What Tendai ‘Beast’ Mtawarira did for the Springboks in helping them win the 2019 Rugby World Cup was an inspiration to the man who became known later as the “New Beast”, but there is one way in which DHL Stormers loosehead Ntuthuko Mchunu was very different.
His switch to the front row, while perhaps thought out over a longer period, didn’t happen with quite the same degree of reluctance.
When the then Sharks coach Dick Muir tried to talk Mtawarira into switching from flank to loosehead back in 2006, he initially encountered resistance. He has told the story of how Mtawarira, who had played loose-forward his entire life, agreed to give prop a try playing club rugby in Durban.
That was the agreement between player and coach, and Muir recounted how Mtawarira reported back to him on the Monday after the club game where he was supposedly going to play front row for the first time.
He told the Sharks coach that he had played prop and it had gone well. But then Muir spoke to Mtawarira’s club coach, who told him the future Springbok hadn’t played prop in the game at all.
UNDERSTANDABLE RELUCTANCE TO JOIN THE ‘TWILIGHT ZONE’
It is understandable why someone who has played in the loose-forwards all his life would go kicking and screaming into his new role, and perhaps think twice about whether he really wanted to go into the coalface of the scrum battle.
It is an area of the game best appreciated and understood by those who play there, with a battle taking place between front row forwards that is often beyond the ken of teammates. It was why former Sharks, Springbok and Scotland hooker John Allan used to refer to it as the twilight zone.
Mchunu first came to prominence for a spectacular try that he scored in one of his first games for the Sharks against the Lions back in the Covid times. His burst of speed and explosiveness off the mark and his running style, even though he was such a big man, had the hall-marks of a loose-forward.
Which was understandable because that was what he had been for most of his rugby playing life. He played No 8 for Maritzburg College, where he was head-boy, and it was in that position that he played Craven Week for his provincial schools team.
Like Mtawarira, who went on to become a Bok legend who apart from his World Cup winners medal in 2019 also won a British and Irish Lions series and Tri-Nations in a 117 cap international career, Mchunu made a positional switch to propel his career forward.
HE THOUGHT EVERITT’S SUGGESTION WAS A JOKE
Unlike Mtawarira, however, his decision to make the move from the back of the scrum to the front left hand side of the scrum was more self-motivated - after a bit of prompting from Sean Everitt. And watching Mtawarira play a winning role for the Boks in Japan in 2019 played a big part in buying Mchunu into his new role.
Like the role Muir played in driving Mtawarira’s successful switch, it wouldn’t have happened for Mchunu without Everitt, who coached him both at Sharks age-group level and then later when he made his senior debut.
At first, he admits, he thought the suggestion he pack down in the front row was just a typical bit of light-hearted humour from the now Edinburgh head coach.
“It was back in late 2019, I was playing age group rugby and my coach at the time was Sean Everitt,” recalls Mchunu.
“I had been a loose forward my entire playing career and had played Craven Week loose forward and I had gone to the first South Africa under-20 camp as a loose forward. When I came back from that camp I obviously had not made the SA side. I thought Sean was joking when he said ‘I think you should move to prop’.
“Being the character that he is, I thought it was just him being funny, trying to pull a joke on me in front of my friends. Weeks then went by and then months and he pulled me aside again and said ‘I think you should move to prop’.
"Then when he did it a third time I sort of cornered him and asked him ‘Are you being serious? Do you really think I should move to prop?’”
Initially Mchunu, who is now 27 but wasn’t yet 20 back then, was a bit sensitive to Everitt’s request. What was he saying about the rugby that Mchunu had played at loose-forward up to then?
“It was almost from my perspective like he was saying I was no good as a looseforward, but I had played Craven Week and been invited to a national under-20 camp as a loose-forward,” says Mchunu.
“So I wanted to know if he thought I was a bad loose-forward. He reassured me by saying no, he thought I was a good loose-forward. He said he didn’t think I was a bad loose-forward at all but just felt that I would make a good prop and that maybe the pathway there for me would be a lot better than if I stayed at loose-forward.
“Up to then the whole way I looked at rugby was from a loose-forward’s perspective. I obviously hadn’t looked at the game and the scrum from the point of view of a front row forward,” he added.
BEAST AND HIS PALS GAVE HIM AN UNWITTING NUDGE
That’s where Beast came into it. Well, Beast and his friends, meaning the front row teammates like Steven Kitshoff, Malcolm Marx, Bongi Mbonambi, Vincent Koch and Frans Malherbe, who played such a big role in driving the Boks to World Cup glory in Japan in 2019.
It was Beast and his mates that made scrumming sexy, who made front row appealing, and helped convert the young Mchunu.
“When the Springboks went on to win the World Cup in 2019 and I saw how those props were conditioned and played I think I got a much greater appreciation for the scrum and what it meant to be a prop,” said Mchunu during a break in the buildup to the Stormers’ penultimate Vodacom URC league game against Ulster in Belfast on Friday night.
“That was where I really took to it. It was tough in the beginning but the more I was put in those positions (of a prop) the more comfortable and the more confident I became.”
Mchunu looked the business and a future Bok from the moment he scored that memorable try in one of his first games in the black and white, but the Mtawarira mantle as the Sharks’ scrumming spearhead had a natural successor, as it did at the Boks, in the form of Ox Nche, who last year went as close as any prop ever has to winning the World Rugby Player of the Year Award.
So when Kitshoff was forced by injury to call time on his own illustrious career early last year, and in doing so created a gap for a regular starter at loosehead at the Stormers, it was a natural move for Mchunu to move from KZN to the Cape.
And he hasn’t looked back, with the powerfully built but mobile prop fast becoming a bit of a cult hero among Cape Town fans for the way he adds to his strength in his primary role by showing up as a ball carrier.
MAKING A HABIT OF BEING A TRY SCORER
He’s made a habit of scoring tries for the Stormers, and scored a brace against Glasgow Warriors last time out that together with his dominating scrum presence saw him be a popular recipient of the man of the match award.
“It feels good (scoring tries). You don’t get too much of that as a prop, but when it happens you enjoy it,” he said.
“But it is not so much about myself. Rugby is a team sport, and scoring tries is just something I can contribute to the team effort and I enjoy doing that. More than anything they are the product of the plans we put together in the week.”
And that included the excellent first try against the Warriors which required some innovation near the visiting team’s tryline.
“That was definitely rehearsed by us,” he grins when asked. “It was something we felt would like to add to our arsenal. Our game is not one dimensional, like some people seem to perceive it to be. We try and be innovative about how we do things without neglecting our core strengths.”
STORMERS SUCCESS CAN OPEN WAY FOR BOK OPPORTUNITY
Mchunu is gathering impressive momentum as the season progresses and is more than making up for a frustrating period of nearly three months where he was officially part of the Stormers camp without having played for them. He was kept out by injury for the first 12 weeks of the season, something that also prevented him from adding to his three Bok caps.
“First and foremost everyone here made me feel very welcome and I really enjoyed the pre-season even though I wasn’t able to get on the training field. From the get go the coaches were hard on me, I don’t mean that in a bad or cynical way, just from a coaching point of view (to get the best out of me).
"Being unable to play for 12 weeks meant I got to know the place a bit better before I finally got to play for the Stormers. It was impressed on me that a high standard was expected and I intend to meet and maintain that standard.
“The other guys have really embraced me and what I bring. We trade ideas on what to do in the front row and the props at the Stormers are very tight. We work incredibly hard. I think each guy has his own bag of tricks, and I certainly enjoy my ball carrying.
"It helps get an edge over other guys and I want to carry on doing it. I know past legends (like Kitshoff and Mtawarira) have walked a similar route (in terms of being explosive props) and it is good to look at what those guys did as an inspiration but I am also etching my own story.
“At the moment it is all about focusing on the Stormers. We are nearing the playoffs now and what we have been working towards suddenly feels like it is not far away. When it comes to the Boks if success comes our way at the Stormers maybe I will get a shot.
"There is a very strong scrumming culture (at the Stormers) and no matter who we play against we have a similar mindset, we want to be better than we were the previous week.”