For their fly-on-the-wall documentaries, Chasing the Sun 1 and 2, the South Africa rugby team allowed cameras to capture moments usually off-limits. Countless scenes of team meetings before and during important games at the 2019 and 2023 World Cup. Everything centres head coach Rassie Erasmus who is entitled to be considered the greatest coach in Springbok history. Erasmus enjoys working with these players but his is a tough love.
After South Africa lost to Ireland in a pool match at the 2023 World Cup, Erasmus felt there wasn’t enough pain in the faces of the players. That pained him. “Let’s prepare ourselves for some honesty guys, management and players,” he said, opening the review meeting. “What the f***’s going on with you? Have you become bigger than the game? I promise you, Siya Kolisi is not the biggest thing in South Africa. South Africa is the biggest thing in South Africa.
“It is not because we lost, it is because it has been brewing and brewing and irritating me, all the beautiful songs that you sing, in Afrikaans, Xhosa, you sing all of them but you’re false. You pretend that you will die for your country but you will not, you will not.” There are many ways to get a team to refocus. Erasmus favours the direct route.
Before the biggest matches, his messaging becomes even simpler. “We’re going to f*** them up,” he repeatedly says, reminding his players that rugby is primarily a physical battle and the team who win that win the match. It is a language his players understand. There were times in their comprehensive victory over Ireland at the Aviva Stadium on Saturday when it seemed the Boks were more intent on reducing Ireland to rubble than putting points on the scoreboard.
It was a remarkable game, which is not to say it was entertaining. Far from it. We craned our necks to see what was happening in the scrum, as you do at the scene of a motorway crash. There was some sympathy for Ireland’s props, who, like an outclassed fighter, kept getting knocked down and then getting back up. Rugby is, in one important respect, crueller than prize fighting. Here the man who is being crushed, steamrollered into the ground, is considered not just weak but also culpable.
Wearily, Andrew Porter and Paddy McCarthy got back on their feet in time only to see Matthew Carley brandishing his yellow card. It wasn’t like these poor chaps weren’t trying to stay on their feet.
Porter was sent to the sin-bin after conceding four scrum penalties in a row
RAMSEY CARDY/SPORTSFILE
How could it have been entertaining? Thirty-one penalties — Carley’s whistle will need to be retuned. Do not blame the referee for a game that had more stoppage minutes than playing minutes. Tickets at the Aviva Stadium cost up to €160, which is a lot of money to pay for 80 minutes of mostly scrums, reset scrums and scrum penalties. Neither can we blame the Springboks. They came to mess up Ireland, as they do to every dangerous opponent, and identifying the best way to do that wasn’t rocket science.
It is Ireland who must accept responsibility for the mess because it was their scrum that floundered. There were many contributing factors, not least the quality of the Springboks’ four props. Even by Springbok standards, the replacement tight-head Wilco Louw is an exceptional scrummager. Other factors conspired against Ireland.
Ireland’s front row fold as they concede one of their side’s 31 penalties at the Aviva
NIALL CARSON/PA WIRE
Joe McCarthy’s injury was one handicap because he is a big and strong second-row and props, especially Ireland’s, need all the help they can get. If McCarthy’s loss wasn’t enough, James Ryan’s unfathomably stupid clearout of Marcolm Marx made things a great deal worse. Given how the game would play out, it may seem a stretch to suggest this was actually a match that Ireland could have won. But it is true. They could have.
They started brightly, their ruck speed was excellent and even though they fell behind to Damian Willemse’s early try, they easily worked their way deep into Springbok territory and Tadhg Beirne scored a good team try in the 19th minute. Then came the review. Two rucks before, Ryan’s clearout of Marx was a lunge with tucked arms and high enough to catch the Springbok hooker’s head. The impact was minimal and Marx was quickly back on his feet and ready to resume. But if only for the reckless stupidity, Ryan’s red card was deserved.
Ryan’s mindless clearout left Ireland short of power in the scrum
STAN SPORT
His loss hurt the team in general, the scrum in particular. Ryan Baird is a tall, mobile back-row, and because Ireland didn’t have a second-row replacement, Baird had to move to the engine room. It’s not a role that plays to his strengths. The back row was weakened by moving him and so too the scrum.
Ireland weren’t short of ways to make their day even worse.
Sam Prendergast put up a spiral for his outside backs but miscued and sent it directly to touch. Tommy O’Brien had a chance to drill a kick down the line, instead he too kicked it out on the full. Each of those mistakes cost the team valuable territory and it wasn’t as if the Springboks needed encouragement.
To better understand how error-prone Ireland were, consider the restart after a Sam Prendergast penalty in the 44th minute had cut the Springbok lead to nine points, 19-10. With the help of a lifter, Cian Prendergast jumped high and should have caught the restart but he dropped it. From there, South Africa initiated the attack that ended with Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu’s solo try. One mistake is all it takes.
Crowley, left, and Sam Prendergast — who are battling for the No10 jersey — were sent to the sin-bin in quick succession
DAN SHERIDAN/INPHO
Erasmus is too clever not to realised that though his team are the best in the world and have two World Cups to their name, something isn’t adding up. They’re not putting teams away. Defending deep inside their own territory for much of this game, often with one or two players down, Ireland somehow managed to stay in the game. Their spirit was admirable and any time there was the sniff of a turnover, they were ravenous.
With ten minutes to go, Ireland eventually got out of their half and after Carley penalised Manie Libbok for goading Caelan Doris after the No8 had knocked on, Ireland had good opportunities to get a try and go to within one score of the Springboks. You watched in disbelief. How could the Springboks, with their six scrum penalties, not be out of sight?
This, of course, isn’t a new failing. Last month at Twickenham South Africa played Argentina in their final Rugby Championship game of the season. Against the Pumas, they won seven scrum penalties and went on to win the game 29-27. What happens when the Boks are not winning all those scrum penalties?
As for Ireland, they need to find a functional scrum, and fast. There is hope that the young loose-head Paddy McCarthy will continue to improve and that a young tight-head can be found to challenge Tadhg Furlong because he too had every bit as difficult a day against the Boks as his partner in collapse, Porter.
Ireland’s campaign in this season’s Six Nations involves games in Paris and Twickenham. Both of these games will present challenges that Ireland need to be thinking about now.