Springboks coach Rassie Erasmus has fired back at claims by his All Blacks rival Dave Rennie that South Africa again used illegal scrummaging tactics during their victory in Cape Town this morning.
Erasmus described Rennie’s claims the Boks “walked around” or wheeled the scrum to get an advantage, as they did last weekend in Johannesburg, as “nonsense”, adding in an apparently angry outburst: “We’re not going to say ‘yeah, you’re right, we’re walking around’ - we’re not f***ing walking around, we’re scrumming through.”
There is no doubt that Erasmus’ outburst was designed to create attention, however, and perhaps the funniest moment of the Boks’ press conference following their 33-26 victory at DHL Stadium was his apparent disappointment that Rennie had been trying to use the media to get his message across.
Rennie would probably see the funny side too given Erasmus changed his entire front row only minutes before kick-off (after naming his side on the Monday local time), and that during the week of the first Test at Ellis Park, won 33-16 by the All Blacks, the Boks coach wheeled out his referees’ advisor Jaco Peyper to “prove” South Africa do not attempt to slow the game down.
So, it is difficult to take the man known as rugby’s master manipulator seriously at times. There is little doubt that the game would be less colourful for his absence but one wonders how Erasmus would have reacted had South Africa, who re-took the world’s No.1 ranking, lost this morning.
Rennie, asked about the scrums – an area in which the All Blacks were better than they were last weekend - calmly replied: “We’ll give a bit of feedback around that. It’s still a bit of an issue for us because they’re able to walk around and go straight through our tighthead.”
Erasmus, notified of Rennie’s comments, said: “It’s the first time ever in history that people are talking about us walking around so why would we all of a sudden walk around? The first six scrums New Zealand had, every single one collapsed… why is it only on their ball that the scrum collapses every single time?
“So don’t come with that nonsense and say we’re walking around and put that out in the media.
“The last lineout [on All Blacks’ throw] was skewed and it was contested. I’m not going to moan my ass off about that.
“If he’s going to start moaning about stuff like that then play under pressure because last week we didn’t moan after there was clear head contacts a lot of the time and today in the first 40 there were four head contacts and nothing was done about it and then Lood [de Jager] gets a yellow.
“Don’t try to convince people through the media because that was what happened in the first week … that we were slowing the game down and we’re not.”
Erasmus, his stream of consciousness complete, asked that his reply not be taken out of context but the message was clear - only he is permitted to publicly draw the attention of the match officials to concerns about the applications of the game's laws.
Meanwhile, the scrums weren’t the issue for the All Blacks this morning, but their lineout was. They won 15 of 18 lineouts but lost two inside the Boks 22 (one in each half) when an accurate set piece would have put enormous pressure on the home team.
The Boks challenged well in this area and that, along with their physicality at the breakdown and front-on defence, allowed them to hold off the visitors and put them in constant catch-up mode.
There is little doubt, either, that they did well to slow the All Blacks’ ball by lying on the wrong side of the breakdown – flanker Pieter Steph du Toit, celebrating his 100th cap, was excellent at this early on – and the visitors’ lack of continuity and tempo hurt them.
“The boys hung in there and almost stole the game away,” skipper Ardie Savea said. “I guess we’ve got to fix up little areas in our game and not let the Springboks get into our 22 or rack points up in threes to put pressure on us.”
As Rennie said, it was a game of small margins but while halfback Cam Roigard, one of his team’s four try-scorers, was excellent throughout, Ruben Love did not provide the direction on attack his team needed and even the ultra-consistent and hard-hitting Jordie Barrett looked a little lost at times.
“It’s really small margins,” Rennie said. “For all the pressure we were under tonight we lost by seven. What we know is we can create opportunities and we can score. We just need to be really clinical and deny them opportunities down our end of the field and deal with that ball in the air.”
Erasmus, meanwhile, admitted he felt the pressure of the Ellis Park defeat during the week.
Now that the series is locked up at 1-1 the pressure will go back on the All Blacks and Rennie to find the solutions.
“He’s an experienced coach and he’ll feel what we felt last week,” Erasmus said.
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