Rassie Erasmus hits back at All Blacks over ‘nonsense’ Springboks scrum accusation
South Africa head coach Rassie Erasmus has hit back at New Zealand counterpart Dave Rennie over claims that the Springboks are scrummaging illegally.
The hosts levelled the Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry series at 1-1 with a hard-fought win in the second Test in Cape Town, which came after a week of the two sides trading press conference barbs.
All Blacks boss Rennie had suggested that the world champions had been unfairly rewarded during a dominant scrummaging performance even in a 33-16 first Test defeat at Ellis Park, believing that they were walking around and failing to drive straight.
Saturday’s scrum-time action was protracted as referee Angus Gardner sought to repeatedly make clear his expectations to the two front rows, with a messy contest nonetheless resulting in few penalties.
And Erasmus believes that Rennie’s “moaning” had got into the heads of the officials – before picking out a few bugbears of his own.
“It’s the first time in history that people are talking about us walking around,” Erasmus insisted. “Why would we all of a sudden walk around? The first six scrums New Zealand had, every single one collapsed and it was reset, reset, reset. Why is it only on their ball that the scrum collapses every single time?
“So don’t come with that nonsense and saying we are walking around and trying to put things out in the media. The last lineout was skew. I’m not going to moan my arse off about that. If he’s going to start moaning about stuff like that, then they are under pressure.
“Last week we didn’t moan when there was clearly a lot of head contacts. Today in the first 40 there were four head contacts and nothing was done about it, and then Lood [de Jager] gets the first one.
“Don’t try and convince people through the media. The first week they tried to convince people in the media we were slowing the game down – and we’re not. There is obviously a plan to get that message out. We’re not going to stay quiet and say, ‘ja, we’re walking around’. We’re not f…..g walking around. We are scrumming through.
“We’re never ever been accused of walking around. I don’t understand it.”
Erasmus had tinkered with his line-up at the last moment at Cape Town Stadium, swapping his front rows with the trio of Gerhard Steenekamp, Deon Fourie and Thomas du Toit starting.
Steenekamp and Fourie were removed before half time with Ox Nche and Malcolm Marx – originally named to start – brought on and making a pivotal impact.
Despite defeat, Rennie was happier with the officiating at the set-piece.
“The scrums were better tonight,” said Rennie. “I think Angus [Gardner] was pretty strong around setting a mark and trying to keep the hookers in the same sort of spacing. If the Springboks moved across further left, he stopped them.
“We’ll give a bit of feedback on that. It’s still a bit of an issue for us because they’re able to walk around and go straight through our tighthead. There are a couple of technical things we’ll share again. In the end both teams were able to play off the scrums and Angus did a reasonable job there.”
The series continues on Saturday as the two sides return to Johannesburg for the third Test at FNB Stadium. It will conclude in Baltimore on Saturday 12 September.
