All Blacks coach Dave Rennie praised the Springboks’ aerial game while again questioning their scrum tactics after the tourists’ defeat at Cape Town Stadium. SIMON BORCHARDT reports.
The Boks levelled the Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry series at 1-1 with a 33-26 win on Saturday, with two Tests to come at FNB Stadium in Johannesburg and M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore.
The back-to-back world champions led 24-14 at half-time and stretched their advantage to 33-19 before a late All Blacks try set up a nervy finish for the hosts.
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Rennie was encouraged by his team’s performance despite the loss.
“I was really proud of the effort from our boys tonight,’ he said. “We showed a lot of character and fight to stay in that game and could have stolen the draw right at the end.
“They started pretty well. I think we left a couple of opportunities out on the park in the first half.
“They spent a lot of time down our end of the field. They got a lot of their high-ball stuff back, so that was a big part of the game.
“They were able to slow a bit of our ball down and so we didn’t quite get the sort of continuity that we needed at times.
“We created a lot tonight. So there are these little elements that will need to be better, but we’ll bounce back next week.”
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The Boks won the aerial battle in the swirling Cape Town wind, which Rennie acknowledged.
“We put a lot of time into [preparing for] it, I can assure you that,” he said.
“Historically, your guys from the back will come forward and win the ball, and then a referee gets involved because anyone in front of that gets penalised.
“Us, probably like a lot of other sides, have our wingers or midfielders going back so that they can sort of block the guy out, but also catch it so you don’t get penalised for it. We managed to get penalised once today.
“It’s just an area that they are best in the world. We know there’s a lot more coming next week.
“But the exciting thing is that when we deal with it, we do get rewards from it.”
The All Blacks boss was less complementary about the Bok scrum.
In the buildup to the match, Rennie revealed that New Zealand had raised concerns with World Rugby about the Boks’ tactics at Ellis Park, claiming they had been allowed to “walk around” at scrum time.
When asked about the set-piece after the second Test, Rennie chuckled.
“The scrums were better tonight,” he said.
“I think [referee] Angus [Gardner] was pretty strong around setting a mark and then trying to keep the hookers in the same sort of spacing. If the Springboks moved across further left, then he stopped them.
“We’ll give a bit of feedback [to World Rugby] around that. It’s still a bit of an issue for us because they’re able to walk around and go straight through our tightheads. So a couple of little technical things that we’ll share again.
“But I thought, in the end, both teams were able to play off the scrums. So I think Angus did a reasonable job there.”
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Photo: Ashley Vlotman/Gallo Images
The post Rennie renews Bok scrum gripe appeared first on SA Rugby magazine.
All Blacks coach Dave Rennie praised the Springboks’ aerial game while again questioning their scrum tactics after the tourists’ defeat at Cape Town Stadium.
The post Rennie renews Bok scrum gripe appeared first on SA Rugby magazine. Read More
