All the faces will be familiar, but there will be no friendly pre-match handshakes, winks or cheeky smiles when the first scrum is packed away. In four weeks’ time it will be the anniversary of the Springboks’ destruction of the Irish scrum, and it will also be marked by a second leg on the same third Saturday in November, at an identical venue on the banks of the River Dodder.
Poker players will be serious and focused, giving nothing away when hostilities resume. Leinster prop Andrew Porter had his metaphorical head in his hands 12 months ago, but this will be a fresh start armed with new information. November 21, 2025 may have been a bitter pill to swallow, but the technical and physical lessons will stay with all members of that Ireland first row.
A key theme for the ‘Ports was the image of dominance the Springboks could present to referee Matthew Carley:
“Obviously it’s hard to deal with it at the moment, to solve those problems, when you’ve given away a couple of penalties. I guess you have that other side where it’s probably It’s in the referee’s head that they are the dominant scrum. I take great responsibility for that. Like your bad day at the office, and that was just one of them.”
‘Domination’ was also a word that South African head coach ‘Rassie’ Erasmus reached for repeatedly after the match ended, repeating it like some kind of magical talisman, his fingers like a rosary of beads:
“Ireland have dominated us as a group before. We know they’re still against us (on aggregate) so we won’t get carried away with that. We were grateful to be able to beat them here. It’s been a long season for us. We’re proud after a long season to beat a team like them at home.
“I think we were dominant in the scrums. I thought we were dominant in most parts of the game. Today was tough and difficult to manage and understand who was off and who was on, who had HIA and that’s Test match rugby at the highest level.”
Paint a picture of dominance and your reality, like All black people found at their cost in the recent Greatest Rivalry series. But the biggest picture always starts with the smallest details, and in scrum time that means setup.
The most compelling scrum comments after the demolition in Dublin came from the lips of former Leinster and Irish prop Mike Ross:
“A lot of the time, the South African props were difficult to corner. Personally, I’d be delighted to see an Irish prop come in at that angle and be rewarded. It’s great if you can get away with it, you know?”
“On several occasions it was very clear and obvious that they were driving up, then left. If you look, it’s there. But they got the engagement, which makes it easier to go forward and gives a good picture to the referee. If you judge by the letter of the law, you overturn one or two of them (calls).
“(But) it snowballed – giving up penalties so you lose props and give up more men. It’s not going to get better. South Africa were rewarded for dominance when it wasn’t always legal. If you want to encourage that sort of thing – well, reward it.”
When setting up a Springbok, whether it’s Wilco Louw or Thomas Du Toit (in the screenshot) is angled, and that’s what caused Dave Rennie’s All Blacks so much grief during the RGR series. The South African wanted to move closer to the center of the scrum in the ‘set’, and that meant the whore Malcolm Marx was tiptoeing inches to the left of the starting position of his brake.
This allowed Marks to dive under his opposite number’s right shoulder and the loose-headed Springbok to step forward a little further to his left:
https://t.co/2a6UTxWrlu
— William Bishop (@RPvids1994) September 7, 2026
Du Toit sets up for a corner, Marx drives up and through the right shoulder France whore Julien Marchand, to the point where he loses touch with his firm head, and Boan Venter walks around Régis Montagne to complete the picture. With an eagle’s eye view, it’s easy to see that the South Africans in the back five forwards all take a short step to the left before starting to drive forward. There is the meat of a real ‘punch’ à la Rassie, but there is more than just a hint of the secret sauce, the ‘walk’ described by Dave Rennie.
Ross went on to pay tribute to Marx’s prowess in jumping mid-fight: “The more I watched him, the more I was impressed by Marx. He’s a beast that breaks.” With Deon Fourie or Johan Grobbelaar in the middle of the front row, the Springbok scrums do not advance at all and sometimes even retreat; but with Marx on the spotthey seem unstoppable.
In the new global rugby economy, news travels fast and no innovation remains the sole preserve of the nation that created it for very long. South Africa’s methods of achieving an image of dominance at scrum time have been put under the microscope. The last weekend in rugby – the first round of the men’s European Champions Cup and WXV Global Series in the women’s game – has already provided numerous examples of other countries copying South Africa’s scrum methodology to great effect.
South Africa won eight scrum-time penalties (including penalty advantages) against Ireland last November. During the weekend, England the women won seven more penalties against Canada and perennial Champions Cup contenders Leinster won six against Canada Clermont in Auvergne. Both used the same techniques as the Springboks.
Not many clubs are able to treat an away day in France as a sign of a wild party, but that’s exactly what Dublin Province were able to do at the Stade Marcel-Michelin. British and Lions The front row of Porter, whore Dan Sheehan and hard-nosed Tadhg Furlong, who started the game against the Boks last November, rebelled against their Top 14 opponents. There were some subtle differences in starter Furlong’s body position for the three rounds of the Lions Test at set-up:
Furlong looks more correct in the 2026 overhead shot Six Nations game against France than against Clermont a few months later. If Furlong did indeed shape more towards the center of the scrum at the ‘set’, then later developments on the Leinster feed certainly supported that.
https://t.co/OO4vWDrQNC
— William Bishop (@RPvids1994) October 19, 2026
https://t.co/16KdW3TbIq
— William Bishop (@RPvids1994) October 19, 2026
https://t.co/sFPQa43Nn0
— William Bishop (@RPvids1994) October 19, 2026
At the first scrum, Furlong steps left onto the set-up, and the lateral movement of the back five forward foot is particularly clear in the second and third clip – step left, push forward. Or in the rather more controversial language of RGR, ‘walk around, walk around’.
By the final shot, the English referee from last November in Dublin had seen enough and awarded a penalty and a yellow card against Clermont academy prop Nohem Ez Zahouany, who was replacing Montagne that day. It was a trial of a Springbok-influenced setup by Ireland’s top provincial tussle. What’s good for the South African goose is definitely a tasty morsel for the Irish gander.
The transfer of the South African IP did not end there. At Sandy Park in September, the Red Roses’ 39-game winning streak was ended in a 26-26 draw against the Canadians, with England not winning a single penalty on the day. Four weeks later, the women in white won seven penalties against the same opposition, with identical sets of props in the 23-woman squad.
Veteran Amy Cokayne resumed starting hook duty, and that addition alone could be as significant as the difference Marx makes in the middle of the Springboks’ front row:
https://t.co/NxZyDYd3Uz
— William Bishop (@RPvids1994) October 19, 2026
Number three Sarah Bern goes into the corner, while Hannah Botterman is relaxed and the lock behind her step to the left after the pass; then the race goes straight for the goal line unopposed, and the Canadian pack remains in an undignified heap on the ground behind them. It works like clockwork every time, as Leinster discovered in the Champions Cup. You can go from duster to rooster very quickly indeed, if you have the right information at hand.
Ireland are preparing for a scrum war in round six of the Nations Championship. South Africa’s methodology has been absorbed and understood elsewhere in planet rugby, and Andy Farrell’s charges know what the latest ‘image of dominance’ looks like.
Word has spread like wildfire, and some high-profile matches in the men’s and women’s games are now generating the same lopsided penalty results as in Dublin last November, or in the RGR series in August and September.
There were a lot of sanctions, yellow cards and penalties awarded in set-pieces. It’s not a pretty picture, but it could be just what the men in green need to stand up and take on the world champions on their anniversary in Dublin.
