At last there’s a furore over the 7/1 split between forwards and backs first deployed by the Springboks in a World Cup warmup game against New Zealand in 2023 that has been sparked by someone else.
The cynical among us might wonder if the sudden focus in the UK and Irish media on France’s 7/1 split, meaning seven forwards and just one back on the bench, may just have been sparked by the attention that was given it when Scotland coach Gregor Townsend bought it up at a recent World Rugby symposium.
France were getting away with it until then.
Townsend was concerned that the 7/1 split being deployed currently by France coach Fabian Galthie was not in the spirit of the game because it gave an unfair advantage to nations who boast greater forward depth.
His concerns were spotlighted when Galthie went 7/1 for the Guinness Six Nations decider against Ireland at the weekend by sections of the Irish and UK media, and subsequent to that it has been hit on by some former Irish internationals.
The latter group reckon that France wouldn’t have been able to produce their dominant second half that buried Ireland in Dublin had they not had seven forwards on the bench.
Ironically, this after a game where the inherent risk of the 7/1 split to the coach who makes that call surfaced when France’s brilliant scrumhalf Antoine Dupont went off injured in the first half.
The replacement back was a scrumhalf so France were okay, particularly because they had a flanker who looked a pretty decent outside centre when he was used there later in the game. This is the hybrid type of player, a synthesis between forward and back, that could become the norm if the 7/1 split is normalised.
Kwagga Smith is the key cog in the machine for the Boks when they go 7/1, which by the way they have never made a habit of in the way that France are now. The last time they went 7/1 was in the opening game of the most recent November tour, and when they did that it was the first time since the World Cup final.
In the big game of that tour against England, Rassie Erasmus actually went 5/3. It is all about what suits you on the day. And that Twickenham game was what dictated to Erasmus that he go 7/1 the week before.
There was just a six day turnaround between games, and Erasmus’ selection for the Scotland game had player management in mind.
Townsend’s memory of that game, where his team acquitted themselves well in the first half but then just fell away to the South African forward onslaught no doubt directed his decision to air that concern. And maybe he’s right.
The Bok coach does have more forward depth available to him than he does.
NO SURPRISE FRANCE ARE DOING IT
There’s also no surprise that it is France who are the other team now going 7/1. They have massive forward depth too. The other nation that might be able to do that is New Zealand, for the quality of their tight forward play has advanced in the last year.
But the All Blacks look for a different angle from their bench, they do look for the impact brought by X-factor players later in a game.
Yet having a second tight five to replace the first one in a game, which to me is what a ‘bomb squad’ is, was what the Kiwi rugby boffins in the media and on television shows like The Breakdown were suggesting their team start working towards when they were beaten twice by the Boks in The Castle Lager Rugby Championship.
They were certainly beaten in the first game in Johannesburg by the strength of the Bok bench, but instead of complaining about that the New Zealanders started to talk about evolution and the need to catch up where their opponents had gone ahead.
CRICKETING ANALOGY SHOWS YOU CAN’T STIPULATE AGAINST ADVANTAGE
It is a difficult one because it is easy to see Townsend’s point. The little teams are going to struggle against top teams if the top teams effectively have two separate packs to draw on in a game and they don’t.
But then I start thinking it’s cricketing analogy time again. Some rugby teams have an advantage now because they have good forwards, just like the West Indies cricket teams of the 1980s and early 1990s had an advantage because they had a plethora of fast bowlers.
They had a four-pronged pace attack made up of players who’d all individually be the top bowlers in the nations they were playing against.
So there was no let up in the pace and intensity and the West Indies dominated world cricket. It was then that the debate over the number of bouncers in an over started to be heard and there were subtle attempts to blunt their effectiveness, but you can’t make stipulations over how many fast bowlers a team could have in it.
It’s not just the West Indies that springs to mind as a cricketing example. The last few times the Proteas have gone to India to play test series they’ve been thumped because of that nation’s strength in depth in the spinning department and their curation of pitches that turn on day one.
More recently England went 1-0 up in a series in Pakistan but then came back to win 2-1 when they turned the pitches at their home venues into raging turners.
India though are the best example that you can adapt and evolve to suit the landscape that you need to overcome to be No 1.
India still haven’t won a test series in South Africa, but the local policy of preparing spicy seamer friendly wickets is a lot more of a lottery than it was now that the Indians have the likes of Jaspith Bumrah and Mohammed Shami spearheading an impressive array of fast bowlers.
What you get from this analogising is that teams and nations will always have advantage. In the English Premier League, talking soccer, perhaps the most significant advantage any team can have is money. It’s why Manchester City dominated for so long.
NEED TO LOOK AT SCIENCE
The money buys you success theme irks us but we have to live with it. That some nations have a greater depth of talent in some positions is also just a fact.
So what World Rugby needs to do when they do look at the whole bench split question, and let’s not forget that a few years ago 6/2 was considered a problem but now so many teams are doing it (including occasionally Scotland), is work out what is good for the sport as a whole and not be directed by who might be advantaged or who might be disadvantaged.
In short, they need to look at the science. A lot of the debate around the size of the modern bench and bench splits is couched as concern over injuries, but sports scientist Ross Tucker has done studies that disprove any contention that the eight player bench is a cause of injuries.
A change won’t happen now anyway. There have been enough changes to the laws recently and there’s likely to be a delay on any further change until after the next World Cup. But the bench issue, meaning the size of the bench and not just the split between forwards and backs, will come under discussion in time.
When it does, decisions must be made dispassionately and not according to what advantages can be had or what advantages can be eroded by any changes made, but what is good for rugby.