Schalk Burger says that matchday squads may have to get bigger if Test matches keep seeing a repeat of the circumstances that led to scrums between the Springboks and Wallabies being uncontested in Perth.
The Springboks are on their way home from Australia after claiming historic back-to-back wins over the Wallabies in the opening Rugby Championship matches in Brisbane and Perth.
However, the second-round clash in Perth was marked with controversy after the Wallabies props Angus Bell, captain Alan Alaalatoa and centurion James Slipper were all forced off the field.
MORE: Oz coach shocked by uncontested scrums
This forced the referee to call uncontested scrums and there have been suggestions that the Wallabies had exploited the HIA rule to avoid scrumming against the more experienced Bok front row of Ox Nche, Malcolm Marx and Vincent Koch, who all came off the bench early in the second half.
Speaking on the latest episode of The Verdict with Jean de Villiers and Lood de Jager, former Bok flank Burger said that while he isn’t buying into the conspiracy theory, he thinks Test teams will have to allow for more replacement props in the future, to avoid uncontested scrums.
“I believe no team would do that [deliberately],” Burger said. “HIA protocol will determine whether they [the Wallabies props] are available [against Argentina], but if you fail an HIA, the chance of you playing the next week is out of the question, but they don’t have a game this week.
“To a point that I’ve made previously, I think [matchday] squads will have to get bigger if this is the case,” Burger argued. “You feel short changed as a spectator when the scrum is a non-contest.
“It just looks weird. If someone watched the game for the first time, they would have thought, ‘why is this a scrum? what is this all about?’
“So it was unfortunate from a spectacle point of view, because I think we could have really put them under pressure. But what it forced us to do, and something that the Boks haven’t had this year, is a dominant maul. Our maul was so dominant this week.
“We were forced to kick to touch, because we couldn’t get penalties from our scrum, and our maul was outstanding. The main difference I picked up is in the past we would be quite hesitant to get the ball to the back of it. We saw from Marco van Staden and Malcolm Marx’s second try that the hit was more important. So they burst through the middle. Also credit to the referee for not calling the use-it-once so quickly. We were actually creeping and still moving, which allowed us to get through.”
Photo: Paul Kane/Getty Images
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Src: sarugbymag.co.za
