Springboks v All Blacks: Fit-again Tyrel Lomax key to Ellis Park scrum
Springboks v All Blacks, 3am Sunday
By Gregor Paul in Johannesburg
There are two distinct rugby personalities within the Springboks, but the All Blacks are reasonably certain about which one they will face in the first test of the series at Ellis Park.
The Tony Brown-inspired, fast-moving, highly skilled,
It’s a massive game; history suggests that the bigger the occasion and the greater the pressure, the more likely it is the Springboks will revert to their natural strengths of scrummaging for penalties, driving mauls and launching aerial assaults.
They will look to squeeze Dave Rennie’s men with their power game, give them no space to run and centre the contest on collisions, set-piece and kicking strategies.
“You play to your strengths and they will see that as a strength,” Rennie said. “I think our scrum will bar up. I think what they have been good at is applying a lot of pressure, winning back-to-back penalties, putting you in a corner and they are the best in the world turning that pressure into points down there.
“They lead a lot of key metrics against all the other teams in the world. Our discipline will be really important. Our accuracy will be really important. Our set piece will be massive. It is exciting we get an opportunity to measure up against the best in the world.”
The metrics to which Rennie is referring paint a clear picture of how often, and why, the Springboks lean into their natural preference for power rugby.
They win the ball back after it has been kicked more than any other team. They get into the opposition 22 more than any other team and they are the most lethal team when they get there – standing as the best at converting those entries into points.
And knowing what’s likely coming, heightens the importance of having a fit Tyrel Lomax back in the All Blacks mix.
This match – in fact, the whole series – is set for him to prove once again that he’s not only New Zealand’s best tight-head, but maybe even the best in the world.
The fact that the first test is at Ellis Park is perhaps symbolic, or maybe even motivational and inspirational, for it was at the fortress of Springboks rugby four years ago that Lomax emerged as the All Blacks’ scrummaging cornerstone.
He’d only made the trip to South Africa due to injuries to others, and he was well down the pecking order until Angus Ta’avao was injured in the first-test defeat.
From there, everything changed. Lomax impressed off the bench in Mbombela, held his spot for the following week, and delivered a destructive performance in the famous 35-23 victory.
Something clicked after that, and Lomax, from being a bit-part All Black – in and out of the squad and prone to silly acts of ill-discipline – suddenly became the foundational rock on which a vastly improved scrum was built.
Lomax’s emergence was significant enough for him to be name-checked in former All Blacks coach Ian Foster’s autobiography, Leading Under Pressure and credited with being one of the reasons why the team grew through the back half of 2022 and made the final of the 2023 Rugby World Cup.
“He had quite a bit to learn off the park about how to push himself to the nth degree to get what he wanted,” Foster wrote.
“That doesn’t come naturally to some athletes, but he really shifted in 2022, and I thought from that South Africa tour he grew in confidence and applied everything he had learned.
“That was the start of us developing one of the biggest assets the All Blacks hadn’t had in a long time which was a world class tight-head prop.
“His growth through to the World Cup was spectacular and the work that Greg Feek did with him on his scrummaging, Nic Gill did to get him to believe in his strength and in his body, and Jason did on his general play really meant that he became one of our best weapons at the World Cup.”
It wouldn’t be accurate to say he’s never looked back, because Lomax’s career has been a little derailed in the past 18 months by constant injuries.
But since emerging on that South African tour, Lomax has grown into the sort of tight-head the All Blacks haven’t had since Carl Hayman left for Newcastle in 2007.
At his best, he’s immovable and often destructive and for all the talk of the Springboks power in the scrum, they have never been able to get any return out of Lomax no matter how hard they have tried.
That’s why the All Blacks were so relieved to see Lomax recover from injury and start against the Bulls last Saturday where he produced an impressive 60 minutes.
“It was good,” Rennie said. “He probably didn’t defend as well as he had been against the Irish [in July] and he had a little bit of pressure put on him around that.
“He defended really well at the weekend [against the Bulls] and more importantly his set piece was excellent. It was good to get time into him.”
The Springboks are going to want a scrummaging war, but the All Blacks have the weaponry they need to fight it.
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