Fleckie: We’ve turned the tables on All Blacks

Robbie Fleck has praised the evolution of the Springbok attack, with Stormers forwards coach Rito Hlungwani noting New Zealand’s scrum remains a weakness.

Fleck and Hlungwani chatted to former Bok skipper Jean de Villiers on the Boks Unpacked X The Verdict podcast, sharing their views on the Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry series.

De Villiers said the Boks broke the line 11 times and dominated post-contact metres in Baltimore last week, and put it to Fleck that it’s arguably now wrong to characterise South Africa primarily as a set-piece team, given the tries tally climbed from one in the series opener to six in the fourth and final Test.

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“We certainly have grown, not just in this series but over the last 12 months, since Tony [Brown] has come in,” the ex-Bok said. “He’s brought a different sort of mindset: a bit more possession, ball in hand, an extra pass here or two, especially on the front foot. 

“That allows our runners to isolate defenders, hence the post-contact metres. We get into one-on-ones instead of double tackles, so we started to get in behind defences.

“In that first Test, we showed a little bit of it, but we turned over too much possession. As the series went on, especially in this fourth Test, you saw that.

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“Another big jump in our game is our turnover attack. That’s something that, against New Zealand, we’ve always played against; we’d have a few phases, turn over the ball, two passes, gone, they score.

“Now, Kurt-Lee Arendse’s try is a classic example of what they always did to us for decades, and that’s coming into our game as well. We have definitely got balance.”

Hlungwani recalled the Kiwis’ tour opener against the Stormers, where they conceded 11 scrum penalties before adjusting against the Lions and Bulls and believing the problem had been fixed. 

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“But when they started playing the Springboks again, the scrum showed that they still haven’t solved those problems. One game is not enough to actually say you’ve solved it,” he said.

“If we played again next week, we probably would have found another way to sort of destroy them. But it is a weakness of theirs.”

Hlungwani revealed how the Stormers had identified the tourists’ lack of exposure to prolonged scrums, mauls and box-kicking in Super Rugby as areas to exploit. 

“I thought South Africa did well in terms of capitalising on that.”

Photo: Alan Spiegler/Gallo Images