Loose Pass: South Africa’s rise, clearouts and the PNC

Colin Newboult

This week we will mostly be concerning ourselves with the rise and rise of South Africa, the ruck and some more World Cup form from the second tier nations…

The Springbok is back

If it wasn’t apparent a week ago – if one put it more down to the Wallabies’ ineptness than the home team’s excellence – it must be now. South Africa, not two years ago a bit of a shambles, are serious World Cup contenders.

The old adage runs that attack wins you the games, but defence wins you the tournaments. It was pretty obvious that both South Africa and New Zealand wanted to concede as little as possible on Saturday, rather than score as much as possible.

Mission more or less accomplished then. New Zealand scored one try from a devastating counter-attack, but didn’t create much else. South Africa’s score was a little more created by some sublime handling, also helped in no small way by a misjudgement from Aaron Smith.

Perhaps the casual observer might have expected more from the All Blacks, but South Africa’s defence was generally superb. Strong line speed, if occasionally a little over-enthusiastic, good tackling and well-covered. New Zealand were able to live with it (albeit somewhat scrappily) but it’s unlikely many other nations would.

But what is very obvious, and becomes ever more so as each game passes, is that the identity of the Springboks has been restored by Rassie Erasmus. The Boks run hard, they tackle hard, they ruck hard – more on that in a moment – they kick accurately and chase hard. Evolution from the successful Springbok styles of yesteryear it is not, but then when you have the personnel they have, why change it?

Despite the pool draw that pits these two together and ensures one of them will have a more awkward path to the final, we’re reasonably convinced that Saturday’s match might have been – aside from a couple of personnel changes – a dress rehearsal for the big game in Yokohama on November 2. It’ll be interesting to see what more both have to offer by then.

We’re not playing tiddlywinks, but…

Ben Ryan, he of Fiji sevens fame, has long been a leader of a movement calling for more regulation of contact at the ruck, or for a rule change that eliminates as much as possible the dangers of the contact situation at rucks, or simply – and this is important – for the officiating of ruck time to improve beyond all recognition.

In one newspaper column not so long ago, he particularly bemoaned the way some players “fly off their feet to missile into an opponent at a ruck,” later saying, “It’s going to take a serious incident in a big televised international game to change anything. Again, that change will be a reaction rather than anticipation.”

It’s almost certainly too late for Saturday’s match to count as that injury, but the clearout that did for Brodie Retallick is about as clear an example of what Ryan, and many others now, are unhappy about.

RG Snyman’s point of entry into the ruck was questionable at best, although Retallick was no angel himself when it came to being through the gate at that moment. But the point is exactly as Ryan continues to say: Snyman absolutely tore in at full speed – that’s a good 115kg – and smashed into Retallick with little semblance of control, despite his vague attempts to wrap. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to work out that instances like that are going to end badly.

Rucks are becoming a mess. Clearouts where opponents are deliberately ripped off their feet (known by its protagonists as the crocodile roll, as if it were worth glorifying) are the norm. Collisions made to look like cleans also. Players tearing in with shoulders below the hips – illegal in the law book – are also the norm, and don’t get us started on the no-arm stuff.

As a coach of an amateur team, it’s often frightening to witness some of the ruck-cleaning techniques that filter down to amateur leagues, leading to amateur players encouraged to smash each other or twist each other away with abandon, then hope still to go to work on Monday morning with bone and sinew intact.

It’s come to the point where I instruct my team not to contest rucks in defence, not motivated by any particular strategic advantage but because I know there’ll be fewer serious injuries.

Ben Ryan is right about what he says and the evidence is starting to pile up. We can look at the laws later but, for now, we can only hope that at the World Cup the current laws are applied as stringently as they need to be to reduce incidents like Retallick’s shoulder.

Fiji, and now Japan

Two weeks ago we wrote about Fiji’s emerging quality, but had not reckoned with the continued excellence of Japan.

The Brave Blossoms’ win over the Fijians at the weekend was quite something to watch, particularly the first half, which featured mauls, wide moves, intelligent kicks and a full array of skills.

The scrum still looks suspect, but this Japan team will not easily become the second SOLO host nation to be eliminated at the pool stage…

Loose Pass compiled by Lawrence Nolan

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