Daan Human: Springboks scrum coach, career and caps
Six years. That is how long Daan Human has coached the Springboks scrum, and this week it was the whole of his answer to the accusation that the thing cheats.
South Africa’s scrum coach fronted the media in Johannesburg before Saturday’s third Test against New Zealand at FNB Stadium, with Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry level at 1-1 and Dave Rennie’s “walking around” charge still sitting over the week. Human did not argue mechanics. He talked about where he grew up.
“I’m a farmer. I’m just a normal straight guy. So I can’t cheat.”
And then, in case anyone had missed it: “It must be legal, straightforward dominance.”
Has Rennie got a case, or has he found a way to referee the scrum from the press room? Comments are open.
What Rennie actually accused them of
Dave Rennie has been at this since he landed. After the All Blacks won the first Test 33-16 at Ellis Park on 22 August, he said the Springboks were able to walk around and go straight through his tighthead, and confirmed New Zealand had taken it to World Rugby. He said it again after losing 33-26 in Cape Town on 29 August. Rassie Erasmus called it nonsense, and pointed out that nobody had accused South Africa of walking around before this tour.
Human’s version of angry is quieter than his director of rugby’s.
“It looks like every second guy is becoming now a scrum coach.”
He said he was grateful people were talking about scrums at all. Then he set the trap.
“If you say we’re walking around, then we’ve been walking around for the past six years.”
He has had the job since January 2020, when he took over from Matt Proudfoot. The point underneath the line is simple enough. Either this is something South Africa has been doing for six years and every referee in the game missed it, or it is not happening. Rennie cannot have it be a new trick and a long-standing one at the same time.
What walking around actually means
It is worth being precise, because the phrase has been thrown around all week by people using it to mean “cheating” in general.
Wheeling is turning the scrum. Walking around is narrower than that. It is the pack stepping across at the hit and driving over the opposition tighthead rather than through him, so the far side folds and the loosehead ends up on the floor without ever having taken a straight shove. The scrum goes down. On the replay it looks like somebody was beaten. Nobody was beaten. He was moved sideways out of the way.
You know within about a second. Straight pressure you can live with — it arrives into your chest, through your spine, your feet stay under your hips and you either hold it or you don’t. Angled pressure is a different animal. It comes across your shoulder line instead of into you, and the first thing that goes is your outside foot, because the force is travelling past you rather than through you. Hips end up somewhere the shoulders are not. From there you have two options and both look terrible on television: go to ground, or drop your head and bore in to stop the rotation. Bore in and you get penalised. That is what makes this so hard to referee — the man being walked around is usually the one who gets pinged for it.
The reason it is such a difficult accusation to settle is that the legal version and the illegal version look identical from behind the posts, and mostly identical to a referee standing square on. That is why Rennie sent clips rather than shouted at Angus Gardner on the field.
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The numbers from Cape Town back neither man
South Africa won one scrum penalty at Cape Town Stadium. At Ellis Park a week earlier they had six. They also held on to 75 per cent of their own scrum ball while New Zealand kept all of theirs.
On the night Rennie says he was walked around, the Springboks scrum was the one losing the ball.
Rennie also praised Gardner’s handling of the set piece that evening. Human agreed with him — said the referee had been consistent, and that he had taken the same message into both changing rooms before kick-off. Two coaches who spent the week fighting in public turn out to agree about the man in the middle.
“Almost like 13-man rugby”
The last question of the press conference, put in Afrikaans, was the biggest one asked all afternoon: does rugby actually want matches where the scrum barely features? Human opened with a joke against himself.
“I have to earn my salary here. So to earn my salary, hopefully there are at least 20 scrums in the game.” (translated from Afrikaans)
The argument he actually wanted to make came next.
“The moment there are no scrums, then it’s almost like 13-man rugby.” (translated from Afrikaans)
The scrum is part of the country, he said. South Africans like scrumming. He hopes it survives what World Rugby keeps doing to it.
He also corrected the room about Deon Fourie
A journalist opened a question by calling Deon Fourie a 40-year-old. Human cut in before the question finished.
“He’s not 40 yet, he’s 39. So still a long way to go.”
Fourie turns 40 on 25 September, less than a month after becoming the oldest player ever to represent South Africa. He started in Cape Town at 39 years and 338 days and took a record Victor Matfield had held since 2015.
Human called him one of the strongest scrummagers in South Africa, said his experience is exactly what these Tests ask for, and added — pointedly — that he does not put his hand up to get players selected.
Saturday
Fourie goes back to the bench. Ox Nché, Malcolm Marx and Wilco Louw start — the front row Erasmus first picked for Cape Town before swapping the lot of them an hour before kick-off. Nika Amashukeli referees at FNB Stadium after trading appointments with Gardner, who drops to assistant. Kick-off is 17:10.
Rennie has already won something here, whatever happens in the scrums. He has spent two weeks making the Springboks scrum the subject of the series, and on Saturday every marginal call in there gets watched by 87,000 people who have been told exactly what to look for. That is worth more than a penalty.
Human’s answer was that he is not changing a thing. Depending on which side of the Indian Ocean you sit, that is either serene or stubborn. I would take serene. Six years, and nobody thought to query it until the fortnight a new All Blacks coach needed something to talk about.
