Springboks: Nick Mallett explains why world champions ‘have to have the Tony Brown influences’
Springboks attack coach Tony Brown and ex-Boks head coach Nick Mallet (inset).
Nick Mallett has highlighted the importance of Tony Brown to the Springboks cause as they are coming to terms with World Rugby law changes which have negated some of their strengths.
The world champions have found the going tough in this year’s Rugby Championship as they have already lost two out of three matches – against Australia in Johannesburg and New Zealand in Auckland – with their only victory registered in their second game against the Wallabies in Cape Town last month.
That means South Africa are level on five points with Argentina after three rounds of action while New Zealand are setting the pace at the top on 10 points, while Australia are just one point adrift of them in second position.
World Rugby’s law changes impacting the Springboks
Mallett believes the Boks are feeling impact of some of World Rugby’s law changes after the governing body introduced them following the 2023 Rugby World Cup.
Amongst those was the removal of the scrum option from a free-kick, a tactic that the Springboks utilised during the global showpiece in France, famously doing so from a mark during the quarter-final against France.
Additionally, the croc roll was officially outlawed while the laws around players being offside from a kick, aka Dupont Law, were also altered.
The rationale behind the changes was to create a more attractive game and speed up restarts after technical offences.
More changes by World Rugby followed with shot clocks being trialled for lineouts and scrums with conversions and penalties also put on a timer.
Scrum-halves also have more protection around the mauls, scrums and rucks while currently, lineouts that aren’t thrown in straight but uncontested by the opposition will no longer result in reset but play will continue.
While emphasising the importance adapting to the law changes, Mallett underlined the crucial role Brown will play as the Boks, who are currently ranked third in World Rugby’s official rankings, bid to return to the top of the global game.
‘Laws changed a little bit to mitigate against our strengths’
“I understand (that) laws have been not changed completely, but a little bit to mitigate against our strengths,” the former Springboks head coach told the Talking Boks podcast with Brenden Nel.
“I mean, perhaps it is a World Rugby decision to tell the referees, ‘We don’t want reset scrums and penalties at scrums. So if the ball’s at the back at number eight, don’t worry about a collapsed scrum’.
“And if they have said that, then that’s taking away a lot of our strength, which is the powerful front-row and the Bomb Squad coming on and dominating.
“You know, the maul, you can sort of swim through a maul, you can stay where you were. You suddenly find players in all sorts of strange positions. So the mauls aren’t becoming as effective, and we were very good at that.
“And just in terms of our physicality, if we are only going to be playing one-pass rugby, it’s very easy to defend against us. Even New Zealand, France, England, anyone will be able to front up against us.
“So we have to have the ball at the back. We have to have the variety, the flat cross kick, the chip over the top. You have to have the Tony Brown influences to be able to create doubt in the defender’s mind as to what we are going to do.
“And it’s just a question of us getting those calls right, getting the decisions when to put the chip over, when to put the cross kick in, when to play out the back. If we get those decisions right, then we’re going to be a very, very effective team.”
