New Zealand head coach Dave Rennie has reiterated his criticism of the South African scrum and called on World Rugby to simplify the set-piece. The All Blacks lost a four-Test series 3-1 to the world champions this summer, with the matches overshadowed by a war of words over perceived slowing tactics from the Springboks at the set-piece.
Brake foot criticism
Rennie has now doubled down on that view, also criticising the 2024 introduction of the brake foot, which World Rugby describes as "a mandatory scrum technique where hookers place one foot forward in the tunnel during the 'crouch' and 'bind' phases to improve player safety".
"It's the frustrating part of a game, to be honest. I made mention of it during the series," the All Blacks boss told Newstalk ZB's Weekend Sport with Jason Pine. "There was a meeting about the shape of the game with World Rugby and the brake foot was never mentioned but then all of a sudden it comes in."
"It's an area where I don't believe the referees were fully committed to it either and so we just got different messages in the changing room before every Test in July. So some might be saying, 'Oh look, just give me something'. Others are saying, 'You got to make sure you have your foot out there'."
Referees left with too much to check
"Then what came in is that if you had your foot out there but you didn't have your heel down, you're gonna get penalised for that. I've got no understanding around the value of that. Supposedly, it's gonna stop 800 kilos behind you if you have your heel down. And I think it made it harder for the referee."
"We've got a game where I reckon we're going to delete rules and things out of a game, not add more and so you've now got referees trying to see a foot that on the 'S' of set can be dragged back but the heel has to be down, so the referee can invariably only see one of those feet because the nine is blocking the path on some sides. So then they are missing the obvious angles, the obvious elbows."
Rennie emphasised that a challenge needs to be sent to World Rugby to simplify the laws and give referees less to think about. "We just felt that the South African tightheads are on a 45 immediately, and then they'd walk sideways," he added. "It's really hard for our loosehead to stay in front of a tighthead who is shearing in. So if you have got scrums that are going sideways, and if they get rewarded for that, they are smart; they're going to keep doing it."
Meetings scheduled
"So what we felt was if they were forced to scrum square, then we can stay in front of that and we won't have any issues. I thought we scrummed really well in the fourth Test in Baltimore. That's the challenge we're sending to World Rugby: let's simplify things. Let's give the referees less to think about and look at, and just concentrate on keeping the scrum square."
"If you do that, then the team that's strongest can push through you. I mean, that's fair enough but if you're able to shear across and get rewarded for that, then it's going to be a debacle at every scrum."
Rennie added that a meeting was due to be held this week with World Rugby and another summit scheduled for when all Test nations will be in the northern hemisphere for the Nations Championship conclusion later this year. "We've got a meeting this week and then we've got a conference when everyone's up in the UK prior to our first round of Tests," he said.
"So I think the Sunday before we play Scotland, we're all meeting down in London. So there's definitely a lot of personal interest or self-interest when you go to those meetings and so maybe what's best for the game isn't always what happens because teams may feel that it doesn't benefit them but I think there's a handful of things that are odd in our game."
Rennie also criticised the allowance for half-backs to roll the ball back with their hands outside the ruck, saying that means the ball is out the whole time and cannot be competed for. He suggested there should be a five-second rule to kick the ball and that teams should not be able to bring more numbers into a ruck once it has been set, as that slows the game down.
"There are a few strange things that have come in and been adopted that haven't really been discussed by all the coaches from nations around the world," he added.
