Ox sends stern warning to France pack
INTERVIEW: Springbok prop Ox Nche sent out a stern warning to France’s pack ahead of their Nations Championship clash against Les Bleus on Friday at Stade de France.
The Boks didn’t enjoy their usual scrum dominance against the Azzurri in Turin last week.
Many credited Italy for holding their own against the Boks up front, including coach Rassie Erasmus.
However, Nche revealed that the Springbok pack didn’t perform to their standards against Italy and want to rectify that against Les Bleus this weekend.
“It’s definitely been a tough week being a bit short [six-day turnaround], but we said we’ll just go back to our system,” Nche told Rugby365 on Tuesday from Paris.
“We won’t do anything different, but we’ll just fix what’s broken, and the problem is we didn’t go according to our system in the scrums [against Italy] especially.
“We were a bit disjointed and not as aligned as we should’ve been, so we’ll just go back to that, get the small things right and hopefully put in a better performance and perform according to our standards.”
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Nche added what he and his pack expect France to bring to them.
“France have a lot of pride in their scrum, and they refuse to go backwards.
“We’ll just have to stay in our systems and trust the process.
It might not happen in the first or second scrum, but we just have to stay in our systems and not change anything.”
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Which Les Bleus side will turn up on Friday night? 👀🇫🇷
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The art of scrummaging
The 2023 World Cup winner said scrummaging isn’t just about being strong and physical, but requires certain techniques combined with the so-called dark arts.
“The thing about scrums is that you have to be willing to learn. You can be one of the strongest guys and still not get a scrum right.
“I’ve seen over the years how guys lift an insane amount of weights in the gym, but don’t know the basics of applying themselves in a scrum, which is something totally different.
“You have to be willing to learn, and with time it becomes easier to apply your physical strength with the technical side of scrummaging.
“We are fortunate that we have several guys who are open to learning and coming from different backgrounds, willing to work towards one common goal.”
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