Mallett predicts scrum time to be All Black downfall against Boks

Former Springbok boss and current rugby pundit Nick Mallett has aired the view that the wounded All Blacks do not possess the necessary balance to topple the world champion Springboks. 

Coming off their first home series defeat to the Irish, the All Blacks face the daunting task of a two-Test tour on the Highveld in South Africa amid calls for Ian Foster and Sam Cane to stand down as head coach and captain respectively. 

Penning a column for Sport24, Mallett put aa magnifying glass over the All Black scrum, predicting it will wilt against Jacques Nienaber’s pack. 

“New Zealand don’t have a dominant scrum. In all their competitions, they are using the scrum to launch a strike, not to win penalties. The props who play for the New Zealand franchises are generally good ball players who handle well and make good cleanouts and decisions. 

“Scrummaging is something they obviously concentrate on, but not to the extent where they want to win penalties. It’s about winning the ball under reasonable circumstances and then playing the phases. When they play a team like South Africa, it’s a completely different situation because the Boks don’t want to move the ball from the scrum, they want to win a penalty from the scrum. Have New Zealand got two tightheads and looseheads capable of lasting 80 minutes against the South African pack? I don’t believe they have.” 

Current available All Black props: 

Aidan Ross (26, Chiefs / Bay of Plenty, AB caps - 1) 
George Bower (30, Crusaders / Otago, AB caps - 14) 
Nepo Laulala (30, Blues / Counties Manukau, AB caps - 41) 
Ofa Tu’ungafasi (30, Blues / Northland, AB caps - 47) 
Ethan de Groot (23, Highlanders / Southland, AB caps - 4) 
Angus Ta’avao (32, Chiefs / Auckland, AB caps - 22) 

“Once you give scrum penalties away against the Boks, that sets up their whole territorial game. They kick for touch, they maul off lineouts and put teams and referees under immense pressure there. The ability to stop South Africa playing decent rugby starts at scrum time where you have to stop them winning penalties, and I’m not sure that New Zealand can do that given how they struggled against Ireland. I think when you look at the front row power the Springboks have on the bench in every Test, this is a clear area of advantage.” 

Mallet famously coached the Boks to a record-equalling 17 successive Test victories in the late 1990s. Turning his attention to the locks and loose-forwards, he wrote: 

“At lock, Brodie Retallick is irreplaceable and world-class, and missing him is huge. He will be replaced by a competent lock, but not of the international quality of Eben Etzebeth and Lood de Jager. South Africa have so much quality in the tight five, and the All Blacks just don’t match up there. New Zealand’s loose trio is made up of openside flankers and mobile No 8s, and Ardie Savea is the best of the bunch. He should be playing openside in place of Sam Cane, in my opinion, who I don’t think is playing well enough to justify his position in the side even if he is a good captain.  

“They also need to get a ball-carrying No 8 and a big ruck-hitting blindside flanker, and also look for a guy of 6ft4, 6ft5 as a lineout option who would have stopping power against South Africa’s ball carriers. I’m not sure they have that physicality when they field three fetcher-like players who are quite small when compared to South Africa. New Zealand have a lot of guys coming onto the field who all look the same to me, and there is nobody really standing out.”