The Elephant in the Room

Given NZ’s scrumming and mauling issues throughout the series, this is an interesting finding:

In pounds:
Team Test 1 Test 2 Test 3 pack weights:
Springboks 2,022 lb 2,081 lb 2,108 lb
All Blacks 2,044 lb 2,037 lb 2,037 lb

….the Boks have bulked up by 10 lbs a man, while the ABs are slightly down. Teams playing the Boks seem to be avoiding the elephant in the room….you are going to be tested for physicality. NZ’s issues are far deeper….they need 4 props who can stand when the chips are down. That’s not Lomax, definitely not Newell, they have been found wanting many times. But the props they have would surely benefit with a bit more power behind them.

So that brings us to the underlying NZ strategy that’s driving this….mobility, ball in hand, creating space…and probably the thought that moving the Boks around may diminish the physical edge.

That was evident in the second half, when with a strong wind behind them, the ABs kept trying to run from deep. They literally ceded the wind advantage.

So hats off to them for finding ways to hurt the Boks…..but the basics are off….physicalty, one on one defence in the third test, lineout security and even tactics. It’s a team that has exposed some Bok weakneses. But in the final analysis they have the same fundamental problems that bedevilled Razor.

And hats off to the NZ rugby community who have been very complimentary of the Bok’s, particularly of their play in the second half… the few reviews I have watched have been ruthlessly honest.

We should probably enjoy the fact that pack weight still matters while it does, because as World Rugby slowly erodes the value of the scrum, the knock-on effects will go far beyond scrums. Once the big, powerful specialist is no longer rewarded enough for the trade-offs that come with size, teams will start selecting lighter, more mobile forwards, and that'll change the ecology of the entire game. From there, the pressures on every other position change too. You risk setting off a chain reaction that changes the kind of players rugby rewards altogether. I'm very worried that that is where we are headed.