Dave Rennie was asked on Thursday whether the Springboks scrum is legal. He would not say.
“Do I bother giving this any more air?” was the answer, and the room moved on. Eight minutes later, asked about George Bower, the All Blacks head coach gave the answer he had just refused to give: the Springboks did not have the dominance in Cape Town that they had at Ellis Park, “the way it was refereed”. In between, he explained how the footage war with the officials actually works, and it is not how it has been reported.
Has Rennie got a case, or is he refereeing from the press room? Comments are open. Read what he said second before you decide.
The All Blacks scrum complaint against South Africa is now being handled through footage sent to World Rugby by both teams, with no coach-referee meetings, head coach Dave Rennie said in Johannesburg on 3 September 2026, two days before the third Test at FNB Stadium.
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The question he would not answer
A reporter tried to take the argument out of the headlines and into the laws. Are the Springboks scrums legal? If yes, what part of them is illegal? If not, has he raised it with the match officials?
“Lot of big words there,” Rennie said. “Yeah, look, I’m just thinking, do I bother giving this any more air?”
He did not. “I’ve made comments. We’ve shared stuff with the officials. I think the Springboks have done the same thing. So it’s now up to the referee and his support staff to referee what he sees in front of him.”
That is a coach closing a door he opened himself. In the week after Ellis Park, Rennie said South Africa “walk around” and go through his tighthead, and he said it again after losing 33-26 in Cape Town.
Read also: Rennie got the referee he asked for in Cape Town. It still happened
How the footage war actually works
Rennie was then asked whether there had been a meeting. “No, no. We send in a little bit of footage and they send a little bit of footage. So no meetings.”
Pressed on what feedback the All Blacks had received, he laid out the loop. The officials send out a review of the match. Each team can respond to it. Each team can then send in clips of its own. Both teams can also send preview material to the referee before the next Test, “which both teams have done”.
So there is no All Blacks dossier sitting alone on a desk. There is a South African one next to it, and Saturday’s referee, Nika Amashukeli, has seen both. Rennie’s “I think the Springboks have done the same thing” is the one part he could not confirm.
Rassie Erasmus has never denied sending footage. What he has denied, at volume, is walking around. He called the claim nonsense after Cape Town and said his pack “scrum through”.
Then he answered the All Blacks scrum question anyway
The last question of the day was about George Bower, starting his second Test of the series at loosehead. Rennie called him a good athlete, then got to the scrum on his own.
“The scrum was interesting last game, wasn’t it?” Referee Angus Gardner, he said, spent the night working both packs at the mark, “and then there was a few scrums that went down and he just played away from those scrums. So I didn’t feel that they had the dominance that they had in that first Test, the way it was refereed.”
Read that against the numbers. Planet Rugby’s breakdown of the Cape Town scrum has one Springboks scrum penalty at DHL Stadium against six at Ellis Park, one scrum collapsing four times in a row, and Gardner free-kicking Ox Nché for moving his head in. Nick Mallett counted six collapsed scrums before the first penalty arrived in the 35th minute.
From inside a scrum you know within a second which one it is. A straight shove sends your hips back. A walk-around folds your inside shoulder and the ground arrives sideways. Rennie and Mallett agree the scrums went down. They disagree on who put them there.
The counter-case: Mallett says it was New Zealand
Mallett, the former Springboks head coach, said on the Talking Boks podcast this week, reported by RugbyPass, that the All Blacks were “basically cheating to stop themselves giving a penalty away” by collapsing under pressure, and that Gardner abdicated responsibility by refusing to adjudicate. His figure was three or four penalties South Africa should have had.
Kieran Read, from the other side, would not call the Springboks scrum illegal either. His view was that South Africa scrum on a slight angle because they always have, and that New Zealand’s problem is bigger than a refereeing one.
So the All Blacks coach says the Springboks walk around, and a Springboks legend says the All Blacks go to ground. The referee has the clips from both.
What happens next
The third Test kicks off at 17:10 SAST on Saturday 5 September at FNB Stadium with the series at 1-1. Rennie has said the outcome is now up to “the referee and his support staff”. Gardner is one of Saturday’s assistants.
The scrum will be refereed by a man who has read both sets of footage. The first scrum will tell you which set he believed.
If the first Springboks scrum penalty comes inside ten minutes on Saturday, was Rennie wrong to complain, or right to make them prove it?
Questions readers are asking
What has Dave Rennie complained about with the Springboks scrum?
After the first Test at Ellis Park on 22 August 2026, Rennie said the Springboks were able to “walk around” and go straight through his tighthead, and that the All Blacks had given feedback to World Rugby. He repeated the complaint after the 33-26 defeat in Cape Town on 29 August.
Did the All Blacks meet the referee about the scrum?
No. Rennie said on 3 September 2026 that there were no meetings. Each team sends footage to the officials, receives a review, can respond to it, and can send preview clips to the next referee. He said both teams had done so.
Who is refereeing the third Test between South Africa and New Zealand?
Nika Amashukeli referees the third Test at FNB Stadium on 5 September 2026. Angus Gardner, who refereed the second Test in Cape Town after Amashukeli fell ill, is an assistant referee.
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