Pop quiz. What do Malcolm Marx, Joseph Dweba, Thomas Du Toit, Steven Kitshoff, Siya Kolisi, Marco van Staden, Kwagga Smith, Pieter-Steph Du Toit, Jaden Hendrikse, Faf De Klerk, Damian De Allende, Lukhanyo Am, Frans Steyn, Cheslin Kolbe and Makazole Mapimpi have in common?

Yes, they are all rugby players in the current Springbok squad. More specifically, they are all Springboks who have won turnovers – or much more likely, turnover penalties – at the breakdown over the past couple of months, either against the British and Irish Lions or Argentina in the opening two rounds of the Rugby Championship.

The threat posed by South Africa at the post-tackle is universal and team-wide. Only one position on the field is entirely unrepresented and that is fullback.

It is hard indeed to imagine Willie Le Roux dirtying either his hands or his shorts with such menial work. After the career he has enjoyed at fullback, he is entitled to pick and choose his moments to contribute.

The Lions’ apparent reluctance to honour their tradition of creative ball-use in the face of the suffocating South African breakdown defence was recently justified by the Lions head coach Warren Gatland:

“The example of where the international game is at the moment is when we saw how South Africa won the World Cup, and they won through their kicking game.

“And in 2019, during that whole year, the only team that they lost to were the All Blacks – and the All Blacks kicked more than South Africa. Every other team that they played and won they kicked more than the opposition, so that’s kind of where the game is at the moment.

“It is about territory and kicking and putting kick pressure on, not playing too much rugby.

“They don’t want lots of phases at breakdowns because every breakdown is a 12 per cent chance of a turnover. You get to the next phase, it’s a 24 per cent chance and the next phase is a 36 per cent chance.

“Those are the sorts of things and stats are people are looking at and you’re just limiting the percentages.”

Although you can argue with the dodgy maths – the true ratio of turnover is between six and eight per cent and does not double with every following phase – it is easy to see the gist of Gatland’s thinking.

The reasoning has not gone down well with some of the Lions’ historic stakeholders or with current players in the game. Scotland outside-half Finn Russell, who was able to make the Lions attack with ball in hand look productive when he came on after ten minutes of the deciding Test, said after the tour:

“The first two Tests we played off nine for two phases and I kind of felt that played into their defence.

“The first ten minutes of the third Test, there was still quite a bit of kicking and a lot of play off nine.

“There wasn’t much rugby that actually got played.

“I was sitting on the bench thinking: we are doing the same as in the last two games even though we’ve spoken about being a little bit more expansive.”

On a BBC Rugby podcast, Harlequins number 9 Danny Care added, “Before the tour we spoke to Robbie Henshaw and he said, ‘we’re going to play attacking rugby and Gregor Townsend is going to put his stamp on this tour.’

“We haven’t seen any of that the whole tour. It’s been kick, kick, set-piece to set-piece, back your defence and kick chase. They can’t do it better than South Africa but it still looks like they are not changing it.”

So, why didn’t Townsend have a bigger say in the Lions playing policy? Why didn’t they start attacking with ball in hand until the fat lady was already pulling up her frock and rising from her chair?

The answer circles back inevitably to South Africa Director of Rugby Rassie Erasmus’ social media outburst in the interval between the first and second Tests.

His attack on Australian referee Nic Berry was carefully calculated to get the series as a whole, and the tackle area in particular, refereed in the way that gave South Africa the best chance of winning it.

With his battalion of on-ballers, Erasmus wanted the presence of the first arriving defender rewarded, regardless of legality. Of Erasmus’ 26 clips, 18 were focused on the breakdown.

It was a carefully-orchestrated attack on the new guidelines World Rugby had announced in 2020, ably described in this video by New Zealand Director of Referees Bryce Lawrence and current international official Paul Williams.

It worked, and how it worked. Berry followed World Rugby’s new protocol accurately, getting the tackler out of the way and requiring the first arriving defender to support his bodyweight and show a clear release of both the ball and tackled player.

Seven out of the ten penalties he awarded at the tackle were to the attack, not the defence.

After the Erasmus outburst, the trend was reversed, with Ben O’Keefe awarding seven out of 11 penalties at the breakdown to the defence in the second match.

That trend has continued in the first two rounds of The Rugby Championship played in South Africa. Of the 33 penalties awarded at the breakdown by Ireland’s Andrew Brace and Englishman Karl Dickson, 11 went to the attack and 22 were awarded to the defence.

Dickson looked especially ill-at-ease, blowing the whistle on a massive 38 occasions and handing 13 out of 18 penalties awarded at the tackle (including penalties awarded under an existing advantage) to the defending side.

The moral of the story is clear. As a referee going to South Africa, you can catch a bad case of the Rassies, and begin awarding penalties compulsively to the defence, on pain of a public thrashing on social media afterwards. It must be something in the water-carrier.

The first two contests between Australia and New Zealand threw events in South Africa into even starker contrast. Kiwi officials Paul Williams and Brendon Pickerill applied World Rugby’s protocols as they were originally intended, and the ratio of penalties was turned on its head: 16 to the attack and eight to the defence over the two games.

They also asked the defensive side to play the turnover far more frequently, rather than to expect the penalty.

The difference has been dramatic: an average of 69 points and ten tries per game in New Zealand, compared to 42 points and three tries per game in the Republic. From the spectator’s point of view, there has only been one place to be.

Let’s look at some of the differences in the refereeing climate engineered by Rassie’s outburst. In South Africa, this kind of turnover is possible for the defence.

There are at least three offences which would probably have been picked up by the two Kiwi referees (or Nic Berry) before the turnover ever occurs. The tackle by Franco Mostert is made in ‘submarine’ mode, with no arms apparent in a wrapping motion. Mostert then clears out of the tackle zone North-South, and that forces the first Pumas cleanout player (number one Nahuel Tetaz-Chaparro) to skirt around to the right of the tackle.

By the end of the play, Tetaz is trying to remove Malcolm Marx at a right angle. Lastly, there also has to be significant doubt about whether Marx is supporting his bodyweight throughout the exercise.

The Boks are very smart at hiding their marginal activities from refereeing scrutiny.

It looks like a genuine steal by Springbok hooker Joseph Dweba – at least until you look at one of the still-frames.

While Dweba is lifting the ball with his right hand, but he also clamping the Argentine ball-carrier with his left, and preventing him from releasing the ball!

Andrew Brace and Karl Dickson also gave the attacking side a narrower window, in respect of cleanout technique and movement on the ground by the ball-carrier.

Both the instances feature the Pumas forward Marcos Kremer. In the first example, he is penalised for making an extra movement on the ground even though he is not being held by a defender or preventing a steal.

In the second, he was pinged for a neck-roll on Frans Steyn, which was a fair call. But by the same token, the first offence is Steyn’s failure to release the tackled player, and that is ignored.

In the second Bledisloe Cup game, Brendon Pickerill used his common sense in relation to ‘crawling on the ground’.

Marika Koroibete ‘rabbits’ on the deck after a tap-tackle by Richie Mo’unga, but he is never held and Pickerill sensibly allows attacking play to continue.

Michael Hooper is on the ball, but the tackler (Tate McDermott) is obstructing Rieko Ioane’s path to the cleanout.

It is a fair assumption that the penalty would have gone the other way in South Africa.

Brendon Pickerill was fair and consistent in his rulings right through to the end of the game.

The tackler (number 18 Angus Ta’avao) does not clear the zone but impedes the attempted cleanout by Reece Hodge, so the issue around him is primary: “To reward the tackler, the tackler must not impede the cleanout.” These are the law amendments as they were designed to be refereed.

Pickerill was not afraid to make his decisions matter, and they influenced the course of the game. After penalising Dalton Papali’i for losing his feet at a ruck near the New Zealand goal-line at the end of the first half…

…Pickerill yellow-carded Ardie Savea for the same offence at the beginning of the second.

A referee focused on producing quick ruck ball for both sides changes attitudes and behaviours. Maybe it was in the back of Darcy Swain’s mind, when he second-guessed his assault on Aaron Smith at the base?

The best try of the game was preceded by penalty advantage against Michael Hooper at the previous breakdown, for competing after a ruck had been formed.

Pickerill’s outstretched arm at the beginning of the play is an eloquent statement of refereeing purpose: the official is there to shape behaviours which encourage movement of the ball and the possibility of attacking play, not just kicking the ball up in the air and running after it.

Summary

Refereeing in the Rugby Championship has become divided along the same fault-lines as the sputtering SANZAAR alliance as a whole. South Africa has turned to face north-wards, and referees who come to the country can expect to be ‘schooled’ to reward defence at the breakdown.

The intimidating shadow of Rassie’s social media assault still hangs heavy above their heads.

The two New Zealanders who officiated in the initial Bledisloe Cup fixtures showed encouraging signs of adopting the guidelines laid down by World Rugby in 2020, and enacted in the second half of the English Premiership season in 2021.

Like Nic Berry in the Lions series, Brendon Pickerill and Paul Williams both delivered well-balanced performances with the whistle which can help progress the development of the game.

They required the tackler to get out of the way and the first arriving player to release the ball-carrier and support his own body-weight, and they encouraged defenders to play the ball out of the turnover rather than hang on for the penalty.

This allowed both sides to believe that something more was possible with ball in hand than Warren Gatland’s bleak 12 per cent outlook. Over the two games, the sides between them lost only one in every 20 of the balls they took into contact, compared to Gatland’s one in eight.

The recent decision by SANZAAR to stage the remainder of the recast Rugby Championship in Australia is a good one. It will help ensure a healthier and more neutral refereeing climate, and it will give a better chance for officials to apply the 2020 World Rugby law amendments correctly.

The game will benefit, and the likes of Danny Care and Finn Russell will be happier men.