It has been interesting to read comments from various coaches and critics after the Boks’ games in the UK recently. I confess I am perturbed to read Jake White, Springbok coach, talking about the different sort of rugby played in that area where he suggests that because of weather conditions and thus the damp surfaces, the Boks should play a somewhat similar game to the English.
He and another well-known former Bok coach (one of the many) are now advocating taking the ball up around the edges, rather than playing the more expansive game, driving the line-outs and the mauls and using the shrewd boot upfield. Certainly the English pack demolished the Bok’s pack in set pieces, rucks and mauls but was that really because of the Springbok’s tactics or was it because the basic techniques of the English were just so much better?
I have been fortunate enough to have been involved in a few school sides playing rugby against schools in the UK and can honestly say that there was absolutely no reason at all for us to change our holistic approach to the game despite the pitches - which were a damned sight worse than those on which the Boks have played - and the inclement weather! We shall get the same old cry about that being all very well at schoolboy level where the game is apparently less sophisticated (is it? I have coached at all levels but International and have found that a good schoolboy side is generally a damned sight more sophisticated and able than most of the more senior sides).
As a retired prop of the old school I still find it incredible that a tighthead prop cannot hold his own in the scrum. That is basic technique. The roles have been reversed. In the old days it was the loosehead who got stuffed, while the tighthead had it easy. The laws now protect the loosehead: the tighthead must scrum with his arm outside the loosehead’s arm, he must bind on his shoulder or back and he may not push in on the hooker, nor may he pull down on his arm.
Because almost anything went in the scrums in the days of the rinderpest, the loosehead learned the ways of the jungle and he somehow stayed alive. No one wanted to play on the loosehead side. We all wanted to be tightheads because it was such a piece of cake. I believe it is still a piece of cake. I accept that the right arm of the tighthead being on the outside puts him at a mild disadvantage and I accept that the force of the scrum comes through the right hand side because of the position of the heads of the front row, but the loosehead has one entire shoulder unsupported while the tighthead’s shoulders are firmly supported on either side by the heads, necks and shoulders of the opponents. He is in a very strong and stable position in comparison with the loosehead.
Have you noticed, too, since the change in the laws many years ago, how many looseheads now scrum with their heads outside the tighthead’s shoulder? Sacrilege, but even greater sacrilege that the tighthead seldom takes advantage of that probably because he does not know how to. The law insists that the tighthead’s outside arm binds over the loosehead's arm but that is still no reason for the tighthead to get down in the scrum with an open shoulder. It is imperative that the tighthead hunches his shoulder as he gets down, and as he hits he must catch the loosehead just behind the head, on his neck with that shoulder and keep loosehead’s head under his shoulder throughout the scrum. The law insists that he must scrum square and indeed it suits him to do so for if he bores in, apart from being penalized, he will buckle inwards and go to ground - another offence, depending upon how ignorant the ref is - and I cannot say I have met many who know anything about the front row.
Another important thing for the tighthead to do is to spread his legs just
wider than his shoulders, to crouch before the hit, coming in hard with a
hunched shoulder onto the back of the loosehead’s neck and he must not move his
feet from their starting position. His legs must be bent but if he bends them
too much he will be lifted by his lock and maybe break his neck and if they are
too straight he will go straight into the ground and his lock will slide up his
back. Imperative it is that the flank behind the tighthead scrums straight
behind his prop like a lock and he puts in a shove. The scrum power comes
through the tight head- it is he who is forced backwards rather than the
loosehead (I think it has something to do with what mathematicians call moments
but I can't swear to that); therefore the tighthead lock, tighthead flank and
tighthead prop have some very solid pushing to do especially on their own ball-
it is those three who must stop the wheel. The hit is the most important part
of the scrum. I know the bloody ref gets in the way standing where he does with
his, ”Crouch and touch, engage,” or whatever other ridiculous nonsense he now
has to observe. I always think a side should be rewarded for catching the ref
between the two scrums. I have seen it happen in the old days. It was
wonderful!
The tighter the scrum, the stronger the bind, the more stable the scrum will be and the greater will be the resistance it offers. An old hooker friend of mine, a nice tough guy, taught me this one: he scrums his lads down and then walks critically around his scrum. Should he see any arm that looks a little loose, he grabs it and attempts to rip it off the scrum- if the bind is loose, up comes the arm and then all hell is let loose as the coach berates the offender- he is a strong bugger too so that when he pulls at an arm it has a very good chance of coming up! I use his method and I can tell you it worked excellently until I tore a bicep!
In brief, if the tighthead has the right technique and is in a tight scrum with a good flank and a good lock behind him there is no reason whatsoever for him to be driven backward in any scrum.
The Springboks were defeated by the English not because of their conditioning, not because of their tactics but because of poor technique, starting in the scrums where, as the great Boy Louw said, games are won and lost