So, What Do We Know?

By Scott Maclean

“The Greatest Rivalry” series is done, with South Africa taking the last three Tests for a 3-1 series triumph. But what have we learned from it?

1. The Springboks are really good, but not infallible.
South Africa have evolved their game into basic, brutal, simplicity. Scrums, lineouts, and territory, and being the very best at it. And in contrast to our approach to the game, it’s all about winning and they don’t care how. Here we expect the All Blacks to win and to do so in style with the ball thrown around; in the Republic what matters is the numbers at the end of 80 minutes.

The Springbok scrum is brutalism in its finest form. You can question the methods and what exactly happens in that dark place, and despite all those images with lines and arrows all over them my view is that the All Blacks have tended to set up on a slight angle with the loosehead up. There’s clearly a tactic to pressure the tighthead though, and the duo of Ox Nche and Malcolm Marx had Tyrel Lomax in a world of pain and Fletcher Newell barely managed to contain it; if anything, I wonder why the massively strong Pasilio Tosi wasn’t utilised though I doubt any prop on earth could dominate in the face of that.

France’s Uini Atonio might have, but he was forced to retire earlier this year after suffering a heart attack.

But for all their emphasis on the set piece, the Boks remain vulnerable to both structured attack that drags them back and forward across the park, and unstructured attack on the occasions they turn the ball over inside their own half. The problem for everyone else is that they seldom do that, and have come masters at dealing with changes in momentum against them.

2. Rassie
For years, Aussie yachtie James Spittle occupied more rent-free space in the heads of New Zealanders than we’ll ever admit. A brilliant sailor, he also knew just how to get under our skin (and for that reason, I rate him as one of our best adversaries). But since he called time on his career, Johan “Rassie” Erasmus has moved in, doing just enough to be annoying and plenty more at being very good at what he does. Now yes, he should have been sanctioned harder by World Rugby for his frequent targeting of match officials, but what he has tapped into on an elite level is the South African rugby psyche. He’s made physical dominance such an ingrained part of the game that the Boks love to scrum and to hit hard and something celebrated by the Bokke faithful. With nine years at the helm he’s moulded the team into exactly what he wants, and the public have followed.

Love him or hate him, nothing is done without a cold calculation behind it.

3. More questions than answers for Dave Rennie
Despite the result, one pleasing thing is that without the time his rival has had is that the new coach’s side largely held their own. But what will be keeping Dave Rennie awake will be how and where he finds that edge. As it stands there’s probably only a handful of names that he will be confident of writing into his first-choice XV; Scott Barrett (who despite his penalty proclivities was badly missed), Ardie Savea, Cam Roigard, Jordie Barrett, and Will Jordan. Tupou Va’ai is almost there, and Luke Jacobsen probably is as well though there’s the obvious question of Chiefs-bias.

Ruben Love is the man of the future though at first-five and, somewhat peculiarly Kyle Preston has established himself as the perfect bench halfback.

Everywhere else? Up for grabs. There’s a few that you could probably write-off for selection in the biggest games (Sam Darry, Leroy Carter) and veterans like Codie Taylor, his outing in Baltimore aside, who are rapidly coming towards the end of their road in the black jersey.

4. South Africa’s weird obsession with the referee
To a point reinforcing the “Rassie is God” belief and that the Springboks are seldom guilty of anything is the amount of bandwith dedicated to talking about the match officials after the match on the social media platforms. Much of this seems to stem from Erasmus’ bizarre attack on Nic Berry in the last Lions series and how he was “only telling the truth”, but it’s become a weird national obsession in the Republic.

For what it’s worth though, Matthew Carley (1 st ) was excellent, Nika Amashukeli (3 rd ) nearly so and more when you realise that the oft-reproduced image of where Love was allegedly offside is wrong – it was the next ruck. Angus Gardner (2 nd ) won’t be happy with his outing though the fact he was thrown into it at the 11 th hour owing to Amashukeli’s illness is perhaps mitigating, and the jury is definitely out on Karl Dickson’s handling of the 4 th Test.

5. Next year’s World Cup draw is an absolute joke
Having both of the world’s pre-eminent sides (OK, three if you include France) scheduled to meet at the Quarter-final stage of next year’s World Cup is ridiculous stuff from World Rugby. The excuse trotted out is that time and certainty is needed for tour packages and the like, but FIFA manages to do theirs closer to the event itself and that is even more complex. It’s far from the first – last time having NZ and Ireland meeting at the same stage is just as stupid, yet the games masters seem determined not to learn from it. <Facepalm.gif>

We await the return tour in 2030.

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