealing in hardcore facts, and not emotions driven by whether one’s team wins or loses, and not at all because we think we know more than anybody else – hence the name RugbyIQ.

To those of you who continue to visit rugbyiq – even if you do not agree with our views, which you are very welcome not to! – we humbly appreciate your visits to our site and hope you can share your views with us, whether you agree with us or not.

But we will do all in our power for this website to remain one where all of us rugby-lovers can debate the merits of the game without needing to be abusive, facetious or personal about any team or individual who loves this great game of ours, there are enough ‘Jerry Springer-esque’ websites out there for that…