Matt Williams has once again urged World Rugby to step in despite praising the Springboks’ performance against Ireland in Saturday’s end-of-year Test.
South Africa defeated the Irishmen 24-13 in a display which was based on power and utter scrum dominance.
Andy Farrell’s side had no answer to it, conceding a series of penalties and copping four yellow cards and a red as a result.
The 7-1 bench
“While we’ve got some honest talk to be had about Ireland, let’s not forget we witnessed a masterful team performance from South Africa,” Williams told Off The Ball, before the controversial pundit praised the Springboks’ ability to adapt to the laws.
He added: “What they did with the 7-1 bench, there’s the laws, how can we best exploit these laws to our advantage?
“They’re not doing anything illegal with the 7-1 bench, we all know that, but they exploited it to their advantage and here again, what did we see South Africa do?
“They exploited the laws. It’s really smart, I’m not criticising, but it was completely to their advantage. They took the laws and they used them brilliantly, be it at the scrum, the breakdown – what they did, they were quite superb.”
Williams has previously been outspoken over his dislike for forward-heavy benches and, following this clash, he moved his attention onto the scrum.
Ireland infringed a number of times at the scrum, leading to a penalty try and two yellow cards for Andrew Porter and Paddy McCarthy, but the 65-year-old wants the set-piece to have less impact on the game.
“I feel sorry for referee Carley in many ways but if you go to the lawbook… the scrum is there to restart play, that’s what it says in the lawbook, it was never meant to dominate the game,” he said.
“When I played, and when I started coaching, it wasn’t a penalty to be pushed off the ball. It shouldn’t be a penalty when you’re pushed off the ball, that’s the contest.
“South Africa are the best in the world at that incentive; they get the long arm penalty. When I was playing it was a short arm [free kick].
“If you have a five-metre scrum, you go for a pushover try, no problem at all, that’s a great skill, but that was just horrible. All those people that came to watch that game and on TV, it was a disaster.”
“Not only was it a disaster because you had so much scrummaging and penalties, there were yellow cards coming out from scrummaging, which completely ruined the game. The whole thing cascaded down from that.”
Depowering the scrum
There has been accusations from South Africa that World Rugby are trying to depower the scrum, but the Springboks have shown that it can still be a significant weapon.
However, Williams evidently does not believe teams should be allowed to use it in such a way and would like the governing body to do more to prevent it from having that type of impact on the game.
The Australian does not seem to hold out much hope, though, as he criticised those at the very top of the sport.
“I was talking to someone from World Rugby and the people within World Rugby are frustrated. It is not the hard-working staff at World Rugby who are so wonderful and put in so much time and effort, it is the politicians at the top that stymie the change,” he added.
“It’s not the board, they’re trying to get change… but there is no way the big countries are up for the change. Until we do, we’re going to get games like that. It makes it very boring and frustrating to watch.”
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