Boks’ scrum coach Human takes the rough with the smooth

The sun's out in familiar surrounds and the Boks can warm to another challenge.

The gloom of Paris now well behind them as they set about their task on a belter of a day in sun-baked Toulon ahead of Sunday's clash against Tonga in Marseille.

Daan Human — a farmer from Verkeerdevlei, 80-odd kilometres north of Bloemfontein, and the Springboks' scrum coach — calls their base in Provence “home”.

“Good times and bad. Some for you and some against,” he said about taking the rough with the smooth at scrum time last week against Ireland.

Though they lost 13-8, the Bok scrum had the better of Ireland, though six of Ireland's points came via scrum penalties.

Human finds comfort that those were technical penalties and not as a result of fault lines in the Bok formation.

He pointed to the fact that Frans Malherbe slipped in one of the scrums. “I'm not sure if it is allowed but can we play with 25mm studs? Maybe we can put a request in for that. Maybe then we can slip a bit less,” he said, revealing his sarcastic streak.

He and the Boks are ready to reset — put the Ireland defeat behind them and focus wholly on the next task at hand, Tonga.

He said Sunday's clash is the Bok focus, but he kept being dragged back to Saturday evening's shortfalls in the Stade de France against Ireland.

He was even probed about the Boks' decision to kick for poles from long range when a touch finder, line-out and driving maul may have served them better.

“The statistics say on average, 70% of all the kicks going for touch are not successful. We backed our boys with the kicking,” he said of Manie Libbok and Faf de Klerk, who equally shared four misses between them.

“That's why we kicked for the poles, but we back our maul going forward. We will work on that. We'll rectify that and I'm sure [assistant coach] Deon Davids is putting a lot into that to make it successful.

“I don't think there is a right or a wrong. I think it is actually the way you feel comfortable. We were actually very comfortable with Faf kicking those long kicks and one of them actually got to the poles.

“I like the fact [that] there is a lot of confidence in kicking. I don't think we should go away from that.”

The last maul of Saturday evening's encounter could have brought the Boks a win but it was stunted by Ireland, some suggesting illegally.

“We have looked at it and see where we can do it better. We have the players. We are not going to talk it right.

“I'm not going judge him [referee Ben O'Keefe] on his calling. He was in a much better position than I was.

“I have no problem with the choice he made. He had to make a choice and that is what he did.”

Eventually, though, Human could talk about Tonga, who South Africa meet back at Stade Vélodrome, where they got their opening win against Scotland. The Pacific islanders are on a mission after defeat to Ireland and Scotland. Human expects them to be a handful up front.

“If not the heaviest pack in the competition, they have a huge hit. We need to be able to handle that. They scrum very well, they put Ireland under a lot of pressure. They have a helluva pack.

“In the 57th minute, Scotland only led 24-17 against Tonga. They are very competitive. With a bit of luck they could have gone further in the competition.”