Latest news with #scrum
CNA
11 hours ago
- Sport
- CNA
Springboks borrow playbook from Under-14 B schools team
South Africa coach Rassie Erasmus has always been an innovator in the game, seeking an extra edge for his side with the unexpected, and found a new ploy he successfully unleashed on Italy from an Under-14 B schools team. The Springboks thumped the Italians 45-0 in Gqeberha on Saturday despite an early permanent red card for number eight Jasper Wiese, and from the kick-off they were full of innovation. They had demolished Italy in the scrums in the previous week's 42-24 win in Pretoria, and wanted to keep that psychological edge. The Springboks therefore intentionally conceded a scrum from the kick-off of the game. It did not work out as they were penalised with a free-kick for an early shove, but the writing was on the wall for a game that would be far from ordinary. Twice they created a maul in general play from which they gained penalty advantage and scored tries on both occasions. Lock Ruan Nortje was lifted to receive a pass, and as he came down to the ground, it created a driving maul from which the Springboks could use their powerful forwards. They received penalty advantage on both occasions as the Italians immediately infringed, but did not need it as centre Canan Moodie and hooker Malcolm Marx crossed for tries. When the powers that be drew up the laws of the game at the line-out, they certainly did not envisage them being used in general play, but Erasmus, who said he was "fairly happy" with his team's performance, has found a way to legally exploit them. "Many teams do different tactical moves and we did a maul in general play with a guy that we lift (to receive the pass)," he told reporters. "We actually saw an Under-14 B schools team doing it, Paul Roos Gymnasium (in Paarl, South Africa). "You get all the benefits from a line-out if you lift a guy in general play and it worked for us. But obviously now people will be alert for that. "We tried a few things and sometimes those things work and sometimes they don't, and you have to take it on the chin if they don't work." The Springboks next host Georgia in Nelspruit on Saturday.
Telegraph
a day ago
- Sport
- Telegraph
Watch: South Africa play for scrum from very first kick-off
South Africa's innovations continued in earnest in the second Test of a series against Italy, as the Springboks deliberately ensured their kick-off did not travel 10 metres, forcing a scrum. They then followed up this innovation by setting up a lifted, line-out-style maul in open play. Manie Libbok, the South Africa fly-half, chipped his kick-off all of three metres to inside centre, André Esterhuizen, while his front row began assembling behind him, waiting for the scrum. The move did not work quite as planned, however, as South Africa went too early in the scrum and Italy were awarded a free kick. Have you ever seen the likes of it? 😅 South Africa manufacture a scrum DIRECTLY from kick-off 🤯 — Sky Sports Rugby Union (@SkySportsRugby) July 12, 2025 Although Esterhuizen was in front of Libbok when he kicked off, the penalty for this is not the same as in open play. It is just a scrum. Later, during phase play, with South Africa leading, scrum-half Grant Williams loops a pass to a forward pod set up five metres from the ruck. Ox Nche and Wilco Louw, South Africa's props at the time, lift Ruan Nortje as if the lock were collecting a kick-off or catching a line-out and the trio, with the rest of the forwards poised behind them, set up a maul. The Springboks, whose attack is coached by Rassie Erasmus alongside Tony Brown and Felix Jones (formerly of England), receive a penalty advantage for Italy's collapsing of the maul but it was not needed as Canan Moodie powered through to score from the very next phase. What's next from the Springboks? 😳 A midfield line-out followed by a blistering Canan Moodie finish 😅 — Sky Sports Rugby Union (@SkySportsRugby) July 12, 2025 They did it again too. From a line-out off the top, they one phase in-field, they went back in the other direction with a high pass and created another maul like this. Malcolm Marx scored the try from it. As intelligent as the Springboks' approach might seem, No 8 Jasper Wiese received a permanent red card – a rarity since the introduction of the 20-minute edition – against the Azzurri for headbutting loosehead Danilo Fischetti. This is not the first time that South Africa have used out-of-the-box thinking regarding rugby's laws. Last year, World Rugby moved to outlaw scrums being called from free-kicks, with teams required to kick or tap them to speed up the game. The Springboks notably called for scrums from free-kicks following marks in their own 22 during the knockout stages of the 2023 World Cup, their second successive trophy-lifting.
Daily Mail
a day ago
- Sport
- Daily Mail
SIR CLIVE WOODWARD: The three key areas the Lions will have to be immaculate in to beat Australia… and I've changed my mind about the back-row trio in my starting XV
In my coaching career, I used to remind my teams of what I saw as the three rugby basics. By that, I meant the non-negotiables, the parts of the game we have to get right - our safety net to success. They can vary from match to match but for the first British & Irish Lions Test they are, in my opinion, scrum, line-outs and restarts. As the countdown to Saturday's Lions opener with Australia begins this week, Andy Farrell needs to remind his players of their importance. If we're honest, the Lions haven't been great in these areas so far Down Under. To beat the Wallabies, they will have to be immaculate.
Telegraph
5 days ago
- Sport
- Telegraph
Inside a brilliantly brutal England scrum session
'Stay in the abyss!' screams Tom Harrison, as two of his England forward packs, having thundered into each other moments earlier, wrestle and heave for scrummaging supremacy. When Harrison finally, mercifully, calls for the two packs to break, all four props are spent, but there is no rest for the wicked; two more must go again while the other two are subbed out for the remaining pair. This is up close and personal with England's scrum, which performed so impressively in their first Test victory over Argentina in La Plata last Saturday. Telegraph Sport has been granted access to England's main training session ahead of their second Test against Los Pumas in San Juan this weekend, the first time the travelling media have been welcomed behind the scenes like this in at least a decade. England only hit five scrums over the course of the session – they will only do 10 all week – and, as Harrison explains later, scrum machines have been consigned to history. Each of England's five scrums here is interspersed with live line-out maul practice and each one is as taxing as the next. And, to make matters worse still, scrummaging comes as the final part of England's main training day – with the front-rowers even changing their boots to prepare for it – with the belief that the players have to be able to execute set-piece excellence while fatigued. 'Scrums have previously been at the start of the session so that the players have lactic build-up in their legs: 'Now, go and do the session and run.',' Harrison explains. 'But, now it's at the end of the session: 'You've run, you're fatigued, can you now execute with that?' 'Machines are really good for timing but they don't push back so you can't change the angle on it too much. And, [we have] limited time. On a Tuesday, we will do seven live scrums maximum; if we're doing that against a machine then I'm only working eight players [whereas live is 16].' Harrison is England's scrum guru and leads the session but head coach Steve Borthwick is never far from the action. Although Borthwick is responsible for overseeing all facets of England's game, as a former international second row himself it would feel remiss were he not to be involved in some guise. With Harrison taking a vantage point where a referee might traditionally stand, Borthwick views on his haunches from behind, clearly interested in the body positions and manoeuvring of the back five of England's pack. Fin Baxter and Asher Opoku-Fordjour have an almighty ding-dong; so, too, does the Harlequin with Afo Fasogbon. Fasogbon was a late call-up for Emmanuel Iyogun of Northampton Saints, which might explain why his shorts are on the smaller side. That said, there is probably no clothing manufacturer in existence who produce shorts for the size of Fasogbon's thighs. Harrison ensures that England scrummage in combinations. Baxter and Joe Heyes scrummage with Jamie George, as the starting front row; Theo Dan teams up with Opoku-Fordjour and Bevan Rodd, the latter of whom has a ferocious tussle with Heyes at one scrum in particular; while Curtis Langdon is pitted with club-mate Trevor Davison and Fasogbon. This is deliberate – and planned. 'Scrummaging, ultimately, is cohesion and timing of movement together,' Harrison says. 'If you can get seven guys doing the same thing at the same time then you're probably going to have a good scrum; eight and you'll probably have a dominant scrum. How they get their binds, their timing, their feel. 'OK, he does this, I know he does that.' There's a lot of work on that. Training-wise, we predominantly scrummage in combinations that we play but it might be that I suddenly change the hooker. I weight reps to the combinations that I think will play. 'It's the same with the back five. For example, Chandler [Cunningham-South], who covers six, eight and both sides of the second row. We'd normally have George Martin as a right-hand side second row, Ollie Chessum as a right-hand side second row; if they aren't around then it's Maro [Itoje] who is on the right-hand side. So we've been developing who scrummages on the right-hand side with [Alex] Colesey. Because he and [Charlie] Ewelsy have always been left, left, left. We want them both to play so therefore they need to get used to the different arms and the different movements. 'The players don't know that. I don't say to them: 'You need to develop this.' But I give them reps in that position and with certain combinations so that they can start to pick it up implicitly.' As the session continues, the most brutal is to come. Harrison wants to test his replacement front row to the max – Dan, Rodd and Opoku-Fordjour – so, for good measure, he tells Baxter and Heyes to go and act as auxiliary flankers alongside No 8 Tom Willis, pushing between flanker and lock. Ten versus eight; and the outnumbered front row, impressively, holds firm. 'If we're playing against a team which scrummages for penalties, and a heavy pack, then I'll go 10 versus eight and stick two extra No 8s on,' Harrison says. 'If we're scrummaging for penalties, then we'll have longer scrums. 'They'll do another three or four on a Thursday. Monday is set-ups; teaching the habits and principles I want. A front-row meeting, teaching pictures I want to see. Potentially, three versus three and five versus five. Tuesday is testing under fatigue; long scrums – test it, test it, test it. Thursday, we tweak it. Then we go into the Test again. It's teach, test, tweak; that's the framework I use. We might only get three scrums but every front-rower will know what the focus is for these scrums to get right. 'Is it hard? Yeah. Intense? Yeah. Brutal? Yeah. These guys do things that a normal human... imagine a back. They don't understand! It's something special that these guys put their bodies through. They do it on a Tuesday to be able to go and win on a Saturday and it's tough. Is it to the point of recklessness and stupidity? No. There's a thought-process behind it, but they will 100 per cent work hard.' Earlier in the day, England had been put through their paces in the gym before splitting into more specific, non-contact work. Calvin Harris blared from the pitchside boombox as Borthwick and Cunningham-South used tennis balls to rehearse the catching of restarts. After some breakdown work – with all coaches mucking in no matter their specialism – the two sides came together for game-scenario training – 15 on 15. As the fog cleared on the outskirts of La Plata, Borthwick sought selection clarity ahead of another monstrous Test against Argentina this Saturday in San Juan. To replace the injured Henry Slade at outside centre, Borthwick has a trio of uncapped options: Oscar Beard, Luke Northmore and Max Ojomoh. All three impressed in training; the former throwing his shoulder about defensively like a boxer's fist, the latter harrying scrum-halves at rucks, and Northmore running the line of the day off the crisp passing of George Ford. Among the replacements, Borthwick has another decision to make. Charlie Atkinson of Gloucester is the only other fly-half on tour but Slade was the preferred cover in last weekend's victory over the Pumas in La Plata, which allowed a six-two bench split. For Borthwick to continue with that replacement formation this weekend, scrum-half Ben Spencer would have to cover fly-half; should that occur, it would show the value that Borthwick places on a six-forward bench composition rather than an indictment of Atkinson's abilities. The Gloucester fly-half showed some incredibly silky touches in training on Tuesday. As the drones buzzed overhead, relaying live training footage to lead analyst Joe Lewis sitting in front of his laptop on the sidelines, Joe El-Abd, England's defence coach, yelled 'press square! press square!' at his defensive charges. Near-gobbledegook to those on the outside – the juniors of the Club San Luis are also granted viewing access to parts of the session – but the words compelled England's defence to up the ante and El-Abd seemed pleased by the response. Phil Morrow, England's newly-installed head of team performance, played a central role. Morrow spent over a decade with Saracens and co-captain George knows his influence. The hooker spoke of four-minute blocks: short, sharp, intense – and high quality. 'There is meticulous preparation,' George said, 'and the aim is to go above Test-match intensity.' At the heart of the meticulousness are Ford and stand-in attack coach Lee Blackett. As England run through their attacking shape, Ford is disgruntled at some of the passing of his forward pack as he wraps around a pod of three. They are passing the ball in front of him, the gold standard, but it seems as though, for the fly-half to transfer the ball away swiftly, he wants it a little bit behind him, so he can fling it across his body in one movement without resetting his arms. Blackett also remarks that England are a little slow to the breakdown, before normal service is resumed; there is attacking alchemy between forwards and backs, and Tom Roebuck crosses for a sleek score. 'That is how we win this weekend,' barks Borthwick, triumphantly. It was England, and Ford, in full flow; at their fast, fluid best, ready for another supreme challenge – both in the the tight and the loose – on Saturday.
Irish Times
5 days ago
- Sport
- Irish Times
Ireland forwards coach Cullie Tucker explains how squad fix scrum problems on the fly
Cullie Tucker was the more visible, but John Farrell, sitting on one of two stools close to the touchline at the Mikheil Meskhi stadium last Saturday night, also played a pivotal role in solving Ireland's scrum issues that surfaced in the first half against Georgia. Irish forwards coach Tucker ran the water into the team during stoppages. But when the need arose he made a beeline for the second seat as Farrell, one of two video analysts alongside Brian Colclough, provided half a dozen angles to scrutinise the scrum footage. This enabled Tucker to try to problem solve on the hoof, long before the interval where he was able to directly address the glitches. Sitting in a Portakabin that was more sauna than refuge from the sweltering Portuguese heat at the Irish training venue on the outskirts of Lisbon on Tuesday, he offered an insight into the interaction. 'I take a look at the scrum live, ideally it would be close to me,' Tucker explained. 'One of the analysts has a feed on the sideline, so I can go over directly to him, and he'll have five or six angles there that I can flick through, [to see] how we're getting into the scrum or what our height is like post-entry.' READ MORE Tucker looks for a pattern to see if there is a recurring glitch. The message going into the players has to be succinct, drilling to the core of the problem, and offering a redress in real time. He continued: 'We started well, got a penalty advantage on the first [scrum] and managed to turn them over. '[Then] the binding phase just got messy. The key to any scrum, really, is how balanced it is on both sides before you can get in. So, that was a big fix-up, and for us, from about 20 minutes to a 20-minute period in the second half, we just weren't getting into the scrum well enough. They were getting in better than us. 'It came down to the binding phase and how we were setting up. So, we had a couple of tweaks at half-time, and looked at a couple of clips. With a big scrum just after half-time then, ours was far better than it had been the previous 20 minutes. It got us back to where we wanted to be as an Irish scrum. '[The players] have to be able to apply whatever messaging we're giving, and they have to be able to tell me how they're feeling on the pitch as well, which is huge around scrummaging. It's a credit to them, and I think it's a great learning [experience] to go through. 'It's a dark place to get into, and to find some light out of it I think is very, very important, and to come out the other side of it. Finishing three penalties all against them – I was disappointed to lose one on our own put-in for sure – but to turn one over on them as well let us come out of the game fairly positive and feeling good about how we're going and where we need our scrum to be.' Darragh Murray had a good day against Georgia and is hoping for another one in Portugal. Photograph: Ben Brady/Inpho Ireland's lineout work was first class, Ryan Baird terrorising the Georgian throw, while Darragh Murray, on debut, did the calling on the team's throw. Tucker, who took over as interim head coach from Pete Wilkins at Connacht during last season, is well versed in the qualities of the 24-year-old secondrow, with whom he works on a daily basis. If others, including Murray by his own admission after the game, were a little nervous about how it might go, Tucker wasn't. 'I have known Darragh for a long time now. He's a very calm individual, a very intelligent rugby player,' said Tucker. 'He takes stuff on very, very quickly, but Paul's [O'Connell, Ireland's interim head coach] coaching is to the fore there, [and also] the work John Muldoon has done [with Murray] in Connacht. He's a sponge for that kind of information, and he's a smart rugby player. You have to be able to call a lineout. 'Himself and Bairdo [Ryan Baird], there's a lot of good [rugby] IP there as well, which they're constantly sharing. They prepared really well during the week for the pictures that were coming, and they were able to react on the pitch as well. So, it was a good day for Darragh.' [ Ireland's six debutants against Georgia: What they said and what song they sang Opens in new window ] Tucker will work under Connacht's new head coach Stuart Lancaster next season but he's enjoyed the interim responsibility and also being part of the Ireland coaching set-up for the two-Test summer tour. 'I'm way better for the experience of running an entire programme and stepping up here, working with different coaches, and experiencing international rugby players. 'When I sit down and reflect at the end of the season, I'm going to be a far better coach on the back of it. It's been great experiences, loads of learning, and I think it'll definitely kick me on in my career.' On a more serious note, with Scott Wilson's departure for home and Murray's decision to cut his hair, Tucker no longer has any meaningful competition for the best mullet hairstyle.
