Ox unfazed by need to rush against 'unpredictable' Aussie scrum

What Ox Nche really thinks about any suggestion that scrums should become less important in rugby union was summed up by a statement the World Cup winning Springbok loosehead prop made during an online press conference on Wednesday.

“You have a lot of people talking about the scrum and I’ve said it in the past, people who don’t want scrums should just go and watch rugby league,” said Nche as he looked ahead to what could be a new challenge on several fronts when the Boks face Australia in their opening Castle Lager Rugby Championship clash at Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane on Saturday.

Nche justified his point by adding that it was the scrums that differentiated rugby union from rugby league: “There are no scrums there (in league) otherwise it is pretty similar (as a code to union).”

Where the new challenge comes in for Nche and his fellow Bok forwards is the part of the new law variations being trialled by SANZAAR in this year’s Championship that stipulates that a scrum has to be formed within 30 seconds or a free kick will be awarded to the opposition team.

INTERESTING MOVE

Wallaby loose-forward Harry Wilson went on record this week saying that he welcomed what he called an interesting move as it would speed up the game and expressed sympathy for the big men in the front row who would now not have much time to catch breath before packing down after a breakdown in play to deliver in their primary role.

“We want to be playing more footy rather than just waiting at scrums and lineouts, so it’ll definitely bring a lot more fatigue into the game,” Wilson told reporters.

“It’ll be interesting to see how it goes. I feel for the big boys in the front row having to run to a scrum and get there in 30 seconds, but I think it’s cool to speed up the game. I think that’s what the fans and players ultimately want.”

However, while Nche is one of the “big boys” Wilson would have been referring to, he concurred with Bok scrum coach Daan Human’s view from earlier in the week that it implies less change than some may think as the South Africans have for a while been aligning themselves with a 30 second scrum set in training.

“It shouldn’t be a problem. We’ve looked at our scrums even before these slight law changes. It shouldn’t be a problem for us. We just have to adapt a bit. We have spoken about it and made plans for it,” said Nche.

“I think it’s a fair adaptation which makes the scrums a bit quicker while at the same tie making sure that you can still (as a scrum) deliver your trade and show the world what you are really good at. As a tight forward, you just have to meet the fitness requirements, to make sure that you can set quickly and keep the game flowing… I think it’s actually beneficial. It just requires more from the forwards. The teams that adapt quickest are the teams that will do well.”

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— Springboks (@Springboks) August 7, 2024

NEW COACH BLOWING IN CHANGE TO OZ APPROACH

Apart from the greater focus on tempo and the challenge that may be implicit in that, the extra dimension to the challenge the Boks face in Brisbane is the scrumming improvements that have been made by the Wallaby pack since the arrival of New Zealand scrum guru Mike Cron as their scrum coach.

The former All Black assistant has in the early part of his tenure made the appearance of placing more emphasis on the Australians fighting fire with fire and trying to attain their own dominance at scrum time rather than employing the more subtle wiles that have blunted the effectiveness of many a superior opposition scrumming unit in the past.

Human was non-committal on the subject earlier in the week, perhaps because he didn’t want to denigrate previous Wallaby scrum coaches, who he clearly has respect for, but Nche believes there is great unpredictability to the Australian scrum now.

“For me, their scrum is very unpredictable. You can see that they actually want to scrum,” said Nche.

“They stay in the contest. They will do anything to make sure that they dominate and go forward. It’s going to be a challenge for us, especially given that we aren’t in Super Rugby anymore. It will be the first time since last year that we actually get to scrum against them.

“From what I have seen, they can be very unpredictable. You don’t know what they are going to bring. We just have to be prepared for anything,” he added.

The Wallabies team is to be announced on Thursday but whatever combination the Australian selectors come up with will be significantly less experienced than the Bok front row of Nche, Bongi Mbonambi and Frans Malherbe, with two of those players being double World Cup winners and Nche a more recent World Cup winner.

By contrast, the Wallabies match day 23 could have four front-rowers in it that have yet to get beyond the 10 international cap mark.