Umaga looks past the set-piece
Ellis Park on Saturday brings the first Test of Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry, and the All Blacks have spent the week describing a Springboks side they no longer read as purely a forward pack.
Tana Umaga, speaking after training on Tuesday, was asked what separates South Africa from everyone else. His answer started where you would expect. “Obviously, the size of their pack and just their relentless wave of big men coming at you,” the assistant coach said. “I think that’s going to be tough for us.”
Then came the part that matters more to a defence coach. “Everyone talks about their set-piece, but they’ve grown in terms of their attacking prowess in the backs and utilising their forwards in the right spaces.”
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Eight years of building
The reputation Umaga is describing has been eight years in the making. Rassie Erasmus took charge in 2018, and South Africa have been feared at scrum and lineout ever since, with back-to-back world titles behind them. The arrival of Tony Brown on the coaching staff pushed the work somewhere else, towards attacking structure rather than trick plays and bench arithmetic.
That combination is what Umaga wants his players braced for. “You’ve got to expect a lot of what they’re good at, and we know that’s coming, but with the coaching staff that they have in their group, we’ve got to be ready for anything,” he said. “We planned for the best, and we’ll see how we go.”
His prescription is narrow. Deny South Africa the field positions that let their strengths function, hold the ball, build momentum. “If you look after your own ball, get go-forward ball, and you’re putting pressure on them, you are more than likely to come away with points,” the former All Blacks captain said. “If you don’t do that, then you’re on the other side of that ledger.”
A tour most of this squad has never made
Dave Rennie’s side arrive unbeaten since he replaced Scott Robertson, with Tests won against France, Italy and Ireland. They also arrive with a group that largely does not know South Africa. The South African franchises left Super Rugby years ago, and Johannesburg is a first stop for a sizeable slice of the squad.
Umaga does not think that gap decides anything at Ellis Park. What the players lost when those fixtures disappeared, he said, was the travel and the camaraderie that came with it, not the intelligence on how South African rugby works.
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