Rassie Erasmus and opposite number Dave Rennie have enjoyed a couple of fascinating tactical battles over the past two weeks, and all signs points to another epic contest at FNB Stadium in Johannesburg on Saturday.
The Springboks and All Blacks will need to execute their respective game plans if they hope to win the Test at Soccer City and take a 2-1 lead in the four-match series – with the finale in Baltimore, US still to come.
It would be naive, of course, to suggest that external factors won’t influence the result, or that the matchday referee, Nika Amashukeli, won’t shape the flow of the contest through his management of key areas such as the scrum, maul and breakdown.
Since the start of the Greatest Rivalry tour, the All Blacks management as well as the travelling media have accused the Boks of slowing the game down to prevent opponents – like New Zealand – from employing a faster, more expansive approach.
Last week, head coach Dave Rennie suggested that the Boks are “walking around the scrum” to gain an unfair advantage at this set piece.
The latter is a particularly bizarre claim, given that Rassie Erasmus’s charges have dominated this set piece in recent seasons and have forced as many as seven scrum penalties over the course of the current Test series.
That said, it doesn’t take a genius to see how Rennie and company are attempting to influence the matchday referees and negate South Africa’s strengths in the remaining Tests.
What’s more, Rennie knows that World Rugby and some of its members – such as New Zealand and Australia – want a faster game with fewer set pieces.
By contrast, South Africa, France and others believe that the set piece is essential to rugby’s identity and ultimately the key to a more attacking game – and made the point at the Shape of the Game conference earlier this year.
It’s highly unlikely that Rennie believes that the scrum should be depowered altogether, or that the game should emulate rugby league.
The 62-year-old previously coached the Chiefs, Glasgow Warriors and Australia, and it’s worth noting how those teams embraced the importance of the set piece as much as the quest for attacking space.
But would Rennie exploit the narrative in wider rugby circles for New Zealand’s gain in a monumental series of this nature?
Would he go as far as to style the All Blacks as the saviours of the sport and the Boks as the dinosaurs holding rugby back?
The present evidence would suggest so.
Erasmus has played his own mind games over the course of this series, naming his team early ahead of the second Test before making significant changes before kick-off.
The Bok boss has taken exception, however, to the All Blacks’ attempts to manipulate referees in the weeks leading up to the Test series.
Since then, the South African coaches have used formal press conferences to respond to and refute Kiwi allegations.
Scrum coach Daan Human attended a media briefing at the team hotel in Johannesburg on Tuesday and confirmed that the Boks’ set-piece strategy has not changed since he joined the set-up in 2020.
The big man was clearly offended by the All Blacks’ suggestions that he was coaching his charges to “walk around” when the South African mantra is to scrum hard and straight.
“To be honest, I have taken those comments to heart,” the former Bok tighthead said.
Human declared that the scrum is part of South African rugby’s identity. What he didn’t say – but strongly inferred – is that an attack on the Bok scrum is an attack on the South African rugby culture as a whole.
While the Boks got a lot wrong in in the first Test, they delivered an impressive performance at the set piece, to the point where the partisan Ellis Park crowd chanted “Scrum! Scrum!” whenever the hosts were awarded a penalty deep in New Zealand territory.
Human called on the fans packed into the 94,000-seater at Soccer City this Saturday to do the same, before confirming that the Boks will persist with the same strategy used in the first and second Tests.
Cleary the Boks are hoping for a more decisive and consistent refereeing performance in this area.
Erasmus is confident that Amashukeli will be more decisive than Angus Gardner was last week. Matthew Carley was consistent as well as decisive in the first Test, rewarding the Boks’ dominance in the first half as well as the All Blacks’ set-piece response in the second.
Some have suggested that the sideshows have detracted from the main event, yet there is plenty of evidence to the contrary.
The Boks have had the better of the set-piece and aerial battles in the first two Tests, while the All Blacks’ high-tempo approach has yielded nine tries.
While fans and critics will have their own opinions about which approach they prefer, it’s fair to say that a clash of styles makes for a more compelling and interesting contest.
Erasmus has won everything there is to win with this golden generation of Boks, but has been pushed to the brink in the current series.
By his own admission, he was out-coached by Rennie in the first Test, and New Zealand’s counterstrategy in the second half of last week’s match in Cape Town almost culminated in another All Blacks victory.
The Boks need to deliver a more accurate performance if they are going to beat a quality All Blacks side for the second week in a row. Erasmus may be encouraged by the fact that Siya Kolisi, Eben Etzebeth, Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu and others are getting back to their best after long injury layoffs.
The game and series could swing on one play this Saturday, and the respective coaches will be under pressure to make the right call.
How will Erasmus manage his Bomb Squad this weekend, after it failed to fully fire in the first two Tests?
Will Rennie’s ability to adapt and implement a largely successful counterstrategy in the second half prove decisive, or does Erasmus have another tactical card to play at the death?
These questions will be answered on Saturday, but perhaps the biggest takeaway from this series is that the All Blacks – through their performances rather than their media campaign – have forced the Boks to address a few shortcomings and take their own game forward.
Few will be looking beyond the results in Johannesburg and Baltimore over the next two weeks, but these lessons will surely shape the Boks’ approach at next year’s World Cup, where they could meet the All Blacks in the quarterfinals. DM
