Law discussion: Are Rassie Erasmus’ newest Springboks tactics legal and how can it be stopped?
Springboks head coach Rassie Erasmus and South Africa's open-play lineout against Italy.
The Springboks debuted new tactics against Italy at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium on Saturday, but were Rassie Erasmus’ new ploys legal? We take a look through the law book and discuss how teams can stop it.
South Africa wasted no time whipping out their new tactics, with the latest ploy taking place with the very first action of the match.
Manie Libbok chipped the kick-off just a few metres in front of him with centre Andre Esterhuizen latching onto the ball, forcing a scrum, albeit with Italy feeding the set-piece.
The kick-off
Referee Andrew Brace blew Esterhuizen up for being in front of the kicker and duly awarded the scrum, the correct call according to Law 12.5: When the ball is kicked: a. Team-mates of the kicker must be behind the ball.
There is, however, a notion that the Bok midfielder was guilty of Law 9.27, which reads: A player must not do anything that is against the spirit of good sportsmanship. But it would take a very brave referee to sanction a team for this.
Or even law 9.7: A player must not: a. Intentionally infringe any law of the game.
While the first action of the game certainly caused a stir with Erasmus even taking to social media to point to Italy’s scrum tactics in Test I to their reasoning for the short kick-off, the open-play lineout move used in the build-up to two tries is far more interesting.
Law discussion: The real genius behind Rassie Erasmus’ new ploy to enforce an early Springboks scrum
Open play lineouts
On both occasions, scrum-half Grant Williams passed the ball into the grasp of lock Ruan Nortje, who was hoisted into the air with South Africa forming a maul. The first time it was deployed, Williams would eventually take the ball from the back of the maul and spun it out to Canan Moodie, who tore through the defence to score. The second time, it was Malcolm Marx who benefited as he dotted down at the back of the maul.
The first question is, is this legal? The short answer is yes, which law 9.26 explains: In open play, any player may lift or support a team-mate. There is a risk of conceding a free-kick to the opposition, though, as the law continues: Players who do so must lower that player to the ground safely as soon as the ball is won by either team.
Make no mistake, this is a high-risk, high-reward tactic, and despite Nigel Owens’ claim that it cannot be defended, there are multiple ways the defence can use the laws to their advantage to stop it and just as many ways the Boks, or the team executing it, can concede possession through poor execution.
Let’s focus on the latter first, as Erasmus’ men executed the two open-play lineouts and subsequent mauls to perfection and to the letter of the law.
First, the Springboks pod that performed the lineout were stationed very flat to the line as depth would have been detrimental as it runs the risk of a flying wedge. Because it was so close to the defence, when Nortje came to ground, the Italian defence was already on him and made contact as his feet hit the deck, allowing for a maul to be formed.
Had this not been the case and the pod of forwards came to ground and then charged towards the defence, it would be deemed a flying wedge, which contravenes Law 9.22: Teams must not use the ‘flying wedge’. This prohibits more than one player from pre-binding on a ball carrier before contact with the opposition.
Additionally, the ball is only transferred to the ripper – Marco van Staden (6) in the image below – once contact is initiated with the Azzurri defence.
Marco van Staden (6) rips the ball from Ruan Nortje.
On both occasions, South Africa were sure to only transfer the ball to another player once the maul was formed, considering the following laws:
16.1: A maul can take place only in the field of play.
16.2: It consists of a ball carrier and at least one player from each team, bound together and on their feet. A player ripping the ball from the ball carrier must stay in contact with that player until they have transferred the ball.
So now that we have confirmed the legality of the tactic. Let’s have a look at how the opposition could potentially stop the maul from being formed or kill the influence of the tactic from the get-go.
The defending team’s options
First off, unlike a classic lineout, lifting a player in open play does not have the same offside lines.
At a lineout, a mark of touch is set with a gap needing to be maintained until the conclusion of the set-piece. This is explained by the following laws:
18.30: All lineout players are onside if they remain on their side of the mark of touch until the ball has been thrown in and touched a player or the ground.
18.31: Players jumping for the ball who cross the mark of touch and do not catch the ball must immediately return to their own side.
As per law 18.37, the lineout ends when:
a. The ball or a player in possession of the ball:
i. leaves the lineout; or
ii. enters the area between the touchline and the five-metre line; or
iii. goes beyond the 15-metre line.
b. A ruck or maul forms, and all of the feet of all of the players in the ruck or maul move beyond the mark of touch.
c. The ball becomes unplayable.
These laws prohibit a defending player from going beyond the mark of touch and into the attacking team’s side of the lineout in an attempt to rip the ball from the catching player.
However, once the scrum-half lifts the ball from the back of a ruck, the defence is not limited to these laws and can, in fact, run in behind the catcher and rip the ball as long as they wait until he has been brought to ground again before doing so.
An example of this occurred between Scarlets and Perpignan, admittedly after a lineout, but the same laws apply as the ball has been thrown over the 15 metre line, meaning that the set-piece has concluded, see law 18.37.iii above.
Nigel is right here in that it’s very difficult to defend. That said though – it’s easy to identify a lifting pod if you’ve done your analysis on the opposition, and once the 9 chucks it, there’s no offside line (unlike a lineout), so imo your best bet is to disrupt the transfer: https://t.co/bTjhikNxCQ pic.twitter.com/FJ3DOukqnP
— Will Owen (@will_owen9) July 13, 2025
Similar tactics have been used from kick-offs when the receiving team lifts a player to catch the restart, and the opposition flood in behind the catcher to deny a mauling opportunity. This tactic has been used extensively by Argentina in the past, but they are far from the only team to have done so.
A far more riskier tactic would be for the defence to back off and not engage with the attack, and deny the opportunity of a maul being formed. However, the catcher could simply hold onto the ball and not transfer it back to another player or progress forward. This was previously used at lineouts, but because of the difficulty in execution and officiating, it has been largely abandoned.
The options that the defence does have at their disposal are rather limited and run the risk of a penalty too – both open-play lineouts resulted in a penalty advantage for the Boks – but it is far from an open and shut case that they simply cannot defend it. At the same time, an attacking team making use of this tactic have to be incredibly accurate in their execution as one small slip-up results in a turnover at best and a penalty at worst.
Mental guessing
The real catch-22 for the defence is if a maul is formed, then piling numbers in opens up opportunities in other areas of the pitch, but not adding bodies to the drive gives the attacking team an upper hand and can drive over the line. Both eventualities occurred in Gqeberha over the weekend, which will delight head coach Erasmus.
The Springboks boss has prided himself on innovation since returning to the international fold first with the ‘Bomb Squad’, then ‘The Move’ in the 2019 Rugby World Cup final, which they attempted four years later against the All Blacks but were spoiled by Ardie Savea’s excellence and then calling for a scrum from a mark inside their 22.
While these tactics were mightily impressive and effective against Italy, do not expect South Africa to whip it out in every single Test match going forward, but the fact that they have not executed it at the highest level, is something that will play on the mind of opposing head coaches going forward.
That mental guessing is something that Erasmus clearly values highly, and in international rugby at the highest level, where the margins of victory are so slim, rightly so. Seeding any kind of doubt or second-guessing into the opposition is a powerful weapon as a defence can no longer just look at a pod of Springboks forwards as a potential carrying option, but a lifting pod attempting to set a maul too.
Planet Rugby reached out to a current elite professional match official to ensure that the technicalities and law interpretations expressed in this article were accurate and fair – which they did.
READ MORE: Rassie Erasmus slams claims that new Springboks tactics are ‘against the spirit of the game’
