Springboks boss Rassie Erasmus has given World Rugby kudos for improving the way the game is played at Test level.<\/p>\n
A new international era for the sport began with last Saturday\u2019s opening round of the Nations Championship, and across the six matches, there were 54 tries and an overall points total of 381.<\/p>\n
One industrious platform for several of those tries was the maul. There were seven directly scored from that facet of play, including one from South Africa\u2019s Malcolm Marx versus England.<\/p>\n
Several other tries came in the first or second phase after the maul, such as the move Cam Roigard finished by the posts on the stroke of half-time in New Zealand\u2019s win over France.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought all games were excellent\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
It was July 1 when World Rugby\u2019s latest law amendments came into force, including a guideline that defending players who move past the ball must detach themselves rather than remain in the maul illegally.<\/p>\n
South Africa opened their July schedule with a convincing 45-21 hammering of England in Johannesburg and ahead of their round two meeting with Scotland in Pretoria, Erasmus has sifted through the round one action and felt compelled to praise World Rugby \u2013 something every rugby fan would have thought unimaginable some years ago when he was the receiving end of bans from the game\u2019s global governing body.<\/p>\n
Speaking after naming a much-changed XV to host the Scots<\/a>, Erasmus said: \u201cAn interesting thing, there was more maul tries scored in this opening round than altogether in the Six Nations if I have my stats correct.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, I want to give World Rugby credit there. I thought all games were excellent. Opening up this contest with the guy in the air with a contestable kick, it\u2019s a nice competition there.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat people thought was it was just going to be all mauling but because you can\u2019t drag in a maul anymore, you have to put more numbers into a maul and the guys who stop the maul now have to get out and defend after that, so there is definitely more mauling but then after the mauling there is more tries because guys are tired of stopping mauls. You can\u2019t just put four guys in and drag the maul to the side.<\/p>\n John Smit\u2019s concern for Springboks\u2019 \u2018difficult year\u2019 amid lack of selection consistency over the \u2018past six years\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cScrum feed, which World Rugby has introduced, is getting rewards where there is good contest there and loose forwards must stay bound to make sure the props don\u2019t get scrummed back.<\/p>\n \u201cSo I think the product World Rugby is putting out with the law adjustments or interpretations that they put out there, that played a big role. It was beautiful rugby in most of the games.\u201d<\/p>\n Following his team\u2019s 24-point win over England at Ellis Park<\/a>, Erasmus suggested at his post-game media briefing that the aerial battle had become rugby\u2019s new set-piece. With the dust having settled on those comments, he was asked to revisit what he actually meant by what he said.<\/p>\n \u201cA kick-off you kick, you don\u2019t throw in. I\u2019m not being sarcastic; I am really trying to say it is another source. Maybe I used my words wrongly at the press conference; I apologise for that. It\u2019s more, it\u2019s another source of possession,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n \u201cA lineout, if the ball gets kicked out, it must be thrown down the middle and then although the other team kicked it out, both teams have got a chance to contest for that. At scrum, the ball gets thrown in. Same with the lineout, same with the kick-off, same with the goalline drop-out.<\/p>\n Rassie Erasmus on the influence of rugby\u2019s new \u2018set phase\u2019 against England and the \u2018destiny\u2019 of the Springboks losing Etzebeth and Kolisi to injury<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cI just feel with the way World Rugby has cleaned it up now that you can actually go up for a pure contest. If it\u2019s a bad kick, it is your ball; if it\u2019s a good kick, it\u2019s a nice contest. I just think it is nice and contestable and then there is this competition for the ball in the air.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you don\u2019t win the ball in the air, because one jumps higher or jumps earlier or whatever the case may be, then it\u2019s scraps. Everybody calls it scraps now; that\u2019s just the term all teams use now, and the scraps become a competition.<\/p>\n \u201cFrom there it is who is the team that can set the quickest on attack and who can set the quickest on defence. Sometimes rugby is boring but the way the laws are now, this past weekend I thought all games were really contested in every single area.\u201d<\/p>\n An 11th-hour talking point before kick-off versus England<\/a> was the Springboks<\/a> losing two 30-something veterans from their line-up.<\/p>\n It emerged that record caps holder Eben Etzebeth and long-serving captain Skya Kolisi had suffered respective head and hamstring injuries on the training ground, but Erasmus believes high intensity training remains a must if older players are to keep making his teams.<\/p>\n Sir Steve Hansen: Rassie Erasmus\u2019 Springboks are misleading everyone about how they want to play<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cI believe if a player can handle the intensity of a training session, the intensity is very hard, then the age of a guy should not be in the reckoning,\u201d he said. \u201cIf he can handle the intensity and doesn\u2019t get injured and he is ready and can perform on Saturday, then it means he is not too old.<\/p>\n \u201cBut if you start dropping the intensity of training sessions to accommodate older guys, which I was part of teams in the past, then you have got a great team on paper, but then those guys are not match fit and ready for Saturday.<\/p>\n \u201cWe try to keep the intensity of training sessions up there. If the older guys hang in there and they look after their bodies and they recover well and they can still play well on Saturdays, that means they are not too old.<\/p>\n \u201cNow the same with younger guys, some guys break during the week\u2026 and the match is just too much. But we like to keep the intensity up and hopefully all the players, older, young and medium can handle it and then on Saturday it\u2019s more or less the same, it\u2019s not the same pressure-wise, but the intensity is the same.\u201d<\/p>\n Erasmus also referenced a study that has given him confidence that guys who have been sidelined with serious injury can make up this lost time and extend their careers. \u201cA guy did a study for us on guys who let\u2019s say played six years and he was injured.<\/p>\n