John Smit believes Dave Rennie’s explosive accusation that the Springboks were walking around at scrum time was a clever ploy to deflect attention from the All Blacks’ own tactics.
Rennie’s claim sparked a furious response from Rassie Erasmus after the Boks beat the All Blacks 33-26 in Cape Town last Saturday, and the former Bok captain has now weighed in on the fiery fallout.
Smit, who played both hooker and tighthead prop during his career, believes the controversy shifted attention away from the way New Zealand disrupted the Springbok scrum.
“All of those comments and all of the questions, they’re all directed and what answer you give is directed at trying to get some form of message through to the officials and I find it amazing,” Smit said on the I Love Rugby podcast.
He argued that South Africa’s scrum has been a major weapon for several seasons, particularly through Ox Nché and Gerhard Steenekamp.
“I hadn’t seen a scrum being destroyed like that in a long time,” Smit said of the first Test at Ellis Park.
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But he felt New Zealand improved significantly in Cape Town by repeatedly forcing resets when the Springboks applied pressure.
“They did negate, well, no, we still had the upper hand, but they certainly improved on the result of the scrum,” he said.
“But the [second Test] reality is they dropped six scrums, got away with it in terms of resets and so that sort of takes away, it sort of depowers the opposition scrum.”
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Smit said he did not see the Boks using the “walking around” tactic Rennie had accused them of employing.
“Walking around is a pretty easy one because you can actually see it,” he said.
“It’s a tactic and a legal one, but I haven’t seen that from our crew. We haven’t really needed to do that with anyone. I certainly didn’t see it on Saturday, but it was just a ploy and a clever one from Rennie to be able to deflect some of the things that they did on the weekend to depower the Springboks scrum.”
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The scrum spat has added another layer to an already intense rivalry, with the third Test taking place at Johannesburg’s FNB Stadium on Saturday.
“There’s no room for error here,” Smit said. “This is the best team that’s out there to play at the moment for us, but they have had a sniff of blood and they’ve been able to follow through, improve and get the result.”
The post Barney calls out Rennie’s scrum tactics appeared first on SA Rugby magazine.
John Smit believes Dave Rennie’s explosive accusation that the Springboks were walking around at scrum time was a clever ploy to deflect attention from the All Blacks’ own tactics.
The post Barney calls out Rennie’s scrum tactics appeared first on SA Rugby magazine. Read More
