'That pisses a lot of people off' - Players, coaches react to scrum annihilation

South Africa's domination of the England scrum set the tone and the platform for South Africa's 32-12 Rugby World Cup final win in Yokohama.
Despite being 20kg lighter than the 920kg English pack, the South Africans won six scrum penalties in the first half alone, earning kickable points for Pollard and destroying any chance of a set-piece platform for the English.
Springboks' head coach Rassie Erasmus was however reluctant to divulge too much detail of his plan to undermine one of his opponent's primary strengths.
“I don’t want to sound very clever afterwards because that pisses a lot of people off. It is a spin-off the way we have played the last five games, keep it tight especially in the six-day turnaround.”
Loosehead Tendai Mtawarira admitted it was an area that South Africa were focusing on.
"As a Springbok pack we take a lot of pride in our set-piece," noted 'The Beast'. "All tournament it’s been working for us up front. We went out there to get ascendancy and it was great to get a few penalties in the first half.
"We wanted to get ascendancy up front. It’s something we have been working on for a long time to improve it. All the hard work paid off tonight. All eight made a huge difference."
He did however off his commiserations to England tighthead Kyle Sinckler. The Harlequin was forced off after just three minutes following an accidental collision England lock Maro Itoje.
"It’s never nice to see a player come off so early in the game. He’s had a great tournament and been playing really well, so I feel sorry for him."
Replacement Steven Kitshoff was left in awe of the job the Boks frontrow did on England.
"Beast, Mbongi and Frans (Malherbe) put on a massive performance when it came to scrum time. They put the English pack under so much pressure."
England forwards coach Steve Borthwick was magnanimous in face of the superior pack performance of the South Africans.
"Credit to South Africa for what they did, especially in that first half when they got the ascendancy. We’ll look at it. Do I have the reasons right now? No, I don’t. It’s something we have to look at closely and think about."
South Africa assistant coach Matthew Proudfoot was understandably proud of his charges' set-piece performance.
"There is incredible belief in our scrum, in what we do, it's something the pack really thrive on. We've been seeking eight front row forwards.
"We knew in play-off rugby it's so crucial, we've been developing pressure points. I would not say England have any weaknesses at the scrum, they've been great. They put New Zealand under pressure.
"We take pride in our scrum. Losing your starting tight-head after a first few minutes must be tough to respond to. It gave us a chance to get a foothold and put pressure on them."
"That first scrum allowed us to keep applying the pressure. we said after that let's keep looking for more scrums.
"I must say Beast (Tendai Mtawarira), a man who has 119 caps, stays hungry as anything. On Monday he said, 'what can I work on in my game'?
"I said, 'let's just worry about the final'. He's been really exceptional and wanting to end his career on a high note. I thought he was great tonight."
Sam Underhill seemed in the 'dark' about what happened: “The dark arts are lost on me, mate, I just get my head down and push. We spoke a bit about it, the boys that needed to speak about it spoke about it. It did get better which is a good thing.”
Springbok tighthead Frans Malherbe: "The game worked out well for us. The scrums went well in the first half and, as a prop forward, there is nothing more you can ask for. Really, really happy with the performance from everyone.
"We tried to isolate ourselves from all those talks going on outside. We had our plan and tried to stick with our plan.
"We only had two training days and the focus was on executing our plan, and all the outside noise and mind-games or whatever."
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Not sure I understand. Its not obvious how you prioritize URC, Champions/Challenge Cup, Internationals, and rest. And if you add player development plans (eg experience of positions, playing conditions, game plans, opponents playing styles etc) it becomes harder. Additionally, consistency of selection helps with making adjustments to systems and tactics, so that further constrains your options. Travel challenges don’t make it easier.
Jake White has effectively decided that he would rather have a chance of success in one competition, at the expense of the other competition, than a near certainty of heroic failure in both. And he has implied that over time he plans to build enough depth to give the Bulls a chance in both the URC and Champions Cup simultaneously.
Not sure what is being proposed here that is supposedly a better plan.
Go to commentsIndeed he has STARTED more test games at 8. I actually said he’s PLAYED more games at 7, though. Do you remember where he tended to play when he came on wearing #20?
He likely will select on the basis of win ratios. IRE and ENG won 4, SCOT won 2 and WAL won none. 6 Irish, 6 English, 3 Scottish seems about right for the starting 15.
Yeah, I think he’ll definitely bring Beirne to have as a utility lock/flanker. Doris’ discipline and leadership has maybe rocked a little this year but he’s still the best 8 in the game.
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