Kieran Read went back through the Ellis Park scrums on The Good, The Bad & The Rugby and found a passive set piece, one bind that held, and a penalty almost nobody credited to the right player. REVIEW: Wednesday 26 August.
Rassie Erasmus has already told everyone which scrum lost him the first Test. The 58th minute, 19-16 down, South Africa putting the ball in five metres from the New Zealand line, three scrum penalties already banked and a pushover try on the table. They gave the penalty away instead and never scored again, and it sits inside five moments that won the All Blacks a Test they were losing.
Dave Rennie names his team on Thursday. Kieran Read, who packed down behind an All Blacks scrum 127 times, has already picked his All Blacks front row for Cape Town, and it does not contain the men who started on Saturday.
Start with the penalty, because the credit has gone to the wrong place.
VOTE WHO WINS END OF THE ARTICLE
The man who won it was not the man pushing
Read picked George Bower as his player of the week for that scrum. Then he explained why the loosehead was only half the story.
“It wasn’t necessarily the fact that he went, had to go forward. But with Fletch in that particular scrum just locking it down enough — that when he did go, his side went up, Fletch didn’t go back, and Malcolm Marx was the first to pop. Which probably was the signal for the ref to call the scrum penalty.”
Sit with that for a second, because it is the whole mechanism of a scrum penalty in three clauses.
A shove only travels if the other side of the scrum refuses to move. Fletcher Newell held his corner. Bower drove. Because Newell would not go backwards, the pressure had nowhere to escape except upward through the middle, and the hooker in the middle was Malcolm Marx. Marx came up first. A referee does not see force. He sees whose hips break the plane of the scrum first, and the man who pops is the man who gets punished.
The All Blacks had lost most of the arguments before that one. They won the argument that decided the Test, and they won it because a tighthead stood still.
Read also: Erasmus named the 58th-minute scrum as the one that lost it — both coaches picked the same sixty seconds, independently.
“We just sat there”
The read already published here says New Zealand were not out-muscled early, they were rushing. Read’s diagnosis runs alongside that one and is, if anything, less flattering.
“On the set call both scrums are set there. Go deep on the bind, go deep. And when the ball comes in, especially when it’s on your own ball, you’ve got to attack. And we just sat there. And I think maybe Lomax was in that mindset, and probably our whole pack was in the mindset of just trying to lock it out. But you see the Springboks just sink and attack, and they just went forward.”
There are two ways to arrive at a scrum on your own feed. You can attack it, which means the second the ball leaves the halfback’s hands the eight of you are already moving, or you can absorb it, which means you brace and hope the ball comes out quickly enough that nobody notices.
New Zealand absorbed. South Africa attacked. That is not a strength problem, and it explains why the numbers looked so lopsided against a pack that has scrummaged perfectly well all season. A rushed pack and a passive pack are the same pack described from two angles.
Bower came on before the break. The scrum found parity from there.
“A guy had to come into the game early end of that first half, and the scrum from then on seemed to get a little bit of parity.”
Bower was on before the break because Ethan de Groot did not come back after a head collision that also took Josh Lord off. Asafo Aumua followed, in the 54th-minute change that won Ellis Park. Four minutes after that, the Springboks conceded on their own feed.
The All Blacks front row question is really at tighthead
Read’s reasoning about the tighthead shirt is uncomfortable and correct.
“Ox is amazing, but the whole back five are putting power through… I don’t know with Tyrel how he’s feeling. He hasn’t played a lot of rugby as well. But when you’re in that position, it’s so hard when you’re coming against a guy who’s coming at you. So Fletcher came on and did well, but he didn’t scrum against Ox, did he? So perhaps he gets a start.”
That last clause is the honest one. Read’s own caveat is that Newell never packed down against Nché, so the tighthead’s good half-hour was earned against replacements. Starting him is a bet, and Read says so while making it.
Tyrel Lomax has the harder problem. He has not played much rugby, he was the man Read identifies as sitting rather than attacking on the set call, and he is the one who has to do it again against a loosehead playing his 50th Test. Nché is a specific kind of opponent. He does not out-muscle you on impact. He wins the second after impact, which is exactly the second New Zealand were not contesting.
George Bower is a finisher, and that is not a demotion
This is where Read’s team stops matching anyone’s expectations.
“George Bower was outstanding. But he’s so good at finishing the game for us. And you call it finishing because he comes on. That’s what he’s done for the Crusaders for eight years. He’s done it for the All Blacks since he’s been in there as well… So yeah, he probably stays on the bench, and you might have to bring Numia on to start, which I don’t mind. I think that’s, you know, someone like that, get out there, have a crack.”
The best scrummager in the 23 starts on the bench. It reads like madness until you look at what actually happened on Saturday, which is that the All Blacks front row was beaten for the first hour and then repaired by men arriving fresh into a tiring pack.
Xavier Numia has two Test caps. Read wants him in the front row from the first whistle anyway, because the alternative is spending Bower’s impact in the twentieth minute and having nothing to bring at the seventieth. That is the trade every Test front row makes, and it is a selection philosophy rather than a comfort call.
It is also a direct answer to why the Springbok scrum is still South Africa’s key Test advantage. You do not beat that pack by matching it for eighty minutes. You survive it, then you change the shape of the contest when their front row is on its third wind and yours is on its first.
The lock nobody is arguing about
Josh Lord will not play in Cape Town after that head knock, which forces one change in the second row and gives Read the answer he wanted anyway.
“I actually like when Tupou Vaa’i was forced into lock. And I’ve said this, and I picked that team — I prefer him there. It solidified our scrum, and he’s a better player in that position around how he can utilise his body, for how well he did for Moorby’s try and his offload.”
Vaa’i started at blindside and finished the night in the second row, and the offload that put Josh Moorby over came from exactly that position. Beside him, Fabian Holland went eighty minutes at altitude nine months after his last serious run of rugby. He scored from a charge-down and then did the part nobody counts.
“He was doing that all day, putting himself in the right position to do an unrewarded thing. You know, nine times he didn’t get it, but he forced the kick to go somewhere. 10th time he got it.”
Nine failures and a try. That is the honest accounting of most Test-match work rates, and it is the sort of contribution buried under a scoreboard Rennie opened by calling closer than it looked.
What to watch for at DHL Stadium
Forget who goes backwards. Watch the set call, then watch two things in the second after the ball comes in.
First, whether the All Blacks front row moves on their own feed or waits. If the back five are already transmitting when the ball leaves the halfback’s hands, Read’s criticism has been heard. If the pack braces and the ball squirts out at speed, it has not.
Second, whose hips come up first. That is what the referee is refereeing, whatever the commentary says about power. Marx popped at Ellis Park and the penalty went to New Zealand. If Nché is still square and the man opposite him is standing up at DHL Stadium, the arm goes the other way, and South Africa get the platform they were denied at 19-16.
Cape Town is at sea level. Both packs will last longer, which makes the bench debate sharper rather than softer, and it is the reason Read’s Bower call is worth more than it first sounds.
Your turn
Here is the argument, and it is a real one. Read wants the best scrummaging loosehead in the squad sitting on the bench for the first fifty minutes of a Test South Africa have to win, and a prop with two caps starting opposite a man playing his 50th. That is either the smartest call of the week or the one that gets picked apart by six o’clock on Saturday evening.
Rennie names the team on Thursday. Put the front row you would pick in the comments before he does, and be specific about the tighthead, because that is where this Test gets decided.
Kieran Read was speaking on The Good, The Bad & The Rugby: Australia & New Zealand, published on Sunday 23 August. Milestone and team detail from SA Rugby.
Frequently asked
What did Kieran Read say about the All Blacks scrum at Ellis Park?
That New Zealand were passive on their own feed. In his words, the pack was “in the mindset of just trying to lock it out” while the Springboks “sink and attack”, and he named Tyrel Lomax as one of the players he thought was in that mindset.
Who actually won the scrum penalty that turned the first Test?
George Bower drove, but Read credits Fletcher Newell for holding his side of the scrum still, which forced the pressure up through Malcolm Marx. Marx stood up first and the penalty followed.
What All Blacks front row does Kieran Read want in Cape Town?
Xavier Numia to start at loosehead, Fletcher Newell with a case to start at tighthead, and George Bower kept back as a finisher, on the grounds that Bower has been closing games for the Crusaders for eight years.
When does Dave Rennie name the All Blacks team for the second Test?
Thursday, ahead of the 5.10pm local kick-off at DHL Stadium in Cape Town on Saturday 29 August. Every fixture and kick-off time in Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry is here.
Read next: front-row fours and a bench eight in the Ellis Park ratings, including the mark that will annoy people most.
