LONG READ Can 'phenomenal' Andrew Porter save the Ireland scrum after latest tight-head switch?

When you start talking scrums, it is becoming increasingly natural for even proper Europeans and Antipodeans to speak with a rougher edge, with voices hardened by an unforgiving sun baking on the high veld. Like ‘Oom Polla’ Roos back in 1937, at unwitting moments you may even catch yourself substituting ‘k’s for c’s and calling for more skrums.

Such is the hypnotic dominance exerted by the modern Springboks ‘bomb squad’ at the set-piece. It is forcing other top-tier nations to re-evaluate their priorities ahead of a World Cup in Australia only 12 months distant. The Wallabies almost lost a game at the weekend from an impregnable position on the scoreboard, due to a collapse at hooker and loose-head prop off the bench in opposition to the top Springbok crew of Ox Nche, Malcolm Marx and Wilco Louw.

The recent Greatest Rivalry series in the Republic threw the New Zealand pecking order at both tight-head prop and hooker into a rare state of disorder, nay chaos, for the All Blacks’ selectors. Men who left New Zealand as unquestioned first choices have returned home wondering if they will ever represent their country again.

It was the same for Ireland after the scrumming version of the Judas Cradle chair they endured on that notorious evening in Dublin last November. The men in green conceded five penalties, two other penalty advantages and one penalty try in rugby’s equivalent of nuclear devastation at the set-piece at the Aviva Stadium. The expertise of no fewer than six front-rowers who represented the cream of the British and Irish game, on a Lions tour of Australia in mid-2025 only a few months before, was cruelly derided on social media in the aftermath.

Of the three tight-heads in that Lions group, Tadhg Furlong will be 34 and Finlay Bealham 35 by the end of the World Cup in 2027, while Thomas Clarkson has yet to convince everyone that he deserves to be the undisputed starter at his province Leinster.

There have been some well-publicised reservations about Andrew Porter’s technique on the other side of the front-row too. As ex-England prop Alex Corbisiero commented on ‘X’, ‘Porter has a history/perception of scrummaging on the [inward] angle/poor shape, All Blacks would’ve raised it to refs and then used tactics to go after it.’

All this has convinced the Leinster inner circle that it is worth shifting Porter back across to the other side of the front row for the third time in his professional career. As Leinster director of rugby Leo Cullen explained before the opening round of the URC 2026-27 season:

Do we see him playing there for the rest of the season? No, not necessarily. But [it’s] just something we were keen to have a look at.

“Tadhg and Thomas are our two senior tight-heads, [but] ‘Ports’ has played there in the past. He came into the [Leinster[ academy as a loose-head. I remember the conversations we had as he turned to tight-head. I’m thinking it would take a little longer than it did.

“He took to it very, very easily. Ports is a pretty phenomenal individual. [Then] he moved back to playing loosehead, and he did that incredibly well [too]

“And it’s just something we wanted to have a look at. We’ve prepped it over the last few weeks, and you just want to put it to practice quickly. Do we see him playing there for the rest of the season? No, not necessarily. But [it’s] just something we were keen to have a look at.”

Of the two nations who have suffered most at the hands of the Springboks scrum in recent times, Ireland will get first crack at balancing the ledger, in the sixth round of the Nations Championship on 21 November. In order to achieve that aim, they will need to get inside the Boks’ mindset at scrum-time in their preparation for the game, and they may need to pick Porter at tight-head to do it for them out on the field.

Nothing epitomizes the attention South Africa has always paid to the scrum better than the following story about the hooker for the fabled 1937 tourists of New Zealand, the 92-kilo monster from Krugersdorp, Jan Lotz. A young Danie Craven fondly recalled the nuances of every detail at scrum set-up:

“Jan Lotz would often say as the scrum formed: ‘Wag, Danie – wag, wag, wag.’ [‘Wait, Danie – wait, wait, wait’].

“’Kom Ferdie, jy druk nie. Philip ek wil meer van jou hê. Fanie, kom nader na my toe,’ [‘Come on Ferdie [second row Ferdie Bergh], you aren’t shoving hard enough. Phillip [Nel, Ferdie’s partner], I want more from you. Fanie [Louw, one of the twin brothers at prop], get in a bit closer’].

“When everything was just so, he would say: ‘Nou’s ons reg.’ [‘Okay, now we’re ready.’]”
For the All Blacks on the receiving end, the experience of scrumming against those Boks was akin to being threshed by a combine harvester. Lotz’s opposite number Artie Lambourn described that Springboks pack as an outlier, and totally different to any other forward pack the All Blacks of that era had played against. “Its whole game was centred around the scrum, and the forwards were a scrumming machine. They were all big men, very strong, and they were tight as a drum.” What has changed in the space of 90 short years? Those words would be just as appropriate as a description of the Springboks scrum now as it was back then.

A big scrum at a key moment is, hands down, definitely more satisfying than scoring a try. It’s just one of those feelings you can’t replace with anything else.

You need a special man at tight-head prop to volunteer for combat against that mentality, and Porter has it. When asked by The Irish Times a few years ago when he could last remember going 15 weeks without a scrum, he paused before delivering the punch-line, ‘before I ever played rugby’. Boom-boom. He made no bones about his game-day priorities at the end of the same interview:

“A good day in the scrums is the starting point for all props. Sure, we have to make our tackles and carries, and hit our rucks. I’ve scored a few tries, but I think the average distance is about half a metre. My face scrapes along the ground every time.

“A big scrum at a key moment is, hands down, definitely more satisfying than scoring a try. It’s just one of those feelings you can’t replace with anything else.”

On the opening weekend of the URC 2026-27, Porter had the opportunity to redress some of the indignities Ireland had experienced last November, and indirectly, correct the impression of scrum dominance the Lions had created when scoring a pushover try versus the touring All Blacks:

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— William Bishop (@RPvids1994) August 26, 2026

The Lions’ loose-head prop who finished the game against Leinster was the same man who had embarrassed Pasilio Tosi by shunting the pride of New Zealand back over its own goal-line. Whatever the rights or wrongs of that scrum, whether you think it was ‘walking around’ in the gospel according to Dave Rennie, or ‘scrumming through’ in the Erasmus scriptures, the All Blacks in general, and their tight-head prop Tosi in particular, had failed to find a solution to Lions No.1 SJ Kotze in real time.

The most encouraging by-line of all from the Irish viewpoint was the facility with which Porter sorted the technical issues created by Kotze in the course of the second half. With ‘Ports’ on the pitch, Leinster won the scrum penalty count up until the 66th minute of the game by three penalties to nil.

Porter already had a hint that the referee was to not going to help too much when Kotze walked around the Leinster tight-head, dragging the scrum with him shortly after entering the fray:

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— William Bishop (@RPvids1994) September 27, 2026

Instead of scrumming into the Irishman, Kotze immediately announces his intention of staying outside Porter, and well away from a true mano-a-mano contest. Whenever you see the loose-head’s head appearing down the side of the scrum like that, it is the tell-tale sign of a slewing scrum and a very pale imitation of true dominance. On this occasion the Lions played through the penalty award with a sharp backs’ move down the left sideline.

Porter’s solution was simple and elegant. As he said in that Irish Times article: “you have to be smart. There’s method to the madness as well, rather than just brute force.” He took a short step inside to accentuate Kotze’s angle even more, so that either the angle became impossible for the referee to ignore, or the ex-Springboks Under 20s prop fell flat on his face because he was already off-balance:

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— William Bishop (@RPvids1994) September 27, 2026

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— William Bishop (@RPvids1994) September 27, 2026

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— William Bishop (@RPvids1994) September 27, 2026

Like ‘Boy’ and Fanie Louw before him, Kotze attended the famous Paarl Boys High School in the Western Cape. He may never pass into Springboks legend like the pair of brothers, but he was a more-than-useful stepping stone on the road to Porter’s conversion back to tight-head prop at the weekend. Kotze had given Tosi more problems than he could handle with the All Blacks, but Porter solved them all resolutely and convincingly for his province.

The national team needs ‘Ports’ far more in the number three jersey than it needs him at number one, where Andy Farrell can already call upon the services of repurposed Ulsterman Tom O’Toole, and three very promising loose-heads in the shape of young Leinstermen Paddy McCarthy and Jack Boyle, and potentially the best of them all, 20-year old Billy Bohan, currently plying his trade with Connacht in Galway Bay.

Irish scrummaging has a chance to regain its pride on 21 November. The skrum in green is overdue to rebound from recent miseries, and the UCD alumnus deserves to be at the heart of the effort, the comeback king.