All Blacks v Italy: Where Super Rugby’s changes have hit the All Blacks the hardest - Gregor Paul

OPINION

Gregor Paul in Lyon

The Rugby World Cup produced its own version of A Tale of Two Cities last weekend. One that didn’t feature the All Blacks, but did illustrate that they are caught up in the plot nevertheless.

In Paris, where South Africa played Ireland, there was scrummaging power and intensity, the likes of which have rarely previously been seen.

Whether the Springboks’ obsession with big athletes is good or bad for rugby is open to interpretation, but what’s undeniable is the power they produced in their scrummaging.

In Lyon the following night the story could hardly have been more different. There was no power scrummaging on show in the match between Wales and Australia.

The Wallabies scrum looked like it would have struggled to cope against a paper bag, and Wales, whose pack play with the street smarts of kids from the right side of the tracks, were able to extract penalties pretty much for turning up at the mark.

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It wasn’t so much charge of the light brigade by Wales as charge of the lightweight brigade and to see the Wallabies scrum dismantled so easily, while the Boks had Ireland, hardly a side full of shrinking violets, bending and wobbling, accentuated concerns that Super Rugby Pacific is setting-up New Zealand’s top props to fail on the world stage.

Booting the South Africans to touch during Covid increasingly looks to be the worst example of aimless kicking this entire World Cup cycle.

Without their presence in Super Rugby, New Zealand’s emerging crew of props such as Ethan de Groot, Fletcher Newell and Tamaiti Williams are not being exposed to the variety or quality of world-class scrummagers they need to be, or their predecessors used to be.

All Blacks prop Tamaiti Williams training near Lyon. Photosport

Williams, who will make his first appearance at this World Cup against Italy, played his first game against South African opposition when he made his debut against the Springboks earlier this year at Mt Smart.

Having only come into the Crusaders in 2021, his scrummaging diet has been limited to other New Zealand clubs, Australian teams and Fiji.

It’s not a varied enough diet or one that has presented him with the requisite intensity to feel he’s prepared to face the likes of France, Ireland, England and South Africa who all present formidable scrummaging challenges.

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Even the Italians have a solid set-piece and Williams, like the other young props in the squad, is having to learn his international craft on the job.

To some extent that has always been the case – no prop comes into international rugby with all the answers - but the point surely can’t be missed that the props of even five years ago, were coming into the All Blacks with more answers than they currently are.

It’s a big jump for someone like Williams to go from beating up the Rebels, Force, Reds and Waratahs every other week, to then facing the full might of the Springboks.

The All Blacks best scrummager, Nepo Laulala, served a Super Rugby apprenticeship that put him up against the best and biggest from South Africa, as well as the Jaguares, who were basically the Pumas in disguise.

That sort of exposure at least gave him some idea what may be coming his way when he encountered the best scrummaging sides in international rugby.

Williams, on the other hand, has 20-odd minutes of experience against the Boks as his only useful guide to what he will be facing when he comes off the bench against Italy, and forwards coach Jason Ryan admits that he and scrummaging coach Greg Feek are having to be innovative in the way they prepare the All Blacks scrum at this World Cup.

Asked if Super Rugby was adequately preparing the youngster in his charge for the rigours of this World Cup, he said: “It was always enjoyable playing the Boks in Super Rugby in my experience because they are a big forward pack.

“You don’t have that sort of demand in the Super Rugby competition as much as you used to.

“But I think what is important is that you have to run scenarios at training and you have to make sure that you are setting guys up to succeed in different situations that you can create through different ways of loading the scrum and engaging. It’s probably not what it used to be, but we have got no excuses, we have to get ourselves right at training and we learned that in the test at Twickenham [against South Africa].”

The All Blacks have no choice but to be clever at training and try to replicate, as best they can, the sort of different scrummaging challenges that are likely coming their way.

But they can’t effectively plug that gap, not longer-term and it’s likely going to be a long and at times painful business for the likes of Williams and the next generation of All Blacks props to learn their international scrummaging craft.

All Blacks v Italy: Kickoff 8am, Saturday

Follow the match at nzherald.co.nz

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Gregor Paul is one of New Zealand’s most respected rugby writers and columnists. He has won multiple awards for journalism and has written several books about sport.