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<\/a> <\/p>\nFormer South Africa<\/a> head coach Nick Mallett has hit back at claims the Springboks were walking around in the scrum by accusing the All Blacks<\/a> of \u201cbasically cheating\u201d.<\/p>\n All Blacks head coach Dave Rennie flagged this issue<\/a> after his side were defeated in the second Test of Rugby\u2019s Greatest Rivalry series on Saturday, saying the hosts were \u201cable to walk around and go straight through our tighthead.\u201d<\/p>\n Ironically, the All Blacks lost that match despite being far more competitive in the scrum than they had been in their victory a week earlier in Johannesburg, where the world champions were dominant for the opening hour.<\/p>\n South Africa head coach Rassie Erasmus took umbrage to those comments by his counterpart, saying: \u201cThe first six scrums New Zealand<\/a> had, every single one collapsed. It was reset, reset, reset, reset. Why is it only on their ball that the scrum collapses every single time? Don\u2019t come with that nonsense and say that we\u2019re walking around and try and put those things out in the media.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re not f***ing walking around. We\u2019re scrumming through.\u201d<\/p>\n South Africa <\/p>\n New Zealand <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Mallett has echoed Erasmus\u2019 point on the Talking Boks<\/a> podcast this week, saying the scrum has descended into \u201ca joke\u201d as the All Blacks persistently collapse in the hope of a reset or even a penalty going their way.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat they do now is they don\u2019t want to stay up because if they collapse, they force the referee to make a decision between one or the other side,\u201d Mallett said. \u201cSo you have a 50 per cent chance of getting it right, of actually getting a penalty.<\/p>\n \u201cWhereas the referees should be good enough to see who is actually pancaking, who\u2019s going down.<\/p>\n \u201cSo this Saturday, we\u2019re going to come as hard as we can in the scrums and hopefully we\u2019re going to get better reward for our dominance in that area of the game.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf Rassie is correct in saying the first six scrums went down and there was only a penalty in the 35th minute when Marx and Ox Nche came on, then that\u2019s inexcusable.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re turning it into, basically, a joke because the side that puts the ball in just collapses the scrum. How can you go forward if the scrum is lying on the ground? You can\u2019t.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, in fact, they are basically cheating to stop themselves giving a penalty away.<\/p>\n \u201cIf the ref says play away at No.8, but you\u2019ve put pressure on them, started to get them going back and they fall to the ground, it\u2019s a penalty. Unfortunately, we didn\u2019t get that last Saturday.\u201d<\/p>\n Ultimately, Mallett was fairly emphatic in how inferior the All Blacks\u2019 scrum, or indeed any other scrum, is to South Africa\u2019s.<\/p>\n In fact, he claimed the only front-row that would potentially be able to nullify South Africa\u2019s starting trio is their replacement front-row.<\/p>\n He said: \u201cIf we go in with [Malcolm] Marx and Ox Nch\u00e9 and, I don\u2019t really care who they have at hooker or tighthead, they\u2019re in for a really tough afternoon. But if they\u2019re faced with [Gerhard] Steenekamp and Deon Fourie, very good rugby players, but don\u2019t have that explosive power at scrum time that the other two have.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd Wilco \u2013 let\u2019s not underestimate how powerful that guy is and how technically correct he is. He\u2019s absolutely dead straight, rather like [Frans] Malherbe. Malherbe was better around the field, made more tackles, cleaned more rucks, but Wilco has got the same scrummaging power as he had.<\/p>\n \u201cSo when we get Wilco, Ox and Marx in the front-row, I challenge any front row in the world to match those guys. They can\u2019t. There\u2019s no one who can match those guys. In fact, the best would be Thomas du Toit, Jan-Hendrik Wessels and Steenekamp. Those would be the guys who would handle our best row the best.<\/p>\n \u201cThe All Blacks haven\u2019t got the personnel, I don\u2019t care what they say. They haven\u2019t got a tighthead, nor have France<\/a> got a tighthead, nor have England. We dominated them as well.<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1788452061_30_815.png.webp\"\/)
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