Ex-Boks on how the All Blacks dismantled South Africa's lineout

Former Springboks Jean de Villier, Schalk Burger and Robbie Fleck have dissected how the All Blacks dismantled South Africa’s lineout at Eden Park in the 24-17 win.

Both teams struggled at lineout time and in the aerial battles but it was the Springboks who arguably suffered more as a result, with an inability to get their maul going with such disruption.

The All Blacks were able to land two quick blows early from lineout plays to get up 14-0, a cushion that enabled them to led for the entirety of the game.

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The former Boks picked apart South Africa’s strategy, questioning the use of four-man set ups with a strong contesting system in place by the All Blacks.

“It’s not as if the All Blacks were that good,” De Villiers told the panel on the Boks Unpacked Podcast.

“It was a game that we could’ve won, it was down to our own errors.

“When you play the All Blacks, one, you know you have to start well, but we have built a game around set phases, being strong at set phase time.

“Yes, we have developed from an attacking point of view, our breakdown has been a concern throughout the year, and defensively we haven’t been that solid either.

“If that gets nullified, it takes up so much of our game. That started at the lineouts, from the very first one.”

Schalk Burger showed two of the lineouts that the Boks won early in the game that were disrupted leading to poor ball. Despite being ‘wins’ on the stat sheet, nothing could be done off the back of them.

A hand by Vaa’i managed to tap the ball towards the All Blacks side before Nortje tapped it back with a save, but it then bounced on the ground in front of Grant Williams creating a scramble situation.

On the next example, a throw to the tail of the lineout and pass off the top hit the ground as Wallace Sititi read the play and tried to intercept the ball between the halfback.

“Our lineout rhythm is off, the Boks normally have this artificial rhythm where you get in and it’s quick,” Burger explained of the troubles.

“All of these [examples], you’ll see a lot of movement, a lot of dummies, and I think quite poor execution, both in the lifts and the throw.

“It’s a different system to what we faced against Australia, Australia was a two-pod system, here was like a man-watch system [by the All Blacks].

“What beats the man-watch is the speed of the drill. And if the drill’s not good, you get opportunity for the All Blacks to go.”

Ex-Bok centre and Stormers coach Robbie Fleck highlighted that once the ball was disrupted at the source, the maul could not get going also due to superior body height from the All Blacks pack.

“The key for me is that our maul couldn’t get going at all,” he said.

“The way the All Black set the maul was really, really impressive, their body height.

“What I want to say about the contesting though is that, the great All Blacks side of the past and the great Crusaders sides, always had a great contesting system in place, a mirror system as Schalk said. When there was Whitelock and Retallick and all these great guys playing for the All Blacks.

“This time they’ve intentionally gone in their to disrupt our lineout. They did a very good job of that. But the next part of that is stopping the maul.

“First stop them at source, contest and disrupt, and put Ruan [Nortje] under massive pressure. I believed Lood [de Jager] called better in that second half.

“When we tried to get our maul going, their body height was immense. They’ve always prided themselves on that, and they stopped every single maul that we had.”

Burger had a critique on lineout calls made by the Boks, implying they needed to call more variety while Fleck believed the use of the four-man showed respect to New Zealand.

“Unfortunately the four-man [lineout] was our main attacking option,” Burger said.

“You know, the four-man failed, so you got to throw that out the bank. Then off the back of that, you don’t really have a strike play. That’s the way it came across on TV.

“Scott Barrett is super disruptive, whether he splits the jumper, whether he’s in the air, or whether he fights through the middle.

“A few times you’ll see him on the South African side, not changing his bind.

“Tupou Vaa’i on the other side, he tries to go over the top, and he changes his bind.

“Look, you play in New Zealand, you know you’re not going to get 50-50s. Especially if you play at Eden Park where it’s a fortress. The Boks haven’t won there since 1937.

“So you’ve got to be so much better in your execution. If you play at home and a guy gets coached out of the wrong side, you get that maul set and get it going.

“It’s so dangerous now how they interpret it, ‘use it once’, If you start mauling from 25 or 30 metres out or even a defensive maul, once they say ‘you’re going sideways, move it 9’, you’re stuffed.”

Fleck: “You’re not getting the penalties you used to get from so far out.”

“But you’ve got to ask the question, why did we use the four-man?” he said.

“Pre-game they’ve obviously looked at the contesting system and gone ‘we’re going to struggle to get our ball on a five-man and a six-man’ so they’ve reverted to a four-man, because supposedly an easier ball to get.

“They showed a lot of respect for the All Blacks contesting system.”