It wasn’t a surprise that there was a general sigh of relief around anyone following the Springboks when Wilco Louw was named before the current November tour to take over from the injured Frans Malherbe.
Malherbe - the buffalo, or Bud Spencer to some, was the rock in the Bok pack, a tighthead that did an unbelievable amount of work in the quietest of ways. His scrumming prowess, combined with the fact that he popped up in some exceptional positions around the field, makes him a very hard man to replace in any team, let alone double World Cup champions.
But the smiles were there across the board when coach Rassie Erasmus brought in Louw - a behemoth of a prop who has not only knocked on the selection door, but kicked it down, tore it up and burnt it into a million pieces.
There is nobody who watches the Bulls over the last season and a bit who won’t agree that Louw has been a massive part of the success at Loftus since returning from Harlequins. Along with the Boks other rising star, Gerhard Steenekamp, he has given the pack an edge they previously lacked - a scrum that can dominate anyone at any time, and which wins scrum penalties by the bucketload.
BLOODY GOOD IS NOT CLOSE ENOUGH
That may have been good enough for any other international side, but given the standards set by the Boks over the past few years, bloody good isn’t even close to good enough for Daan Human’s bucket hat brigade. The scrum can’t only dominate, it needs to demolish.
Those who pack down need to - in Human’s words - take it to the harbour. They need to win the war with the hit, to make an opposition prop’s game night’s hell in a setpiece.
And that is what Louw has done. Quietly, without bravado, he has done his job cum laude. He has made sure that the standards he sets aren’t hit and miss, but continually high that he has been noticed by the Bok management.
Of course, he has been there before - winning 14 caps for the national side, but there is the sense now, at the age of 30, that Louw is ready to explode. As is often the case with tightheads, like fine wine they mature slowly, but when they do, they are a wonder to behold.
That’s why it wasn’t a surprise that his name was the obvious one to replace Malherbe, and the coach is expecting him to meet the challenge.
“Wilco has been delivering consistently superb performances for the Bulls this season,” Erasmus said when he was called up.
“He has been knocking on the door for a while now, so I have no doubt he will want to grab this chance with both hands.”
140KG OF AFRIKANER BOEREVLEIS
His franchise coach Jake White knows all too well the value of the big front row forward, and was adamant a few months ago when asked about the success of the scrum, attributing it to the “140kg of Afrikaner (boerevleis) beef” in Louw in the pack.
Now, some may say Louw is only listed at 126kg, and nobody would argue too hard about those stats, because what matters is what he brings in the set-piece, and that is a significant bit of bulk.
“I joke when I say that,” White continues, “Wilco is an exceptionally good scrummager, and that’s taking nothing away from Gerhard, who was exceptional against Vincent Koch for instance. Wilco hasn’t been just good on the field, but when Wilco scrums against you at the training session and you are Simphiwe (Matanzima, the Bulls replacement loosehead), you either sink or swim.
“I don’t think that you are going to get a game where you are going to get as tough opposition as you will get from Wilco on a Tuesday or Thursday scrumming session. Inevitably what happens is that the whole group improves.”
HUNGER FOR SUCCESS
White spoke further on Louw’s hunger for scrum success.
“The one thing that amazes me about Wilco, often players who are good at that, don’t do it often. They like to let other players go in at scrum time. He doesn’t miss a scrum. You actually have to physically say ‘you have to swap’. He will stay there the whole session because that obviously is what he wants to get better at and pride himself on.
“We say it and it is not nice to single out a player, but since he has arrived, the mere fact that our scrum has improved is because of the effort he puts in at scrumtime.
“Then you can imagine, he scrums against Gerhard, and then Gerhard swaps with Simphiwe and Simphiwe swaps with Dylan (Smith). And he will stay there and scrum against all of them, because he gets a fresh guy every time. I said it to the team, he is playing 65-70 minutes a week and not many tighthead props do that.
“People think you have to take a tighthead prop off after 50 minutes, but he has the capacity to play and has played 65, 69, 72 minutes for us, because of the fact he does his job.
“Our scrum has improved, partly because (scrum coach) Werner (Kruger) has worked very hard, (forwards coach) Andries (Bekker) has brought something. Everyone is a year older. That also helps because players are maturing into older athletes.”
BOKS ARE THE STANDARD
Louw has been inspired by Human’s coaching at the Boks and has spoken about how its something he wants to emulate.
“You look at the reward the Springboks get from having a really dominant scrum, I think everyone in the world wants to scrum like them,” Louw said.
“It’s nice to play week in and week out, but also if there is rotation, we can still get that go-forward ball. It’s good that we get to know each other, the more we do that, the better it will go.
“The Springboks have set the standard for the whole world. It’s not every day that you see the fullback catching the ball, calling the mark and asking for the scrum. That’s where everyone wants to go.”
IN DEFENSE OF THE SCRUM
And while some may continually want to depower the scrum, that doesn’t bother Louw at all.
“There will still be knocks in the game,” Louw smiled a few weeks back when asked about attempts to depower the scrum.
“They won’t take scrums away completely. That’s only one part they have tried to change. But I think there will be more than enough opportunities to make your mark in the scrums.
“The teams won’t have fewer knock-ons in the game, so there will still be opportunities. You will just have to use the opportunities better.”
And now that he is at the Boks, his second chance and a whole lot older, wiser and stronger, Louw wants to make it count.
He knows the hard work was just to get here. Now he has a standard to uphold. And given the chance, you can be sure he is going to do his utmost to continue the Springbok scrum dominance legend that is becoming increasingly frightful for the rest of world rugby.