No grey areas for Bok scrum

 

Australia may not have the strongest scrum in world rugby, but they were able to frustrate the vaunted Pumas scrum in their last game, with more than a few calls going their way.

 

According to former French international tightead De Villiers, the challenge for the Springboks at Newlands will be to make the referee's job as easy as possible at scrum-time by staying within the laws and eliminating any grey areas.

 

"It is up to us to be within the laws and make things easier for the referee as well, because the moment you are under pressure and not within the laws that makes the calls very difficult and then we move into grey areas which are very difficult to manage for referees.

 

"We try and identify things that are in the grey areas and try and find answers ourselves first before relying on the referee because you never know how calls might go and how fatigue might influence those calls," he said.

 

De Villiers is fairly pragmatic about the role of referees in the scrums, pointing out that they cannot be expected to get every call right.

 

"Refereeing scrums has always been difficult and it still is difficult, as much as laws have changed they are still difficult to manage.

 

"There are many things to look at and the referee can't see all of them at once, so I do understand that refereeing is difficult," he said.

 

Instead, the Bok scrum coach believes that it is up to the players to make the referee's job easier by establishing dominance within the laws.

 

"We try and work very hard to stick within the laws and work straight through the middle, but very often you will come up against a scrum that work around the angle or come around the corner.

 

"The more we dominate in the front with all three players, the more we can put pressure on the referee to make an easy call. The moment one of your players in the front row is under pressure and coming a bit backwards it makes the call difficult for the referee.

 

"We all try and work towards getting the basics right and giving the referee an easy call for dominance," he explained.

 

After a horror start to the Rugby Championship in the two games against Argentina, South Africa's scrum was far more impressive in Australasia which De Villiers put down to better basics.

 

"There have been a couple of difficulties in terms of set-up where some teams prefer to set up with shoulders touching and other teams prefer as the law says to set up ear-to-ear.

 

"As a team we didn't manage that as well against Argentina in those first two games, but managed to adapt to it in the two games following.

 

"We also revisited some of our basics and went over certain principles in terms of height and  sinking our hips to the front which worked well for us," he said.

 

Whilst the Springbok scrum was impressive against the Wallabies in Perth, De Villiers is expecting a tough examination at Newlands and stressed the need to get their mindset right.

 

"Australia has also adapted their scrums, they are quite solid, they have got a very good engagement and they seem to set their scrum to the front very well as well so we are expecting a strong challenge there.

 

"As much as we are happy with the way things went in Perth, they actually fared quite nicely against Argentina. So there will be a strong reaction from their side but we think if we can do the same things we did to them in Perth we can get a good set-piece base which will be very important.

 

"Scrummaging is about attitude and mindset, it is a combat sport and you always scrum against another pack who also want to be physical and obtain penalties. The day you are not on your game and not on the top level in terms of mindset you will be under pressure," he said.

 

Whilst some may spend a lot of energy worrying about the wily Wallabies front row and the role of the referee at scrum-time, the Bok scrum coach's attitude is quite different. 

 

He prefers to look at his own team and what they can do to ensure a fair contest up front, which also means being able to adapt if things are not going their way.