Officials to assess use of innovations by Rassie Erasmus against Italy

Times

20 hours ago

The match officials in South Africa's win over Italy are set to assess their handling of the home side's intentionally mistaken kick-off, one of two controversial innovations used by the head coach Rassie Erasmus in the match.
The Springboks' 45-0 victory on Saturday in Gqeberha featured two unorthodox tactics that were widely shared and debated: the kick-off strategy — which guaranteed an early scrum and was criticised by the away team's head coach — and a lineout formation to set up a maul in open play.
When the refereeing team meet this week to discuss their performance — as they do after every Test — they will assess their interpretation of the opening move of the game, which could have ramifications for future rulings.
André Esterhuizen, the Springboks centre, ran ahead of Manie Libbok at kick-off and the fly half dinked the ball straight to his team-mate, ensuring it would not travel the requisite ten metres and the match would begin with a scrum. South Africa then conceded a free kick at the set-piece. 'We wanted to get the scrum badly to get into the game early on,' Erasmus said. 'We make a lot of little plans that sometimes don't pay off, that people don't know of.'
Gonzalo Quesada expressed his surprise over the manoeuvre. 'I didn't take it very well, they can beat us without needing to do this kind of tactic,' the Italy head coach said. 'These last couple of weeks, we've been extremely respectful, coming here with a lot of humility — the land of the world champions and deserved double world champions.
'We know that when they prepared this game, they decided to dominate us and show us why they are the first team in the world.
'I was surprised because I don't know if it was something we did or said that created that first moment. They didn't need to do that to beat us.'
Quesada had more praise for the Springboks' second innovation. Later in the game, South African forwards lifted a team-mate in the middle of the field to receive a pass from the scrum half, manufacturing a driving maul in open play. Law 9.26 states: 'In open play, any player may lift or support a team-mate.' The tactic has previously been used by Paul Roos Gymnasium's age-group sides.
Regarding the kick-off tactic, one can interpret the existing laws in two ways. Law 12.5 states: 'When the ball is kicked: team-mates of the kicker must be behind the ball.' The first offence was that Esterhuizen was in front of the ball, therefore a scrum was awarded in accordance with the listed sanction. Law 12.6 adds that 'the ball must reach the 10-metre line', for which the sanction is either a scrum or a retaken kick-off, decided by the opposing team. Esterhuizen's role prevented that choice. There is no firm provision in law 12 that 'an offside player must not interfere with play', though that phrase exists in law 10, which governs offside and onside in open play rather than at kick-offs and restarts.
However, Andrew Brace could have penalised South Africa under foul play under two edicts that, in effect, give officials the latitude to punish whatever they deem to be unfair. Law 9.27 states: 'A player must not do anything that is against the spirit of good sportsmanship.' More pertinently for this incident, law 9.7 stipulates that 'a player must not intentionally infringe any law of the game'. If South Africa had discussed the tactic beforehand with Brace, it could easily be viewed as a deliberate infringement, with a penalty awarded to Italy.
As with the in-field lineout, the Springboks do not have sole ownership of the deliberately mistaken restart. Immediate scrums used to be a feature of the wild days of French club rugby, when fly halves would deliberately kick the ball straight out to ensure an early confrontation on the halfway line.
Supporters of Erasmus again have cause to celebrate the innovations of the world champions, and to revel in those who cry foul. South Africa's use of the 'bomb squad' in a 7:1 split of forwards to backs on the bench has intensified calls in some quarters to limit the impact of replacements. Less controversially, in the 2023 World Cup quarter-final, Damian Willemse took the unusual move of calling for a scrum from a mark in his own 22, in another show of Springbok brain and brawn.
Novel tactics and the use of loopholes often bring about changes to the laws of the game, such as Italy's no-ruck 'fox' tactic against England in 2017 and the so-called 'Dupont law', which was recently altered to ensure players had to make more effort to return to an onside position during a kick chase.