Jason Ryan weighs in on Boks' late changes and Rassie's 'friendly fire' outburst

The scrum has been a dramatic feature of the Greatest Rivalry tour on numerous fronts, with Saturday evening’s Cape Town Test adding yet another twist in the tale.

The game started with a selection curveball from Rassie Erasmus, who swapped his starting front row with his bench unit at the last minute. The coach later explained the move as a response to the conditions, which were drier than what was forecast earlier in the week.

After the game ended, Erasmus took exception to his All Blacks counterpart Dave Rennie expressing further concern over South Africa’s scrum tactics, accusing the hosts of making a late side-step before setting the scrum to overload the Kiwi tighthead props.

Erasmus said it was the “first time ever in history” he’s been accused of the illegal tactic and labelled it a “nonsense” accusation, even calling New Zealand out for “moaning” about the refereeing.

New Zealand forwards coach, Jason Ryan, downplayed Erasmus’ outburst when asked about it on Sunday morning.

“It’s a bit of friendly fire, isn’t it? I think there’s been some interesting comments made in the media and that sort of thing, but that’s the pressure of Test footy, and that’s what it’s about in a way, I guess,” he said.

“But I think we’ve just got to concentrate on what we want to get better on this week, which we’re going to have to. You know, second Tests are always that little bit harder. Everyone knows a little bit more about each other, and I guess they probably found out a couple more things about us and got the right end of the score.”

In his post-match press conference, Rennie insisted South Africa’s late team-sheet update had no influence on New Zealand’s approach to the game. Ryan said it wasn’t totally unexpected.

“Traditionally, you’ll know when we’ve played South Africa if a team’s been named at the start of the week, there’s often changes at the back end of the week. So we’ve got to prepare the best we can to set the boys up with who might be there and who might not be.

“I mean, you look at the example of the front row boys; they kept the same ones, they just reversed them with starting and finishing. So we’d prepared for them either way around; what their combination was. So yeah, that’s up to them, I guess, how they want to do that.”

The South African faithful broke out in their famous rendition of the Cranberries’ hit ‘Zombie’ at one point in the match, chanting “he’s in your head” in reference to Erasmus’ reputation for playing mind games.

Ryan was amused when the question was put to him after the evening’s drama: “No, no, he’s not in my head. My forward pack are in my head.”

As by far the longest-serving member of the All Blacks coaching group, having survived two regime changes, Ryan says he’s well-equipped to keep the big goal of a series win front of mind, knowing how he can best contribute to that goal.

“We’re going to control what we need to. I thought we scrummed really well last night. I really did. I thought we had a lot of scrums in the game last week. I think it was 15 on our balls, which is the most in six or seven years, and at altitude, it was a big Test. It was pretty much like just a scrum session there for a while. But I think the adjustments that we made, and both front rows, I thought were scrumming really well last night.

“So we’ll just concentrate on ourselves the best we can during the week. Remove the referee, remove the opposition, and ask how are we going to be better?”

The coach hinted at selection changes to keep his matchday 23 fresh and energised in the four-Test series, with a couple of bodies, prop Ethan de Groot and lock Josh Lord, potentially ready to return after missing the Cape Town Test under HIA protocols.

“I think he’s got his final HIA, and he’ll need to do a little bit of a test on his medial ligament and his knee to see how that’s firing, but hopefully he gets there okay. Him and Lordy on the head knock side of it, they were trending really well at the end of the week.”