Jake White: What people are reliably getting wrong about the scrum

I’ll tell you a story. One that may give you context to the events of the past few days.

In the famous 1949 New Zealand tour of South Africa – the one in which the Springboks whitewashed the All Blacks 4-0 – Danie ‘Doc’ Craven was the South Africa coach.

Back then, it took the tourists 26-days to travel by boat to South Africa, and even then, more boat travel was required to move from Test to Test. Legend has it that on one voyage, ‘Doc’ Craven, boarded the ship and assisted the travelling opponents in the art of scrummaging. Whether it was true or not is open to conjecture, but the story has grown legs over the last 77 years and is a parable about the foundations of the The Greatest Rivalry. Either way, what cannot be disputed is Doc’s authority as a visionary coach and man of outstanding virtue. Indeed, he played and captained the Springboks pre-war. He coached Stellenbosch and the Springboks for seven years and as an administrator was SARU President and IRB (World Rugby) Chairman, all while being a noted author on rugby strategy and tactics. He did it all.

Now, this little anecdote sprang to mind over the weekend, when there was a bit of a palaver about ‘walking around’ at the scrum and Rassie’s clear frustration at the press conference. We need to address that.

For me, there’s a reason we go misty-eyed at talk of the ‘dark arts’ of scrummaging. After a game, I often see front rows sitting together at post-match functions having a beer and locked in deep conversations about the scrum battle. They are often completely set apart from the rest of the players – it’s called the front-row union for a reason. They are a different breed and I love that about rugby. In my view, in those dark recesses, where even cameras can’t peer, you’d be naïve to think everything was above board according to rugby’s law book. I’m not saying anyone is in the wrong, but anyone who has played and coached the game knows skullduggery goes on there. Whether you go too high or too low, whether you scrummage sideways, use your feet or don’t use your feet, use your head or your neck, scrum at 45 degrees across your body, to the left and the right. I could go on.

Fixture

Internationals

South Africa

08:10

5 Sep 26

New Zealand

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Both sides are looking for an edge. They’re looking for an Achilles Heel to exploit any weakness. Think about it, if it was just two 120kg bodies going in a straight line as hard as they could, it would be like two pistons operating on one train line. No one would move. It would be standstill. The reason there’s movement in rugby is because there’s an understanding of when and where to push and how, as a collective, to find a fragility and turn the screw.

So, when discussing New Zealand’s walking around the scrum, I noted Rassie said after the first Test that Gerhard Steenkamp was actually penalised in the 55th minute for walking around the scrum. It was the penalty that turned the game. He admitted it. I’m not saying they were coached to do that, because sometimes it happens on its own, by default.

Ultimately, it boils down to a robust technical debate. What would happen if two teams were doing exactly the same, by walking left? The scrum would automatically veer left. No one is saying one team is cheating, it’s maybe more that the All Blacks have cottoned onto what the Springboks are doing.

Everyone is making such a big deal of it, but they say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and that’s what we’re perhaps seeing at scrum time. It’s funny, a mate of mine said the other day that, ‘if you’re a thief and you don’t get caught, it doesn’t mean you’re not a thief’. There is a mystique around the secrets of the front row. It’s a bit like the KFC recipe by Colonel Sanders. No one will ever know exactly what goes into the recipe or it loses its uniqueness. It makes you smile to think, maybe the All Blacks listened to Doc at the bow of a boat all those years ago and it’s now part of their classified intellectual IP.

Yes, rugby is constantly evolving but at the same time maybe there should always be mystery at scrum time. To my mind, to depower it would be egregious. It is sacrosanct to a generation of props.

As I’ve always said, having coached at the highest level, the art of coaching is to try and stay ahead of the curve. To find a way play on the edge, so if the law is ‘x’, you try to find out how you can do ‘x’ as well as possible and push the boundaries. Kitch Christie initiated law changes and Rassie Erasmus has affected law change while Springboks head coach. That’s the quintessential art of coaching. After all, Test matches are about pitching the best against the best. The margins are miniscule.

Coming back to Doc, one of his most famous quotes was, ‘the most important player on the pitch is the tighthead, and the second most important player is the reserve tighthead.’ That rings true today, as much as it did in his hey-day. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Now, it’s time to look forward to the Third Test and I can tell you, having gone to watch the Second Test in Cape Town with the fans, the average supporter can see the All Blacks metamorphosis before their eyes.

In those final minutes, there were a lot of nerves that Dave Rennie’s men would level the scores. It was reminiscent of Tri-Nations Tests in the old days, because this side looks like they can rattle up points in the blink of an eye with some mesmerising back play. Kudos to the All Blacks because in the first two Tests, they’ve outscored the Boks from nine tries to four, with much less possession and territory. If they can push up those markers, that could be ominous.

If South Africa’s super-powers are blunted, they need points from elsewhere and many people have asked me why Sacha (Feinberg-Mngomezulu) isn’t kicking for poles. Is it the ankle injury, or are they not sure his kicking percentages are ready for Test rugby yet and don’t want to overburden him as he’s managing the game? I’d say it’s the latter and they’re lucky they have Cheslin (Kolbe) as backup because Manie (Libbok) for all his talents, isn’t renowned as a Test kicker off the deck.

Alongside the set-piece, keeping the scoreboard ticking over with a reliable kicker is one of the fundamentals of being a coach. Look at the World Cups. The Jonny Wilkinsons, Joel Stranskys and Dan Carters of this world win you tournaments. Since July, the Boks have maybe left more points out on the field than they’d like. Their accuracy hasn’t quite been there, so with Handre Pollard not selected or injured, they’ve decided they need guaranteed points from the boot. Credit must go to the opposition because they’ve analysed the Boks and nullified them. The Boks have been so effective in kicking, getting the ball back and entering the 22m by mauling, so with 13 months to go to Rugby World Cup 2027, South Africa have to decide to change the way they play or do what they do even better because the stronger teams are figuring them out.

They have commendable strength-in-depth, but there have been a few murmurs at the quality and age-profile at No 9. I’m not inside the squad, but I still think Rassie will stick with tried and tested at scrum-half, so Cobus Reinach and Grant Williams, with Morne van den Berg in the wider squad. Rassie knows that even if he has to prise six weeks out of Faf (de Klerk) who is still playing well with Free State, he can because he’s done it before at World Cups with Deon Fourie and Schalk Brits at hooker.

Having a world-class 9 is imperative. If you look at the most successful teams in the world, the spine of the side, 2, 8, 9, 10 and 15, most rugby fans can name the World Cup winning players in those positions. I remember Butch James saying that with Fourie (du Preez) playing at 9, you could play anyone at 10. He was that good. That’s why with the Duponts, Lucus and Gibson-Parks, if they play well, the team usually plays well. And now you have Cam Roigard in that bracket.

The selectors have gone with tried and tested for this Third Test, but I’m still not convinced they can win a Third Webb Ellis Cup without freshening up certain positions. In 1987, NZ won the World Cup and tried the same side in 1991 and got found out. In 1991, the Wallabies won the World Cup and then came to SA in 1995 with that same core of players and came up short. To pick 10-plus guys in their early-to-mid thirties and win a third consecutive tournament will be unprecedented, so all credit to them if they do it, but history tells us it’s going to some feat.

No one is under any illusions this weekend is a massive for the Springboks. Rassie will have been reminded the Boks haven’t lost a home series against the All Blacks since 1996 and he doesn’t want that on his resume. He’s rung the changes in the first two weeks, but this is about consolidation and fine tuning. The stakes are sky-high.