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Watching the Waratahs face the Blues last weekend got me thinking: what can the Tahs tweak in their existing game plan to get more offloads, physicality at the breakdown, and more points on the board?
Michael Cheika has been on a mission to fix the scrum, after it was the most penalised in 2014. But the scrum for the Tahs is fool’s gold, and the team should focus on its strengths to achieve their audacious goals of going back-to-back.
The scrum as we all know is an ever-evolving facet of the game that is constantly changing from IRB intervention, and teams imploring illegal tactics to convince the referee they have the dominant pack.
At the end of the day, for anyone who has played in the tight five, the groans of a forward pack before scrum training are warranted. The scrum is not only dangerous by nature, but is incredibly exhausting. When you’re dealing with 1.5 tonnes of force generated from a typical scrum, it’s going to take it out of you!
This was epitomised in the dying minutes of the first half against the Blues. The scrum was reset three times on the Blues’ five-metre line before Jaco Peyper lost patience and blew a penalty in favour of the Blues.
The passionate boos from the Tahs fans were great to hear but unfounded; the only ones with the right to boo was the Tahs backline who were deprived of quality ball five metres out, and potentially seven points.
The Tahs have scored most of their tries off set pieces so far this year, so why didn’t they give their stellar backline a crack? It was either arrogant or misguided to think they could get a pushover try against two experienced All Black front rowers in Tony Woodcock and Charlie Faumuina.
These fruitless attempts of achieving scrum dominance are taking its toll on one of the Tahs’ best forwards, Sekope Kepu. Although he probably wouldn’t admit it, watching the game last Saturday Kepu was huffing and puffing after each scrum. For the second consecutive week in a row Kepu came off around the 55-minute mark.
A player of Kepu’s calibre needs to play at least 70 minutes if the Tahs or Wallabies are to be contenders this year. They should focus on quick-recycled pill for the backs, with fewer engagements at scrum time, leading to Kepu having the energy to set up in attack to have more of those barnstorming breaks up the mid-field.
Roughly a month ago the Rebels destroyed the Tahs pack in the second half when both Benn Robinson and Kepu were interchanged. Jeremy Tilse got a yellow card, and it was only when Kepu came back on that the Tahs got some much-needed structure in their set piece and stopped the Rebels’ onslaught.
Cheika and his scrum consultant, Mario Ledesma, should be focusing more on quick and clean ball from the scrum as opposed to shoving the opposition pack off the pill. I’m not saying that they pack down a six-man league scrum, rather they should use the same scrum tactics from last year but focus on holding the scrum in its shape and not pursuing this ambitious goal of pushing over opposition packs.
According to SANZAR the Tahs are fourth last in scrum successes so far this season.
You only had to watch the Hurricanes play on Friday night against the Stormers to appreciate the lack of presence the scrum has in Super Rugby. At half time the Sky Sports New Zealand commentary team asked assistant coach John Plumtree for insight on the second-half game plan. His response: “We’d like less scrums”.
They haven’t lost a game this year for a multitude of reasons, but you can see that their replacement rakes in Brayden Mitchell and Motu Matu’u for the incumbent Dane Coles have an uncanny ability to strike the ball back before the opposition pack gains ascendency. These are the tactics Cheika needs to seriously consider, as it reduces the rate of scrum resets and picks up the pace of the game.
Cheika talks about the Tahs’ identity and the identity fans loved and admired last year was a high-octane and abrasive style of play. Watching those last three minutes in the first half on Saturday night, the identity was lost and tainted with a misguided set piece strategy and wasted attacking opportunities.
Having a mediocre scrum might encourage players to improve their ball skills; catch more passes, and avoid placing a game’s strategy on an area of the game that isn’t quite there.
I would love to see the Tahs go away from energy-sapping scrum resets and focus more on the things that their fans loved about them in 2014: enterprising backline play, physicality, and abrasive running.
It was these three elements that brought them their inaugural Super Rugby championship.
Join The Roar rugby editor Christy Doran, former Wallaby Matt Toomua and a cast of regular and special guests as they look at the biggest issues in the game on The Roar Rugby Podcast. If you’re looking for great odds on the next game check out Aussie bookmaker PlayUp. Chances are you’re about to lose. Set a deposit limit.