A 'deeply hurt' Bok scrum may spell trouble for Wallabies

Trevor Nyakane was watching from the stands when the Wallabies produced two scrums that effectively won them their Castle Lager Rugby Championship clash with the Springboks on the Gold Coast but that doesn’t mean he is exempt from the hurt that will be motivating the South African big men this week.

                               
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These days the collective spirit within the Bok team spawns an attitude of “if you touch one of us, you touch all of us” and the team is always bigger than the individual. So while Nyakane wasn’t on the field when the Wallabies eight forced an unexpected scrum penalty that enabled them to take momentum and a good lead to halftime, or when the scrum was wheeled and the Boks conceded the penalty that Quade Cooper kicked to win the game right at the end, he might as well have been.

NYAKANE IS PART OF THE SOLUTION

The big man wasn’t part of the problem, but he is part of the solution this week following his recall to the starting front row after sitting out a couple of weeks with injury, and he says what happened on the Gold Coast burns deep and is strong motivator as the Boks work hard on ensuring that there is no repeat at the Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane on Saturday.

“It definitely hurts, it hurts and it hurts very deeply. It doesn’t matter when and how it happens, even if the scrum was on the halfway line or in their five metre line, it always hurts when the opposition get the better of you in a scrum as we are always trying to be dominant,” said Nyakane.

“We want 100 per cent perfection in our scrumming, that is what we work towards, so it was tough to see that. We knew that as a team we had to go back and look at the pictures and understand what actually happened as a starting point to getting it right. We needed to ask ourselves if we had followed our system and done what we had spoken about and trained.

“Those two scrums are buried deep in all of our minds and it is sore. We know now what they are capable of and we know they will come even harder at us this week. So it won’t be a walkover. But as a team as a whole we have spoken this week about starting with momentum and ending with momentum and that will be the case with our set-piece too.”

EXPERIENCE SWAYED THE SELECTION

Coach Jacques Nienaber explained Nyakane’s selection, which effectively comes instead of Ox Nche as it is the Sharks loosehead who drops out of the squad, with Steven Kitshoff just shifting to the bench, by pointing to his experience.

“Trevor brings nice experience and you will recall that he played loosehead for us in the last Pumas game and then there was that ankle injury that forced him off quite early,” said Nienaber.

“Obviously that injury kept him out for a bit but now he is back to full training and full fitness and we all know how well he played for us against the British and Irish Lions at loosehead.”

WALLABIES ARE CANNY SCRUMMAGERS

Indeed, the Lions players probably haven’t forgotten Nyakane’s role in turning the game around in the second half of the second test either. Nyakane’s mission will be to destroy the Aussie scrum in similar fashion, though he admits that is easier said than done as while the Boks are always expected to get the better of a Wallaby scrum, the Australians are canny campaigners.

“Every team has its own system and they have their way of scrumming that they try and impose on us,” said Nyakane. “It is always a different kind of challenge playing against Australia. They have two different types of tighthead in (Allan) Alaalatoa and (Taniela) Tupou, they are both just different kinds of tightheads and do things differently. But the nice thing with us is that under the coaching of scrum coach Daan Human we never focus on what the opposition do, we rather focus on what we want to achieve.

“We don’t have any tricks, we don’t prepare to take the scrum up or take it down, or to walk it around, we just stick within our system, and it is a system we trust. It is the system that makes us strong as a scrumming unit. When we stick to what we do and do best, that is what we are always comfortable with.”

TOUGH IS THE WAY BOKS PREFER IT

Some might think that Nyakane was inferring with that that the Wallabies get up to some wily tricks at scrum time geared towards blunting the Bok scrum. Regardless of whether he was or wasn’t though, it is hardly a secret that over many decades the Wallabies have had to think deeply about ways, not always specifically legal, of surviving at scrum time.

One thing the Boks would never do, says Nyakane, is pick up the reading the referee has of the scrums early in a game and then adjusting to it by following the opposition’s lead.

“We don’t train to walk around (or do anything illegal). If the ref doesn’t handle certain things it is also not our place to shout about it. He is there to do his job and it is my job to stay within the laws. It is tough as a pack when you feel things are happening (that shouldn’t be allowed) but if you react to that you are walking away from your system and that is when you come short as a scrum.

“We just have to make sure the refs are getting the right pictures when it comes to set up and keeping our own weight. The ref has to be left to do his job and if you take the law into your own hands you will be punished for it. There are always things to work on, and we have been working on a few technical things this week. It is two nations playing against each other and we go at it full out.

“There were a few things that didn’t go our way last week that we will never be happy about, but it is up to the whole group on the field to rectify those things and we are working really hard on them this week. We know it will not be easy, it will be another battle, but we like it tough. We prefer it to be tough.”

Springbok team: Willie le Roux, Sbu Nkosi, Lukhanyo Am, Damian de Allende, Makazole Mapimpi, Handre Pollard, Faf de Klerk, Duane Vermeulen, Franco Mostert, Siya Kolisi (captain), Marvin Orie, Eben Etzebeth, Frans Malherbe, Bongi Mbonambi, Trevor Nyakane.

Replacements: Malcolm Marx, Steven Kitshoff, Vincent Koch, Marco van Staden, Kwagga Smith, Jasper Wiese, Herschel Jantjies, Damian Willemse.

HOW TO WATCH: Kick-off is at 9:05am on Saturday, with build-up from 8am on SuperSport Rugby and Grandstand channels (all times CAT, GMT +2).