{"id":586018,"date":"2026-08-31T16:02:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-31T16:02:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/586018\/"},"modified":"2026-08-31T16:02:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-31T16:02:13","slug":"nick-mallett-accuses-referee-of-abdicating-responsibility-and-nullifying-springboks-real-weapon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/586018\/","title":{"rendered":"Nick Mallett accuses referee of ‘abdicating’ responsibility and ‘nullifying’ Springboks ‘real weapon’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nick Mallett believes that Angus Gardner abdicated his responsibility to officiate the scrums and, in doing so, nullified a weapon of the Springboks<\/a>.<\/p>\n

New Zealand conceded just two penalties throughout the 80 minutes of the second Test of Rugby\u2019s Greatest Rivalry series despite South Africa putting the All Blacks\u2019 set-piece under pressure.<\/p>\n

Rassie Erasmus boldly changed his entire front-row an hour before kick-off on Saturday, with the lighter trio of Gerhard Steenekamp, Deon Fourie and Thomas du Toit taking the starting roles with Ox Nche, Malcolm Marx and Wilco Louw switching to the bench.<\/p>\n

This led to far more even scrums for much of the first half, though Erasmus did complain in the post-match press conference that the visitors weren\u2019t penalised for collapsing the set-piece. That came after New Zealand boss Dave Rennie accused the hosts of \u2018walking around\u2019 in the scrums, blaming the Boks\u2019 loosehead props.<\/p>\n

Still, the penalty count against the All Blacks in the second Test read at just two; one was an advantage that Jesse Kriel scored off of, a stark difference to the six they conceded at Ellis Park the week prior.<\/p>\n

Angus Gardner managed the game and players<\/p>\n

According to former Springboks<\/a> head coach Mallett, the lower penalty count was because referee Gardner wanted the set-piece as a manner of restarting the game and didn\u2019t want it to play a major role in the outcome of the match.<\/p>\n

While he was critical of the referee, who took charge of the game in place of the ill Nika Amashukeli, he said that the Australian official did allow the result to be decided by the players and not his decisions.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can say that the referee managed the game a lot, managed players and coached players out of bad positions, but a game with only four penalties against the Springboks and eight against the All Blacks<\/a> \u2013 that was nice to see. The game was won by the players,\u201d Mallett<\/a> remarked on the Talking Boks podcast.<\/a><\/p>\n

When the conversation moved to the scrums, he added: \u201cI just felt that Angus Gardner didn\u2019t want to have to adjudicate on who was dominant in that area of the game. He wanted the set piece to restart the game, and if a team managed to get the ball to the number eight, even if that front row just pancaked and went to ground, which is illegal, you\u2019ve got to stay on your feet, he said, \u2018play on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mallett believes that the penalty count against the All Blacks should have been similar to that of the fixture at Ellis Park, especially once Nche and Marx were introduced. While Erasmus dropped the duo to the bench before kick-off, he threw them both into the mix at a crucial point in the first half with the Springboks having the feed to a scrum inside the All Blacks\u2019 22.<\/p>\n

How New Zealand\u2019s media reacted to All Blacks\u2019 loss to Springboks as \u2018Lex Luther mastermind Rassie Erasmus\u2019 credited for world champions\u2019 turnaround<\/a><\/p>\n

All Blacks got lucky in the scrums<\/p>\n

The two penalties South Africa won at scrum time came when that change happened. They won a penalty with the first feed and attacked with an advantage from the second, which led to the try for Kriel.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe All Blacks got lucky with that. They were able to avoid three or four penalties in that area of the game,\u201d Mallett said, referring to Gardner\u2019s reluctance to reward dominant scrummaging side.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will say that in the beginning of the game, with our lighter front-row and their starting front row, they scrummed well in that first half. There was a lot of parity there. That set the tone for Gardner, he thought, \u2018Okay, fantastic, now it\u2019s a game where I won\u2019t have to make some really tough decisions.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cThen of course when Marx and Ox came on, there was a real bloody difference in terms of momentum. He gave two penalties quickly, but the second one was called by the touch judge because I heard him say, \u2018Can you give me the picture? Who was it who went down?\u2019 He wanted to know why there was a penalty there and why the assistant referee had called it from his side.<\/p>\n

Springboks team: Winners and losers including the victim of Rassie Erasmus\u2019 \u2018brutal decision\u2019 while Cape Town stars are rewarded<\/a><\/p>\n

Springboks v All Blacks: Seven things we learned as Rassie Erasmus\u2019 front-row switch squares Rugby\u2019s Greatest Rivalry<\/a><\/p>\n

\ufeff<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the end of the day, he just wanted it put in, get the ball away, and let\u2019s move on; it\u2019ll be interesting to see if that continues with the Georgian referee at the FNB Stadium. It took away what has always been a real weapon of ours, and there were several scrums in that game where we could have done the double shove, but we weren\u2019t given the reward. So, a fine performance despite not getting the advantage from penalties at scrums, and also getting the penalties where we could kick them over.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fuming Rassie Erasmus slams Dave Rennie\u2019s \u2018nonsense\u2019 after All Blacks accusations as he insists Springboks \u2018won\u2019t stay quiet\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

Springboks v All Blacks: The truth about the Cape Town scrum as Dave Rennie\u2019s \u2018walking around\u2019 charge runs into Ox Nch\u00e9\u2019s hips<\/a><\/p>\n

Nick Mallett on Dave Rennie and Rassie Erasmus\u2019 spat<\/p>\n

As mentioned above, both Rennie and Erasmus addressed the officiating of the set-piece, with the latter getting rather animated in his response to the former\u2019s accusation of the Springboks\u2019 loosehead walking around in the set-piece.<\/p>\n

Mallett believes that it was the touring team that kicked off the tension with their comments before the Test series, stating that South African teams like to slow the game down.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it started well before the New Zealanders started talking about illegal scrummaging or walking around. It started right at the beginning of the tour, when they said that South African teams like to walk from set piece to set piece, and we slow the game down to our pace,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe chatting to the media about your concerns about the opposition started with the All Blacks. It didn\u2019t start with South Africa; there was nothing said until the week before [the first Test], when Rassie felt, \u2018Okay, well, if he\u2019s going to chat about it then we\u2019ll also chat a little bit about our concerns\u2019,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut on that scrummaging issue, it is something that I\u2019ve been concerned about from World Rugby: they are doing their best to tell the referee that if the side goes backwards and goes legally backwards, there\u2019s no penalty just because you go backwards, but if you can hook or hack the ball out as best you can \u2013 it\u2019s not a penalty. It\u2019s only if you collapse it under pressure or if you walk around and wheel it.<\/p>\n

Want more from Planet Rugby? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list<\/a> for world-class coverage you can trust.<\/p>\n

\u201cVictor Matfield did a very good piece on SuperSport where he showed that penalty against Steenekamp, but he shows it from the side of the Springboks\u2019 tighthead. Their loosehead is at an angle right at the very beginning of that scrum and is walking around on our side, and Steenekamp gets penalised because if you walk around on one side, it\u2019s almost impossible not to walk around on the other side.<\/p>\n

\u201cRassie said the whole week that the referee got that decision right, but my issue was that I don\u2019t think he did. It definitely started with the All Black loosehead walking around.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe benefit that New Zealand got from having the scrum refereed in a way where Angus Gardner didn\u2019t want to have to penalise \u2013 he just wanted the ball put in and won by the side putting it in \u2013 was a huge benefit to them. So I think it is important how the referee manages that in the next game.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s definitely a strength of ours, and it is in the laws that you are allowed to have a good scrum, and you are allowed to put pressure on the opposition, and if they can\u2019t handle your scrum, you get a penalty and until they change that law I\u2019m sure South Africa is going to continue to try and and win an advantage in that area.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt shouldn\u2019t be negated by a referee who\u2019s coaching that situation and literally nullifies it and abdicates responsibility there.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ MORE:\u00a0Rassie rant: Ex-All Black claims Erasmus \u2018does these things that are probably not acceptable\u2019 but admits \u2018he\u2019s looking after his players and they\u2019d die for him\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nick Mallett believes that Angus Gardner abdicated his responsibility to officiate the scrums and, in doing so, nullified…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":586019,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,1463,1464,111,43,6327,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-586018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-home-page","tag-internationals","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-rugby","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=586018"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586018\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/586019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=586018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=586018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=586018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}