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'That pisses a lot of people off' - Players, coaches react to scrum annihilation

By Ian Cameron
The England scrum buckles

South Africa’s domination of the England scrum set the tone and the platform for South Africa’s 32-12 Rugby World Cup final win in Yokohama.

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Despite being 20kg lighter than the 920kg English pack, the South Africans won six scrum penalties in the first half alone, earning kickable points for Pollard and destroying any chance of a set-piece platform for the English.

Springboks’ head coach Rassie Erasmus was however reluctant to divulge too much detail of his plan to undermine one of his opponent’s primary strengths.

“I don’t want to sound very clever afterwards because that pisses a lot of people off. It is a spin-off the way we have played the last five games, keep it tight especially in the six-day turnaround.”

Loosehead Tendai Mtawarira admitted it was an area that South Africa were focusing on.

“As a Springbok pack we take a lot of pride in our set-piece,” noted ‘The Beast’. “All tournament it’s been working for us up front. We went out there to get ascendancy and it was great to get a few penalties in the first half.

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“We wanted to get ascendancy up front. It’s something we have been working on for a long time to improve it. All the hard work paid off tonight. All eight made a huge difference.”

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He did however off his commiserations to England tighthead Kyle Sinckler. The Harlequin was forced off after just three minutes following an accidental collision England lock Maro Itoje.

“It’s never nice to see a player come off so early in the game. He’s had a great tournament and been playing really well, so I feel sorry for him.”

Replacement Steven Kitshoff was left in awe of the job the Boks frontrow did on England.

“Beast, Mbongi and Frans (Malherbe) put on a massive performance when it came to scrum time. They put the English pack under so much pressure.”

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England forwards coach Steve Borthwick was magnanimous in face of the superior pack performance of the South Africans.

“Credit to South Africa for what they did, especially in that first half when they got the ascendancy. We’ll look at it. Do I have the reasons right now? No, I don’t. It’s something we have to look at closely and think about.”

South Africa assistant coach Matthew Proudfoot was understandably proud of his charges’ set-piece performance.

“There is incredible belief in our scrum, in what we do, it’s something the pack really thrive on. We’ve been seeking eight front row forwards.

“We knew in play-off rugby it’s so crucial, we’ve been developing pressure points. I would not say England have any weaknesses at the scrum, they’ve been great. They put New Zealand under pressure.

“We take pride in our scrum. Losing your starting tight-head after a first few minutes must be tough to respond to. It gave us a chance to get a foothold and put pressure on them.”

“That first scrum allowed us to keep applying the pressure. we said after that let’s keep looking for more scrums.

“I must say Beast (Tendai Mtawarira), a man who has 119 caps, stays hungry as anything. On Monday he said, ‘what can I work on in my game’?

“I said, ‘let’s just worry about the final’. He’s been really exceptional and wanting to end his career on a high note. I thought he was great tonight.”

Sam Underhill seemed in the ‘dark’ about what happened: “The dark arts are lost on me, mate, I just get my head down and push. We spoke a bit about it, the boys that needed to speak about it spoke about it. It did get better which is a good thing.”

Springbok tighthead Frans Malherbe: “The game worked out well for us. The scrums went well in the first half and, as a prop forward, there is nothing more you can ask for. Really, really happy with the performance from everyone.

“We tried to isolate ourselves from all those talks going on outside. We had our plan and tried to stick with our plan.

“We only had two training days and the focus was on executing our plan, and all the outside noise and mind-games or whatever.”

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Jon 8 hours ago
Jake White: Are modern rugby players actually better?

This is the problem with conservative mindsets and phycology, and homogenous sports, everybody wants to be the same, use the i-win template. Athlete wise everyone has to have muscles and work at the gym to make themselves more likely to hold on that one tackle. Do those players even wonder if they are now more likely to be tackled by that player as a result of there “work”? Really though, too many questions, Jake. Is it better Jake? Yes, because you still have that rugby of ole that you talk about. Is it at the highest International level anymore? No, but you go to your club or checkout your representative side and still engage with that ‘beautiful game’. Could you also have a bit of that at the top if coaches encouraged there team to play and incentivized players like Damian McKenzie and Ange Capuozzo? Of course we could. Sadly Rugby doesn’t, or didn’t, really know what direction to go when professionalism came. Things like the state of northern pitches didn’t help. Over the last two or three decades I feel like I’ve been fortunate to have all that Jake wants. There was International quality Super Rugby to adore, then the next level below I could watch club mates, pulling 9 to 5s, take on the countries best in representative rugby. Rugby played with flair and not too much riding on the consequences. It was beautiful. That largely still exists today, but with the world of rugby not quite getting things right, the picture is now being painted in NZ that that level of rugby is not required in the “pathway” to Super Rugby or All Black rugby. You might wonder if NZR is right and the pathway shouldn’t include the ‘amateur’, but let me tell you, even though the NPC might be made up of people still having to pull 9-5s, we know these people still have dreams to get out of that, and aren’t likely to give them. They will be lost. That will put a real strain on the concept of whether “visceral thrill, derring-do and joyful abandon” type rugby will remain under the professional level here in NZ. I think at some point that can be eroded as well. If only wanting the best athlete’s at the top level wasn’t enough to lose that, shutting off the next group, or level, or rugby players from easy access to express and showcase themselves certainly will. That all comes back around to the same question of professionalism in rugby and whether it got things right, and rugby is better now. Maybe the answer is turning into a “no”?

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john 11 hours ago
Will the Crusaders' decline spark a slow death for New Zealand rugby?

But here in Australia we were told Penney was another gun kiwi coach, for the Tahs…….and yet again it turned out the kiwi coach was completely useless. Another con job on Australian rugby. As was Robbie Deans, as was Dave Rennie. Both coaches dumped from NZ and promoted to Australia as our saviour. And the Tahs lap them up knowing they are second rate and knowing that under pressure when their short comings are exposed in Australia as well, that they will fall in below the largest most powerful province and choose second rate Tah players to save their jobs. As they do and exactly as Joe Schmidt will do. Gauranteed. Schmidt was dumped by NZ too. That’s why he went overseas. That why kiwi coaches take jobs in Australia, to try and prove they are not as bad as NZ thought they were. Then when they get found out they try and ingratiate themselves to NZ again by dragging Australian teams down with ridiculous selections and game plans. NZ rugby’s biggest problem is that it can’t yet transition from MCaw Cheatism. They just don’t know how to try and win on your merits. It is still always a contest to see how much cheating you can get away with. Without a cheating genius like McCaw, they are struggling. This I think is why my wise old mate in NZ thinks Robertson will struggle. The Crusaders are the nursery of McCaw Cheatism. Sean Fitzpatrick was probably the father of it. Robertson doesn’t know anything else but other countries have worked it out.

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