Springboks: Ox Nche expects England scrum to ‘man up’ after Ellis Genge’s ‘open wounds’ admission
Springboks loosehead prop Ox Nche and an inset of England's Ellis Genge.
Springboks prop Ox Nche predicts a ‘very good’ scrum battle against England at Ellis Park in the Nations Championship clash on Saturday.
While Steve Borthwick’s men endured their worst Six Nations campaign ever, finishing fifth overall and winning just one of their five matches, their scrum was a real positive.
They boasted the best success rate, just shy of 90%, and finished the Championship with a scrum penalty differential of +6 on their own feed and claimed two further penalties on the opposition’s feed.
Having done his homework on England’s scrum, loosehead prop Nche expects a tough battle in the set-piece at Ellis Park, especially against a side that is itching to get revenge, with his opposing number expressing his disappointment from the 2023 World Cup semi-final.
Ellis Genge: Open wounds from the 2023 World Cup
Ellis Genge was part of the England scrum that conceded a penalty from 40 metres out, which allowed Handre Pollard the opportunity to edge the Springboks into the lead, and he duly slotted it.
“Open wounds, you get f–king hammered in the scrum,” Genge said in an interview with The Daily Mail earlier this year in reference to that game. “Well, not hammered, but your scrum lets you down, and you want to rectify it.
“Like the feeling after that semi of losing by a point and ultimately a penalty 40 metres out coming from our scrum, whether the decision was right or wrong. It hurts, like, thanks for bringing that up. But yeah, so it’s an open wound, and you just got to make sure it don’t open back up.”
‘Biggest fear’ driving Rassie Erasmus ahead of World Cup three-peat bid
The prop does enjoy the added hype the set-piece gets when it comes to facing the Springboks.
“F–k yeah, but they always make a spectacle about it when we play against South Africa, don’t they? It gets a lot of airtime,” he said. “We’ve definitely improved massively, and the numbers reflect that as well.”
Speaking this week ahead of the Test match at the spiritual home of the Springboks, Nche was under no illusion of the threat that England pose in the set-piece.
“We’ve got some clips from them; they’re very consistent,” he said.
“They have got their guys to start working together; they go low, they hit. So, I think it’s going to be a pretty big challenge. They have also got a lot of younger players who seem excited by scrumming.
“They have a very good scrum and we are looking forward to the challenge.”
While Nche was able to offer insight into the set-piece battle, his head coach Rassie Erasmus couldn’t, honestly admitting that “I really don’t know a lot about scrums. I echo what he’s saying.”
Rassie Erasmus: England will want a fair contest
Though the Boks head coach does believe that England will want a fair contest in the scrums and will feed the ball in fairly. This after SA Rugby and other nations pleaded with World Rugby to be stricter with how the scrum-halves feed the ball into the scrum.
“We asked about the scrum feed because, as we got the maul law being applied, now the scrum is the most treatable threat, and we asked the question; a lot of people asked the question, not just South Africa, and the answer was, how do you measure that in a vital scrum and it cost you the game? That’s a difficult one; I couldn’t answer them back because, if it this much skew, can we now give them a free kick if the opposition wins the game, or a penalty if it happens twice?” Erasmus explained.
“So I think the English scrum is strong; I don’t think they necessarily have that problem. There are definitely teams who have that problem, but I’m not saying England’s one of them.”
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England will ‘man up’
Nche added that it’s not just the England scrum that is strong, with Borthwick also boasting a potent backline that is more unpredictable than previous Red Rose teams.
“They are a pretty exciting bunch of guys,” he said.
“We’ve watched Northampton Saints, watched Bath – the English Premiership has been pretty exciting. They have a lot of youngsters and those who have played a lot of games for England. It’s a team that’s full of energy.
“They’re going to definitely man up upfront, try to be physical, and they have a lot of energy, exciting wings. They have a lot of variation to the game as well.
“It’s probably not like the England that we all used to know, that they stick to one thing; when they see opportunities are on, they will have all the talent and youngsters to finish an opportunity when it arises. So I think they’re a pretty sharp team.”
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