'We’re well aware': All Blacks coach Dave Rennie not phased by Springboks' scrum

“As I recall, Ireland showed up with that exact same arrogant confidence, only for the Boks to completely monster them with a relentless, soul-destroying scrum barrage that left their forward pack physically mutilated.”

The Boks did monster the Irish pack especially after Ryan’s red card. But to say that Ireland were arrogantly confident before that match is simply a fabrication on your part. Rennie just said he thought the ABs would “Bar up” to the Bok scrum. That’s a reasonable aspiration. It seems like anything less than a pre match capitulation by an opposition coach is “arrogant confidence” in some Boks supporters books.

To have a big scrum you need anaerobic athletes. The problem at altitude is that these guys can and do suffer when moved around. I know Ireland in 2024 were kicking themselves for not stealing the match in Loftus, Scotland recently didn’t take chances in Ellis and Australia last year ran 0-38 without reply to hammer the Boks who were utterly gassed at altitude.

You see the ABs being accurate and clinical in the matches to date. There is a reason for that. Boks will want to pressure ABs into errors. They will also want to slow the ball in rucks, which may be why selection is delayed.

If they don’t succeed then the ABs will move the big guys around with gaps opening up late in these matches. Bulls in Pretoria was an excellent warmup.

Fair enough W - but stats out of the Nations Cup plus the Argentina game show that the ABs average 7 scrums on their feed with 95% win average and the Boks average 6 scrums on their own feed at 97% win average. So not much dividing them. The Boks are better at lineouts - with a 90% win rate against a 82% win rate than the ABs. So an advantage there too. But its not as significant as some might believe. And perhaps DR has a reason to think the ABs might just surprise the Boks in that part of the game. I guess we’ll see on Saturday.

It’s not blind optimism it’s we can only do what we can do both in practice and in game

And Wayneo please was there 1 time ABs scrum has “ buckled” on tour? all the penalties basically have been before ball went in or any push has happened jeesh keep it real dude.

When the scrums have happened the ABs have been dominant so be honest don’t just make stuff up .

Inaccurate no doubt might get buckled by Boks on WE no doubt but by Stormers B as u say no way last scrum one of the few that happened Stormers got smoked ..

All Tosi penalties were in Stormers 22 2 of them near 5 m line ..why would him or ABs want to give away a penalty so Stormers can easy exit? And it wasn’t pressure of scrum nothing happened but Tosi lost his feet and Stormers loosehead folded ( which he got penalized for as well you know ) the 4th was for brakefoot

Don’t just make up stuff to try to prove a point the tape don’t lie

Love the passion my friend. Pity you arent lacing on the boots and demolishing the ABs yourself. Thanks for your opinion. Enjoy the game

Not exactly a modern day Shakespear or even just a competent hack.

You would be suprised you def don’t want ya boy to hide away the Gauls let people know that so did Māori sometimes