Rassie reveals origin of midfield maul as Boks’ full bag of tricks on show against Italy

The Springboks and their full bag of tricks were on show during their entertaining 45-0 thrashing of Italy in front of a passionate crowd at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium in Gqeberha on Saturday night.

Coach Rassie Erasmus, the ultimate innovator, was at it once again as the Boks continued to push the boundaries of what is acceptable in rugby, as they constantly looked to unsettle their Italian visitors throughout the match on Saturday.

The Boks got into it from the first whistle, when flyhalf Manie Libbok deliberately kicked off short, triggering a scrum, which they hoped would set the tone for a dominant set piece, but were unlucky as they were penalised for an early engagement, with Italy earning a free kick.

School rugby move

But it didn’t stop there as the Boks pulled off a move that they had seen done by a school rugby team — lifting a player (like in a lineout) during open play to set up a midfield maul.

Incredibly it worked on both occasions; the first leading to penalty advantage after the maul was collapsed, with them attacking from it and seeing outside centre Canan Moodie busting over, while the second saw them mauling over the line with hooker Malcolm Marx dotting down.

“We actually saw (a clip of) the Paul Roos U14B side doing that move. You just get all the benefits that you do in the lineout, except this time in general play. So it worked for us twice, but now people will obviously be alert to that, and we won’t be able to do it for a couple of games,” said Erasmus with a smile.

Meanwhile, Bok prop Thomas du Toit had a torrid time in the scrums during his 30 minutes on the field, conceding two free kicks for early engagement, while he was also nailed with a long arm penalty, although he also earned a penalty for the Boks with a dominant scrum.

He was then replaced early by specialist loosehead Ox Nche, with Erasmus explaining that was purely down to the red card received by eighthman Jasper Wiese for a headbutt, that reduced the Bok scrum to seven men after 22 minutes.

Seven man scrum

“Thomas is a guy who can play both sides, loosehead and tighthead, but we think that he is a better tighthead. When we were reduced to 14-men, and we had a seven man scrum, we felt we needed an out and out loosehead to stabilise the scrum and handle the pressure of scrumming against eight guys with seven,” said Erasmus.

“We just felt Ox is more experienced (at loosehead) and very equipped for that, whereas Thomas is a bit of a swinger on both sides. If he was at tighthead where he is more comfortable and played a little bit more, we wouldn’t have taken him off. So it was purely due to us having a seven man scrum.”

However, the seven man scrum did give the Boks an opportunity to test out their hybrid back once again, that they unleashed during the non-Test against the Barbarians a few weeks ago.

On that occasion inside centre Andre Esterhuizen came off the bench for the final 36 minutes at flank, but this time was slightly different as he started the game in the midfield, and thus packed down in the scrums (after Wiese went off), while also playing as usual in the backline.

“I think it saved us (experimenting with Esterhuizen). We didn’t have to take a back off and put a loose forward on. On our ball we could put Andre in at flank, and on their ball we could have him at centre.

“So it has really worked out well for us and I must be honest, when we planned that in the beginning I didn’t think it would help out with a red card. But it has worked out nicely for us, especially in that regard.”