Lions series analysis
We take a forensic look at where the Test series between the Springboks and British & Irish Lions will be won and lost
THE TOUR is roaring and the Test series will soon be upon us. Can these Lions replicate the feats of 1974 and 1997 or will the Boks come out on top? We’ve canvassed the views of modern experts to look at the areas likely to be most impactful when determining the winners. We drill down into the importance of the maul, the kicking duel and whether leaders can get their team playing the ideal style. But first, it’s all about the scrums…
THE SCRUM
HYPE FOR the Test series isn’t exactly lacking as we prepare to see the Lions and Springboks throw down. But when it comes to battles within a battle, the heavyweight clash of two scrums gets top billing. And you can understand why.
In 1997, a supposedly lightweight Lions unit got under the monstrous South Africans and bloodied the nose of the world champions. In 2009, one Tendai ‘Beast’ Mtawarira wrought havoc as the men in green marched right over the tourists. And in the most recent World Cup, the South African set-piece and their self-styled ‘Bomb Squad’ caused merry chaos, as their front-line forwards and then brawny replacement front five went to work. In the final, they made shrapnel of the England eight.
So if we agree that victory in Africa is only possible if your set scrum is highly effective, we need to take a closer look at that set-piece. You might well think all scrums are created equal or hark back to the 1997 series for some sort of blueprint, but in 2021, in a world of hyper-professional forwards units who hear “crouch, bind, set” in their sleep, you need a definite identity.
Throughout the Test summer you will hear mention of the sheer size of the Springboks pack. Of their power. Their familiarity and their depth – that Bomb Squad again. They have lost loosehead Mtawarira to a well-earned retirement, but there are still so many familiar faces in there. And as Sharks scrum coach Etienne Fynn explains to RugbyWorld of the discourse around the Boks: “There is a very open and very evident focus on wanting to dominate that facet.”
In short, the people of South Africa demand their scrum takes no prisoners. Which is why it helps to really know your enemy.
For example, in the wake of the 2019 World Cup triumph, the Springboks lost their scrum coach Matt Proudfoot to Eddie Jones’s England. In came Daan Human. Formerly of the Cheetahs and Bulls, he has a reputation for creating synergy. As Julian Redelinghuys, the former
Springboks prop and current Emirates Lions scrum coach, tells us of the
Bok coach’s philosophy, it is all very much about forgoing any tricks or ‘funny business’ and instead just “getting eight guys doing the same things, at the same time, in the same direction”.
According to Fynn, the scrum coaches in the country can all pick up the phone to each other. Because they all want the national team to succeed. Human has been out to the Sharks’ base to see their players go to work and throughout the year he will talk to scrum coaches at the franchises if he has seen trends or deficiencies that he feels can be addressed. Calls are not as regular as clockwork, Fynn says, but it’s fair to assume the scrum coaches of South
Africa will start sharing thoughts on the tourists once the matches gets going.
Continuity of selection within the host pack is telling, and when we consider that recent World Rugby Player of the Year Pieter-Steph du Toit plays in the back row, while Eben Etzebeth and a rotating cast of fellow monsters make up the locking department, you get why size and strength are mentioned so often.
Yet the Lions are not exactly Hobbits (despite what some SA shock jocks may have you believe). So as they come into sharper focus, many will want to know more about the man replacing the Beast.
Steven Kitshoff has been the next nightmare for a while. The red-headed titan is expected to spook the Lions, but what can we know about him today?
“I’ve analysed scrums where he’s been in trouble after the hit,” Redelinghuys tells us. “But because he is so strong, he just drops his hips and gets out of a bad position and still manages to dominate scrums. He’s an impressive character, in the sense he works unbelievably hard.
“He is not just a scrummaging prop, but if he gets in a good position from the hit he is unbelievably strong. Even if he loses the hit he can still recover. I always say that when you can’t bend a loosehead’s back you are in trouble
“Kitshoff has been in trouble after the hit but because he’s so strong
he gets out of a bad position”
and he is one of those – I think his back is screwed on straight!”
Redelinghuys can offer us details about the locking options, while Fynn can preach about how strong hooker Bongi Mbonambi’s shoulders are, or the energy Siya Kolisi brings at scrum time. But ask both coaches which Lion they fear the most in the set-piece and the answer is the same: Tadhg Furlong.
Talk to long-time Leinster team-mate Michael Bent about what makes Furlong so highly rated in the scrummage and he can also tell you about the incredible connection the prop gets with his
hooker, binding at the hips, or how his foot positioning is spot on so as not to overextend himself should he rock the loosehead back. Fully stretch your legs in a scrum and you’ve nowhere to go.
But before we get too obsessed with his technique, recently departed Bristol Bears scrum coach Alasdair Dickinson explains that, hey, Furlong just has the perfect build. There’s minimal movement once he gets into shape but when we boil it down, he’s a big, strong man who is difficult to shift if he gets a shot on you.
Which makes the battle between the Boks one and Lions three so fascinating, whether these two start or not. Dickinson speaks well of Zander Fagerson and of Kyle Sinckler (below, with Furlong), who he knows well from Bristol. He adds that the English tighthead’s biggest strength is accelerating over the gap between rival packs, as we go from ‘bind’ to ‘set’.
So to best this beastly Bok scrum, how would you go about it? Redelinghuys tells RugbyWorld: “If I was playing that heavy pack, I’d try to get ascendency by getting them as uncomfortable as possible before the scrum, in the ‘bind’ battle and in the ‘set’ battle.
“I would get as close as possible to them. Try to creep them up so that they can’t use their weight on the engage. It’s not going to be as easy as it seems, because they’ll obviously combat that, but I’d tell them to make sure we win the first couple of centimetres and make them move their feet. Because you can be as strong as you want but if you’re not comfortable, you cannot apply your power.”
When Dickinson – now off to coach Glasgow – hears Redelinghuys’s theory about getting close to the Boks out of the blocks, he adds: “I would agree.
“The key for any opposition against the Springboks is speed. If you can beat them on that engage and make them readjust their feet backwards, you’ve got a good chance. If you just sit back and want to go toe-to-toe with them, you’re going to be in trouble. These boys want to be square. They’re honest, they want a fair fight. They want a head-to-head scrum. They’re not going to whip it or wheel it, they are not going to make it messy. So you need to beat that size and power with your speed, your height and a collective unit.”
The man in charge of looking after all of this for the Lions is Leinster assistant coach Robin McBryde, who moulded the Wales scrum for so many years.
When he arrived at Leinster – a team well used to winning titles – he brought more of a sense of refinement with him, according to Bent. Suddenly there was more focus in training on how the back row pushed, where the locks put their feet. He would run regular drills too on getting packs of eight together, not necessarily in competition with another unit but to put them all under some duress, then working on movement as one, going up and down, moving from side to side, looking at how everyone holds their shape together.
“One of the things he changed when he came in was the second-row bind,” Bent says of McBryde at Leinster. “We had the second-rows coming up off of one knee, which can provide a little bit more hold for your front row, but it slightly limits what you’re delivering, going forward. He changed it so that the second-rows were coming up off two knees, which means that you’re putting a little bit more weight forward into the scrum before you actually enter.”
What the Lions will want is a snap! to their engagement, meeting the Boks at ‘set’ before they get moving themselves. It’s about small margins. Will that take a while to bed in with the Lions’ Test side?
Dickinson entertains the idea before adding: “You’ve got to remember, these are very good players. They’ve been around plenty of systems. It’s not rocket science when it comes to the scrum and sometimes people overcomplicate it.
“If you’re going from two knees or a split (stance), those are the two main options really. It’s not a huge thing to change (for players this good). It’s just about timing. It’s more about feeling. Getting the feel is then about non-verbal communication. You can tell when front rows or second rows or back rows have played together a lot. It’s like a good jigsaw – they all just fit together.”
The clock’s been ticking for the Lions scrum. But it’s as much about having confidence in each other. If they succeed it’s because they all gelled, lickety-split.
Of course, master that and it ain’t all plain sailing everywhere else…
THE MAUL
IF THE scrum is important to the Springboks’ identity, the maul is right there with it. At least that’s what former national hooker Schalk Brits suggests.
“We’ve always seen our scrum and our maul and our physicality as ways to exert dominance,” he tells us. “I don’t think that will change anytime soon!”
The potential loss of ‘maul guru’
Duane Vermeulen could be felt, Brits ponders, and he adds: “The Lions maul is going to be very challenging. We couldn’t get the same dominance when we played against Wales and Alun Wyn Jones (in the 2019 World Cup semi-final), so let’s see what will happen.”
Of course, the Lions lost Jones to a shoulder injury just seven minutes into their warm-up match with Japan. But that Wales pack in 2019 was coached by Warren Gatland and Robin McBryde. And if the Lions have any player who can be “pretty sneaky” as Jones was, according to Brits, all the better for their chances.
Brits sees former Saracens team-mate Maro Itoje as another destroyer waiting to be deployed. And according to the former hooker, at the height of Sarries’ powers in Europe there were a few options that he and his pals could use to halt a maul: sacking right away, not engaging or the so-called ‘cannonball’.
As he explains: “We would not engage in a maul and Mako (Vunipola) would run into the lock and take them down. Then after that tackle, we can all pile in. It’s about trying to create a tackle.”
Being selective in how you defend a maul is vital, quickly spotting the best way to nullify it rather than mindlessly doing the same technique over and over and hoping it works. But the other thing, Brits says, is to make peace with it now: the Boks are mauling. Often.
Sometimes the only option is to just front up and take the massive men in green on in the arm wrestle.
THE BREAKDOWN
“THE BREAKDOWN, within the last 12 months, has had some of the biggest variations,” posits collision specialist Richie Gray, who has coached the Boks, Scotland and now Fiji. He has also worked with World Rugby when they have looked at the laws of the game.
Explaining what match officials will look for today, he covers off five ‘pictures’.
“Picture one: is the tackler rolling? It’s key that the tackler gets out the contest legally, and as quick as possible. Number two: presentation. You now can’t buy seconds on the ground – presentation has got to be absolutely on the money.
“And picture three is the key one for us: the jackler. The jackler now doesn’t have to survive the clearout. A year ago the saying was ‘survive the clean, get the reward’. So a guy would get in there, put his hands on the ball, and have to take a bit of heat to get the turnover. Now, if you get in there, lift the ball or are in a position of apparent strength, you should get the penalty right away.
“The last two pictures are on the entry to the ruck – the 180-degree side cleans have gone and also it’s now about
‘drive, not dive’. You can’t come in and just launch in over the top of the ruck.”
Gray says that in the upcoming Test series, with match officials bubbling together and part of a single Test unit, they should be aligned in their approach. Because a huge disparity in refereeing from Test one to the decider, particularly at the ruck, is a bad look for the game.
But with all of the above, he points out that the consequence in the last year has been an increase in ruck speed. It’s stood out a mile for him. The knock-on effect of this, he adds, is that isolated runners are more vulnerable than at any time in the game’s history. So while all players at this level should be able to get over the ball – and he laughs that talk of picking one or two ‘jacklers’ or ‘fetchers’ is dreadfully old-fashioned – you could still look at the physical make-up and balance of your team.
Amidst the chaos, he ponders, could the stealthier breakdown operators of the Lions get in under the massive Bok forwards? If we accept that the whole process of deciding to give a penalty or not is sped up, then someone over the ball shouldn’t have to survive a clearout.
Of course then we have to think a few more steps ahead. Remember we are talking about Test groups masterminded by Rassie Erasmus and Warren Gatland: do either of these sides really want to be up against lightning-quick ball?
Suddenly we are discussing ways to slow the ball down, away from the breakdown. In the age of the High Tackle Framework, Gray tells us to look out for whether the Springboks go for the same defensive approach they used in Japan – “They were predominantly a chest-tackling team”. Could they run foul of the officials? Will a pumped-up Lions run the same risk? It wouldn’t be daft for bookies to lower odds for cards being shown in the series…
Certainly if there is more and more quick ball from the breakdown, we will see more and more of the biggest units in the game running into each other. A bruising prospect with incredible high stakes. Then, of course, there is the other way of looking to break up play and put pressure on the opposition at the same time. By taking to the skies.
“The jackler doesn’t have to survive the clearout. If you’re in a position of strength you’ll get the penalty”
THE AERIAL BATTLE
SARACENS FULL-BACK Alex Goode is convinced the series will come down to set-piece and the kicking game. He talks animatedly about earning the right to take the ball on the front foot, in motion, to kick on your terms. Contestable kicks that lead to what Aussie Rules teams call ‘crumbs’ – free balls that spill out of contested catching situations.
He also believes that with little time together since their World Cup triumph, without a year of Tests lately, South Africa’s game plan may be a simple version of what they previously knew. At Japan 2019 we saw the Boks’ set-piece thrive, leading to driving, front-foot ball, carry after carry around the corner and then a playmaker like Willie le Roux or Handré Pollard assessing. And kicks.
Prepare for the Boks to box kick. It will happen but before decrying, you must understand why and how to combat it.
“You have to put pressure on the Springboks and not allow them easy carries or set up how they want,” Goode explains. “Because what they want to do is set up a maul and then kick to within ten yards or five yards of your touchline. Even if you catch it, you then attack after going backwards. You must go against a 13-man front-line, five yards from a touchline. It’s the worst place to be.
“And they just fly off the line. They smash you. Or then you have to kick. So you have to try and work out a way of either generating good ball or to kick in a way that puts them back under pressure, in the backfield.”
It starts with obliterating the carry that is likely to set up the South African box. Then disrupting the ruck enough to give half-back Faf de Klerk pause for thought.
Next? “You get second-rows – Itoje or whoever they pick – set up on the right for de Klerk’s left foot. He’s a left-footer and they know that. So get in a position to put pressure on him. And whoever is in the ruck, get them in there as a nuisance to pull in two or three players.
“Then, when he kicks, it’s key to have the escorts (players running to take up spaces that protect catchers). You can’t do it in ones these days because you’re changing lines and refs will pick you up, so you need to do it in twos or threes, so the catcher can fly through the air and really have confidence doing it.
“Wales are very good at this with Liam Williams. When Wales won the 2019
Six Nations, in their second half against England they completely dominated the aerial game. They escorted back so well, Williams was able to fly through the air. It will be a massive area for the Lions.”
Goode sounds a note of caution too, remembering that in the World Cup final against England, SA changed things up. Box kicks happened with less frequency and they targeted George Ford and Owen Farrell in the backfield, he says, opting to kick crossfield off fly-half Pollard. So if the Lions follow the fashion of the day and have two players in their backfield to cover kicks, it’s best to have athletes who can get off the ground to net the ball, expecting to do it in traffic.
Just as important, he says, is finding your range. Kick too long to South Africa and they have the ball-carriers to run it back down your throat without worrying about a clean catch. Or they can kick it where they want, with no pressure.
“With the personnel the Lions have, they should be good. Conor Murray is one of the best box-kicking nines there
“Get second-rows set up on the right of a ruck for Faf de Klerk’s left foot. Put pressure on him”
is, he kicks so well and quickly. You can’t put too much pressure on him and he gets the range right. And with the wings they have, there’s no reason why they can’t get up and spoil it. Josh Adams is underrated, Liam Williams is an expert and Anthony Watson is very good.”
What Goode is hoping to see is unrelenting pressure on the Boks: kicks hung up on Cheslin Kolbe and le Roux, set-up carries being hammered by red defenders, and a persistent line and length from the box kicks.
PLAYING STYLE
WILL THOSE empty seats in the stands have any impact on the feeling of ‘momentum’ on the field? It’s something that Ruan Pienaar wonders aloud. The veteran scrum-half – who lined up for the Springboks with a ten on his back when the Lions last visited, in 2009 – says of the absence of fans: “It will probably level the playing field a bit.”
What he assumes is that the onus will fall on the Lions to take more risks, rather than the Boks – but taking the points whenever you can helps too.
But for some who have seen the Boks at close quarters over the years, this shouldn’t mean you go full conservative.
“To beat any team at this level you will need a good brains trust, but the thing about the Boks is that you know what they’re going to bring,” Wallaby Matt Toomua tells RugbyWorld. “Good physicality, strong set-piece and good discipline have to be the foundations of your game, which gets you in a position to beat them. If not, they will run riot.
“Personally I would select a team that first reaches parity in those areas, but then make sure there is enough room for your own ’style’, otherwise you will forever be reactive to the opposition.
“For me the key positions here are back-row and centres. I’d go with a more abrasive centre pairing who are very strong defensively. I would then pick a back row that is either very big and will meet the opposition physically at the defence line or a really strong back row over the ball, aiming to slow their ball down. That will help the team win the contact zone or gain-line.
“Building a score helps – as often you get low-scoring matches against them
– but if you can make the game quicker and unstructured, it’s usually a good idea as it goes away from their strengths.”
Toomua offers a final point. While we hope the series refs stay on the same page, he suggests waiting until Test two to ‘push the envelope’ on the edges. You don’t want to go into the second Test needing to salvage the tour because ill-discipline killed the opening game.