Kieran Read has explained what the Springboks scrum is actually trying to do, and the target is not the man everybody watches. The camera then cuts away before anyone at home can see it happen.
“They’re squeezing him,” Kieran Read says. He is not talking about a prop.
The eye goes to the prop. Ox Nché against whoever New Zealand have picked, one huge man against another, and whoever ends up on the floor lost. Read says that is not the contest at all.
The man being beaten is the All Blacks hooker. Who did you think was losing that scrum? Say so below.
They are not scrummaging the prop
Kieran Read broke the mechanism down on The Good, The Bad & Rugby ANZ, and RugbyPass printed it. That was three days before the 29-24 defeat in Soweto that put South Africa 2-1 up. The whole thing starts with a direction of travel.
“They’re pushing across to the left. So their tighthead and their hooker pushing across to the left.”
Not forward. Across. And the destination is not the loosehead opposite Ox Nché.
“So what they’re trying to do is basically de-power our hooker, who’s kind of the connection point between our scrum and basically trying to make sure he can’t push, so they’re squeezing him.”
The hooker is the join. He is the smallest man in the front row, packed between the loosehead on his left and the tighthead on his right, and the ball goes past him to the number eight’s feet. He is also the piece that transmits force from one side of the pack to the other. Crush him and the whole structure stops behaving like one unit.
Then comes the consequence, and it lands on the man nobody was watching.
“And by going there [at the hooker], our tighthead is kind of left a little bit hung out to dry, if they get that right, you got a bloke like Ox who can do what he does.”
Why Kieran Read calls it a shear, not a shove
Kieran Read played 127 Tests and captained the side. He faced the Springboks 22 times and won 16 of them, so he is not guessing.
“But South Africa’s always got a very clever way of shearing in with their tighthead, which allows them to move basically that way, left, and then around you.”
Once you know it, the scrum you have been shouting at all series looks different.
The All Blacks were rushing at Ellis Park rather than being out-muscled two and a half weeks ago.
Read also: Nick Mallett took an All Blacks prop through the same lesson on live television last week, and the prop called it a shot through the heart.
The man who can stop it is the All Blacks hooker
New Zealand have spent a fortnight arguing about legality, and Kieran Read has already been asked whether it is legal. His answer was that it is probably not illegal, because nobody can pick it up. Which is why it is worth listening to what he says the counter is.
It is not a complaint to World Rugby. It is an instruction to a number two.
“You get our hooker to do the right job on their tighthead, and it actually helps our tighthead to square scrums straight.”
Squeeze the hooker and you win the scrum. So the hooker is also the man who stops it. He gets into their tighthead first, and his own tighthead is left alone.
Read was not prescribing that. He was describing it. New Zealand missed it in the first Test, worked it out for the second, and Read said so on the same podcast: “They’ve reviewed last week and did a pretty good job.” Which is what makes Soweto the awkward one. They already knew the answer, and the scrum still went backwards.
That is a coaching answer with three days to run, which is more than can be said for the alternative. Dave Rennie went to World Rugby about what its referees are missing, and nothing about that changes the first scrum in Baltimore.
The camera leaves at the exact moment it matters
Here is the part that should annoy every viewer in New Zealand. None of the above is visible on television.
Tamaiti Williams has not played since February, but he is an All Blacks loosehead and he knows what the camera misses. On Tuesday’s episode of the same show he explained why the audience has been arguing about something it has never actually been shown.
“It’s funny with the spider cam stuff is we can all see it at the start of the scrum, but as soon as the scrum’s going on, it changes to the side. So a lot happens after the ‘set’ call, and you only have a fraction of a second to either adapt.”
The overhead camera holds above the mark while the referee calls the bind. On “set”, the broadcast cuts to the side.
From the side you see the outcome. A front row folding, a scrum wheeling, an arm going up. What you never see is the lateral squeeze that caused it, because it happens in the fraction of a second after the director has moved the camera.
So the entire national argument has been conducted by people looking at the wrong angle, about a tactic aimed at a man they were not watching.
Frequently asked
What does Kieran Read say the Springboks scrum actually does?
That the Springboks tighthead and hooker push across to the left to squeeze the opposition hooker and take him out of the equation. Because the hooker is the connection point in the scrum, that leaves the tighthead unsupported and lets Ox Nché work.
Why does the scrum always wheel the same way?
Read describes it as a shear rather than a shove. South Africa move left with their tighthead, which rotates the scrum around the squeezed hooker instead of driving straight through the front row.
How do the All Blacks stop it?
Read’s answer is the hooker, not the props. If the New Zealand hooker does the right job on the opposition tighthead, it lets the All Blacks tighthead scrummage straight instead of being left exposed.
Why can’t you see it on television?
The overhead spider cam holds above the scrum at the mark and the broadcast cuts to the side angle on the referee’s “set” call. Tamaiti Williams says the decisive movement happens in the fraction of a second after that cut, so the lateral squeeze is never on screen.
Your turn
Two ways to read the same scrum. Either South Africa are simply stronger and the penalties are earned, which is what the Soweto ratings, where the front row carried the blame assumed. Or Kieran Read is right, the contest is a lateral squeeze on a hooker, and nobody at home has ever been shown it. One of those can be coached by Saturday. Which one were you watching?
