Former Springbok forwards Schalk Burger and Hanyani Shimange believe the game-changing 55th-minute scrum in the first Test at Ellis Park should have been reset.
After opting three times to scrum from penalties, Bok replacement loosehead prop Gerhard Steenekamp was penalised by referee Matthew Carley for walking around the scrum. From there, momentum swung sharply and the All Blacks went on to claim a 33-16 victory in the Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry opener.
Reviewing the decisive scrum on The Verdict podcast, Burger and Shimange felt Steenekamp had maintained his bind with hooker Malcolm Marx.
“In my opinion, [Steenekamp] stays connected to the hooker,” Shimange said. “He’s connected to Malcolm the whole time.”
“That’s a reset all day,” said Burger.
“Ja, that’s a reset,” Shimange agreed. “Because if you look on the other side, [George] Bower actually gets underneath [Wilco] Louw, so the scrum actually turns like that. It’s not forward dominance from New Zealand. That, for me, is a reset, if anything.”
Burger said the decision proved pivotal.
“This is where the ‘rope-a-dope’ term came from, because then you go penalty against you, penalty against you, they get into our half and the momentum all of a sudden goes to the All Blacks.
“They started doing a lot right then.”
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Their view echoes that of former Bok lock Victor Matfield, who also questioned the decision on the Rugby Rivals podcast.
‘Your No 1 [Bower] went on the angle so badly and that’s why we just shifted away,’ Matfield said.
“Because No 1 went around the angle, we were straight, all of a sudden we dominated the scrum, we were going forward again, and all of a sudden penalty against South Africa.”
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