LONG READ Contest or no contest? The eternal struggle between the Springboks and All Blacks

When rugby union finally bit the bullet and turned professional on 26^th August 1995, it was trending exactly 100 years behind rugby league, which had first rounded the same corner back in 1895. The underlying connection between the two codes still informs the game as it approaches its 31^st anniversary as a professional sport.

League did away with lineouts and the scrums are strictly symbolic, just another way to restart the game with all the forwards in one place. There is no contest for the ball permitted either during or after the tackle. A change of possession is only mandated by law after a six-tackle ‘set’ has been completed. The game is less complex and a lot easier to referee than its cousin.

Meanwhile the struggle between ‘contest’ or no-contest’ hums along like catchy ambient music in the eternal background of the rugby mind. However much you try to ignore it, it sticks around stubbornly and has a life of its own. It will inform the forthcoming Greatest Rivalry tour of South Africa by New Zealand in some very specific ways indeed.

In recent times, progress in the game has been associated with a big bulge in ball-in-play time, more rucks and fewer set-pieces, and ever more try scoring. In England, the Prem has reinvented itself as a spectator sport, with clear refereeing protocols designed to support the production of quick ball for the attacking side from the breakdown.

The newest showcase for the game, the Nations Championship, has taken things a step further. If you fondly believe that international rugby means more defence, more set-pieces and fewer scoring opportunities, think again.

It is the first time in recorded rugby history a tournament has averaged over 200 rucks per game. There have been 15 times more rucks than scrums and eight times more rucks than lineouts. That is what it takes to win a game of international rugby nowadays.

This development is of particular significance to the Greatest Rivalry tour. With new head coach Dave Rennie and Sir Graham Henry masterminding operations, the new All Blacks are surfing an attacking wave and riding the zeitgeist. The offensive stats for the All Blacks are rating higher than average after three rounds of the Nations Championship.

Although the scoring profile of the top two nations in the southern hemisphere is similar, the way they get there is not. Games involving the All Blacks average five more minutes of ball-in-play time and New Zealand build 58 more rucks per game than South Africa. You heard it right – 58 more rucks. The All Blacks set 415 rucks over the Nations Championship, and lost only seven of them to turnover. They will go to Africa and try to starve the hosts of the ball by making the ruck a ‘no-contest’ area, and under current refereeing protocols at least, there may be little the Boks can do about it.

That is probably the veiled reason why Rassie Erasmus has been campaigning so hard for a much greater degree of contest at scrum and maul in recent months. At the beginning of July, he launched a charm offensive around straight scrum feeds at a ‘Shape of the Game’ meeting hosted by World Rugby.

“The scrum feed, we are still trying to get that to be fed straight and everybody hooks and so on,” Erasmus said. “That would be great if we get there one day. It was a great way of communicating, I think, the way World Rugby handled it. They were always fair in every single department.

“For example, the scrum, we were really hoping that [the feed] could be straight, but for various reasons, that could not be. It was raised at the Shape of the Game. [Head of Referees] Joel [Jutge] did give an information page to us, and it was about the referees and the feed. Obviously, the hooker must hook, and obviously the guy can’t stand on that side and put it in like that [very skew].

“If it’s the last minute of the game and they have a scrum on their own goal-line to defend and the guy throws it in this much skew, do you ref it as ‘not straight’ or do you say ‘play on’? I think the problem is just the ones that go like that [very skewed] and the hooker doesn’t hook at all. So, I think they’re trying to get it really right, and I understand why it’s so difficult to referee.

“[But] if it’s this much skew, can we now give them a free kick if the opposition wins the game, or a penalty if it happens twice?”

Erasmus stopped to look at his phone mid-speech, before adding a suitably dramatic flourish: “[Springbok scrum coach] Daan [Human] must be listening to me; he just ‘WhatsApped’ me, saying that the directive is in the scrum [laws]: your left shoulder must be in the centre of the scrum when feeding it.”

The Springbok supremo has likewise been simmering his frogs slowly at the maul. This time last year, inspired by the Paul Roos Gimnasium under 14s side, he debuted South Africa’s controversial ‘midfield maul’ versus Italy as a masked protest against refereeing protocols at the lineout drive.

“It was trying to make a statement in the sense that we can’t maul from lineouts anymore because it’s becoming a dragging competition. So the option was to play it off the top because mauling is dying and the only place you can maul, we felt, was in the midfield, [because] now they can’t plan who swims around on what side.”

Provided defenders maintained their original bind with their inside arm, they were allowed to swim up around the side of a maul, and without demonstrating any particular skill or strength, engulf the ball-carrier from behind and effect a turnover. Wind the clock forward 12 months, and World Rugby directives had changed so that ‘players are asked to recognise that when they get beyond the ball and out of the contest, they [have to] leave the maul’.

Erasmus was pleased with the outcome: “I think there were more maul-drive tries scored in this opening round [of the Nations Championship] than altogether in the 2026 Six Nations, if I have my stats correct. I want to give World Rugby credit there.

“Because you can’t drag in a maul anymore, you have to put more numbers in. The guys who stop the maul now have to get out and defend after that… [They] are tired of stopping mauls. You can’t just put four guys in and drag a maul to the side.”

The battlelines are being drawn and they are crystal clear. Rennie and Henry want to play a fluid game sailing as close to the wind of ‘no-contest’ at the ruck as physically possible. Erasmus wants the game played far closer to the essence of ‘contest’ at set-piece, with lower ball-in-play and more penalties for technical inaccuracies at forward.

The latest iteration of a more recent rivalry between Ireland and New Zealand at Eden Park raised questions around whether more of a contest should be encouraged at the breakdown. With top-flight Australian referee Nic Berry in the box seat, New Zealand were able to build a colossal 149 rucks, losing a paltry three to turnover.

Perennial Ireland breakdown thief Tadhg Beirne had 10 serious attempts at a breakdown pilfer in the game but failed to make off with loot on one single occasion. It is not often that happens, and it was not always clear why.

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— William Bishop (@RPvids1994) July 19, 2026

It was clearly part of Ireland’s policy going into the game to add a second man to the defensive breakdown and overload the New Zealand cleanout. In the event Berry called ‘ruck formed’ immediately after the first man had been removed and did not allow the second man to compete. In this clip, Beirne [in the blue hat] is standing directly above the ball unmarked after the initial cleanout removes the tackler, but he reaps no reward for his efforts and the All Blacks score two next phases later.

There were plenty of other examples as the game unwound.

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— William Bishop (@RPvids1994) July 19, 2026

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— William Bishop (@RPvids1994) July 19, 2026

In the first instance, the first Kiwi cleanout [number five Josh Lord] takes out Tadhg Furlong and Josh van der Flier [in the red hat] has a clear shot at the ball as the second man. But rather mysteriously, he is required to give up the contest and hand the ball obligingly back to the All Blacks. In the second, Ciaran Frawley [in the headband] is standing tall, in glorious isolation as the second man but can do nothing to affect the play, let alone pick up the pill. It all seems counter-intuitive, to say the least.

The home side had their share of head-scratchers too, as the visitors won all but two of the 104 rucks they set.

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— William Bishop (@RPvids1994) July 19, 2026

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— William Bishop (@RPvids1994) July 19, 2026

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— William Bishop (@RPvids1994) July 19, 2026

In both of the first two clips, Jordie Barrett looks dumbfounded when he is pinged after getting a successful lift on the ball after the tackle has been made, while rookie Anton Segner looks to have as much right to play the pill as the Ireland attack when that final ruck forms.

At one point in the second half at the Garden of Eden, the All Blacks ran 31 consecutive phases in and around the Ireland 22m zone. That would have been enough for an entire game in the 1960s and 70s, and it does raise the spectre of whether rugby is becoming too much of a ‘no-contest’ at the tackle area – too much like league, but with unlimited phases.

The Nations Championship has been a roaring success at its inception and it has provided a grand spectacle, but attitudes will harden considerably around a series between New Zealand and South Africa. There will be a philosophical war fought out on the battleground of rugby’s future. The sweet spot in that struggle looks very different depending on whether you wear all black, or don the green and gold.