Last weekend’s conclusion to the Rugby Championship in London has left many fans – including two retired England greats – in awe of the power wielded by the Springboks scrum against Argentina.
Despite falling 10-3 behind in the early stages of the Round Six match that the Pumas decided to stage in the English capital rather than in Argentina, the title-chasing Springboks kept their cool and soon revelled in the sight of their scrum demolishing the opposition pack.
So clinical were they at the set-piece that there was a jaw-dropping moment in the first half when a seven-man pack that had Pieter-Steph du Toit positioned as the stand-in scrum-half due to the sin-binning of midfielder Canan Moodie pushed the eight-man Argentina pack off their own ball.
That sort of dominance continued throughout the match until near the very end when the Pumas, with both teams having used their respective replacement benches, finally won a set-piece penalty to assist a flourishing finish that saw them only ultimately beaten by a two-point, 27-29 margin.
“Hmm, that’s quite good.”
Since that finale, which confirmed the Springboks as back-to-back Rugby Championship champions for the first time, a statistic has emerged highlighting the power of the South African scrum.
Rassie Erasmus’ forwards apparently won 19 scrum penalties across the six matches they played compared to New Zealand’s eight, Australia’s two and Argentina’s one, and that dominance has sharpened the minds of two retired England greats ahead of a November schedule where South Africa take on Japan, France, Italy, Ireland and Wales.
Scrum-half Ben Youngs and tighthead Dan Cole grappled with the Springboks at successive Rugby World Cups, the 2019 final in Yokohama and the 2023 semi-final in Paris.
Both matches, which ended in South African wins, were heavily influenced by the scrum – the English set-piece was demolished in Japan, and the concession of a late, late set-piece penalty in France allowed Handre Pollard to kick the winning points.
Now retired, the former England and Leicester teammates have a weekly show, For The Love Of Rugby, and having watched the Springboks gobble up the Argentina scrum last weekend, a fascinating discussion emerged between the pair. Here is what they said about the South African set-piece:
YOUNGS: The Rugby Championship has been so good, I’ve really enjoyed it. It’s such a massive shame it’s not happening now for a while because all teams, as we have seen, have the ability to beat each other. The Springboks, rightly so, have won it back-to-back, won it once again. The best team in the tournament. However, it has been a fantastic Championship.
COLE: Yes, it has. I thought the game at the weekend, watching Argentina-South Africa, Argentina came out wanting to move the ball, probably didn’t want to take on the South Africans physically or too directly. They were flinging the ball around, and I thought that first 15 minutes the intensity they played with was unmatched. Then the Springboks had a scrum and you saw the balance of the game change, and fair play to them. The point where the Springboks had seven men in their scrum, they had Pieter-Steph du Toit standing at nine and (Cobus) Reinach moved to the wing and they pushed the Argentinians off their own ball, I thought, ‘Hmm, that’s quite good’.
YOUNGS: It’s berserk, isn’t it? You know, like when you are facing that scrum or if you are coaching a team that is coming against the Boks, is there any way of nullifying it? Is there any way of trying to get away from it? Is there anything you can do to try and not make it so almost emotionally demoralising for you? Like, if you were coaching a scrum, how would you set up to try and deal with the Boks?
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COLE: You have two avenues. You can try and avoid it, just get the ball in and out, almost like the Japan focus many years ago, like 2015 and that kind of stuff. Or you can go, let’s see how good we are. They are the best in the world. We are going to focus on our scrum this week. There are teams that probably go against South Africa, and it’s like we’ll just get the ball out of there and that can feed into your team, but you know it’s coming so you might as well try.
COLE: We [England] had that attitude, although it didn’t always work, of taking them on and just trying to match them and engage. Not shying away from the contest, that is what I am trying to say. You have to take them on, you have to try and get a result, and if you do you do and if you don’t you don’t. But if you decide that we are going to hug the ball and avoid all scrums, you sometimes run up your own arse and get into trouble. There is always going to be scrums in the game; it’s just a question of how you manage those moments.
YOUNGS: You know you have scrums that can whip around, your tighthead is dominant and it has spun around, let’s say, but with the Boks at times it has not spun, it’s like straight through the middle. Explain that. How is that possible, because you don’t see that with other teams? Where is that force coming through?
COLE: It’s coming through the entire front-row. You look at the ginormous second-rows they pick and they have big back-rowers, but they engage hard and they stay square. You look at someone like Thomas du Toit, sometimes the loosehead can get two inches of forward momentum and will step out and run it around and sometimes the refs give that, whereas the Springboks stay in the scrum and they take you on head-on. There were those five-metre goal line scrums where they just literally were going through Argentina; there is not a lot you can do at that point if you are the defending team… if you stay up, you are going backwards.
COLE: The rules have changed, where you can’t take a scrum off a free-kick. So at some time, teams have to investigate if we get into this situation, do we just engage early, do we just pull out, whatever you can do, or the Boks will bring you into that contest. The thing with the Springboks is when you are that dominant a scrum, Argentina tried to run them around, keep the ball away from contact. As you saw in that first half, the ball was flowing, moving around everywhere, but you know as soon as you knock it on or as soon as you make a handling error, you are going to get drawn into that scrum contest and then the whole plan goes out the window.
COLE: And similar around the field, the ball goes in the air, when you get that type of scrum dominance like we saw with South Africa pushing them off their own ball, you don’t want to catch a high ball or knock it on. There is so much stuff that affects your game, it just builds into the psyche of your game and you know that every contest is going to be a penalty South Africa and then you are going to be defending 15 phases, and then they are going to go back for a penalty and they are going to kick it in the corner. This whole thing can spiral into the way a team plays.
YOUNGS: It absolutely can spiral because even you’re attacking and then suddenly you are not too sure about offloading because it may not stick and it may lead to a scrum because of a knock-on instead of kicking contestable, which might be the main strategy of how you get out of your half, suddenly you think I can’t kick contestable because if you knock it on we are getting scrummed and then they are either kicking to the corner and hitting is with a maul, which was effective at the weekend for the Springboks, or at the posts.
YOUNGS: What they have done in my eyes is they have doubled down on their superpower once again. They are unapologetically brilliant at scrummaging and mauling and those sorts of contact areas, they have just doubled down on that, but what they also have is just a huge amount of depth and they have still got that creativity.