After a night’s sleep, I rang an old friend for a new perspective. Back in the day he played almost 40 Test matches, a prop who was always a student of the scrum. It wasn’t England that he played for. What did he make of that last penalty, the fourth against the English scrum? “That was wrong,” he said, “A really bad decision.”
“Why?”
“Because the first thing that happened in the scrum was the Springbok tight-head prop Vincent Koch turned inwards and basically drove across the scrum. Totally illegal. Ellis Genge, to be fair to him, scrummed straight as the law says you must. His knee went to ground only because Koch wasn’t scrumming correctly. It was an obvious call. Penalty to England.”
It is now fashionable to speak about presenting “a good picture” to the referee. The truth is that a referee will mostly see what he’s looking for. England will rue that last scrum, thinking it shouldn’t have happened in the first place. A little more than five minutes to go, 15-13 up, they had South Africa pinned deep in their own half. Handré Pollard’s huge clearance was caught by Freddie Steward.
Up to this point, the full back had played a perfect game. Taking the ball up towards halfway, Steward opted to kick high in the expectation that he could chase and regather. For the only time on the night, he got things wrong. His punt went high but very short and in desperately trying to undo the damage, he knocked on. The fateful scrum.
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Referees must hate all scrums. How can they understand what is unknowable? What Ben O’Keeffe did know was the likelihood that the outcome of this single engagement would decide who plays New Zealand in the final. To that point, he’d awarded three scrum penalties to South Africa, one to England. The try that got the Springboks back into the game followed on from a scrum penalty.
Perhaps subconsciously, O’Keeffe believed South Africa had the stronger scrum. Two minutes before, at a scrum on the Springboks 22-metre line, England’s scrum had got the nudge on their rivals.
For the last scrum, O’Keeffe positioned himself on England’s tight-head side, close to Kyle Sinckler and Ox Nché. That scrum went down, O’Keeffe asked them to reset. He now walked round to the other side, focusing on “the picture” presented by Genge and Koch. From the moment the front rows engaged, everything happened explosively, and as this scrum careered away from him, towards the middle of the field, all O’Keeffe saw was Genge’s knee going down.
It’s a close to impossible job. In any one scrum there may be three or four infringements, which one do you penalise? Basically the one you notice. What O’Keeffe saw was Genge’s knee touch the grass and that tallied with how he thought the scrums had gone in the second half. He will review it at some point and see that Koch’s was the first infringement and the one that caused the second.
Sometimes a team doesn’t get what it deserves. England delivered their best performance at the World Cup when they needed. For 65 minutes they outplayed the world champions. I thought afterwards of a conversation I’d had with a Red Rose supporter on the walk from the train station to the ground before the game.
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It was raining. He was cheerful. The weather and his mood were connected. “This is good for us,” he said, “it will make it hard to play good rugby and I think we can really disrupt their game.” What he said made sense, though I did mention the likelihood that wet grass and a greasy ball might lead to a lot more scrums. “Oh,” he admitted, “I hadn’t thought about that. We don’t want a lot of scrums.”
It was though the scrums that killed England in the end. Or, at the very end, O’Keeffe’s interpretation of what happened at that last scrum. It is one of rugby’s great weaknesses, too much rests on what the referee sees. He needs to be all-seeing but he can’t be.
It is difficult not to feel sympathy for England. They came to the Stade de France to do unto South Africa what the Springboks like to do unto others. It was England who won most of the battles. There were four contestable kicks in the opening ten minutes, all delivered by England, all won by England.
They wanted victory more than the world champions. They won the lineout battle, they hounded South Africa all over the pitch, forcing them to just hoof the ball clear. If the Springboks had wanted to make Steward the player of the match, they couldn’t have gone about it any better. They kicked it aimlessly in his direction, he caught everything, timing his run to make the catch so that he often landed while still going forward. He was a colossus.
There were so many moments in the match that had you thinking ‘England can’t lose this.’ Every time in the first half South Africa tried to use the maul, England defended it with almost embarrassing ease. “Is that really all you’ve got?” They forced their rivals into drastic changes, Pollard for Manie Libbok after little more than half an hour, Eben Etzebeth withdrawn only six minutes into the second.
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Twelve minutes into the second half, the match had what seemed a turning point. South Africa had their best attack of the game. Down the left side, the excellent Cheslin Kolbe took a pass from Willie le Roux, jinked inside and suddenly England’s defence was open, the ball in Le Roux’s path.
A light touch with his right foot would have got him a try but Le Roux slightly misjudged the weight of his kick and the ball bounced beyond the in-goal area before he could get to it. From the 22 drop-out, England played it so smart. Owen Farrell aimed for Kurt-Lee Arendse who caught the ball and was immediately driven backwards by Manu Tuilagi and Elliot Daly. England then counter-rucked over the Springboks and from the turnover, Genge and Ben Earl made ground.
As they did Farrell moved to his left, into a little pocket, almost hidden from view. Jesse Kriel saw what was about to happen but could do nothing about it. The drop-goal was beautifully struck; 15-6 to the underdogs and in such a tight test match, it seemed a big enough lead to take England to the final.
Alas, the world of seeming is deceptive. What happened at that last scrum was cruel. Undeserved. I met a lot of happy and relieved South Africans on the train back into Paris. “Good luck in the final,” I said, while thinking they’d used up most of their luck in getting there.
