These All Blacks are so scrummy
OPINION: The coronation of Beauden Barrett as the world’s best No 10 did not happen this year, but New Zealanders need not fret.
In the background the All Blacks’ front rowers have quietly gone about their work and made the All Blacks the best scrummaging unit in the world.
The All Blacks describe their scrum as simply a tool to generate quick ball for their backs. It still fulfils that purpose of course but it has become more than that. Dominant shoves against the British and Irish Lions, Wallabies and Argentina all produced tries.
As per normal the backs have hogged the headlines but they have been piggybacking on the big men, particularly against the Wallabies in Dunedin.
Of course, if you watch your rugby with one eye you might claim that the All Blacks’ scrum has always been the best but it hasn’t.
That lofty title may have applied when Carl Hayman was around and Andrew Hore/Keven Mealamu and Tony Woodcock were younger, but the French had them under serious pressure in the 2011 World Cup final.
No doubt the Lions imagined they could apply similar pressure when they arrived earlier this year but if there is one thing the Home Countries lack at the moment it is really destructive props.
There some epic scrum battles during the Lions series but if any side looked to be creaking it was the visitors. The All Blacks’ failure to win that series had nothing to do with the scrummaging.
The key man here must surely be Mike Cron. His ability to identify and mould talent is consistently good. Joe Moody was hardly a name on everyone’s lips before Cron brought him in and turned him into the world’s best loosehead.
Nepo Laulala may turn out to be the All Black of the year. To come back from that dreadful knee injury is remarkable. On the one hand you wonder if it will eventually catch up with him and limit his influence, yet on the other you suspect the hardship has made him what he is.
The whisper around the Chiefs at the start of the year was that he bettered Owen Franks in one endurance test when the All Blacks gathered for fitness work before Super Rugby started. Clearly, he did not mess around with his rehabilitation work.
And then there is Ofa Tu’ungafasi. In that Albany test against the Springboks, powerful loosehead Steven Kitshoff, who has played in France so has packed down a scrum or two, got Tu’ungafasi in a vulnerable spot at the hit. But Tu’ungafasi adjusted, stabilised, and then gave back with interest.
The first time I saw Tu’ungafasi was at the junior world championships in
South Africa in 2012, where he struggled badly on the loosehead side against Wales and South Africa. So his development as a scrummager has been remarkable.
But then again scrummaging is not about one man. I am still struck by the story of how Kane Hames ended up at the Highlanders. How he impressed the Franks brothers when called in to help out at an All Blacks training camp. How the Franks boys then alerted Brad Thorn that there was a character in the Bay of
Plenty without a Super Rugby contract but who really could scrum.
I’m not sure that in all countries test props would be so generous towards an upstart. But the intel on Hames took him first to the Highlanders and then to the All Blacks.
No doubt the All Blacks scrum will still suffer off days. That’s the nature of the work. But while the backline has been erratic this year, the props have put down the foundation for 2019 World Cup campaign.