NEWS: Bongi Mbonambi hopes for ‘fair contest’ at scrum time after Ireland’s dark arts

Heading into the opening Test match between the two sides, many predicted that the Boks would have the upper hand in the set-pieces, particularly after the Bulls’ demolition job of the Leinster pack in the URC semi-finals.

However, that was not the case for much of the match as Ireland managed to disrupt the Boks’ normally ruthlessly efficient scrum for large parts of the contest.

This was particularly true in the first half with the front row of Andrew Porter, Dan Sheehan and Tadhg Furlong putting Ox Nche, Mbonambi and Frans Malherbe under the cosh in the set piece.

However, Bok hooker Mbonambi claims that Ireland’s dark arts in the set-piece did not create a fair contest, saying a much in a press conference following Rassie Erasmus’ team announcement for the second match.

“We had quite a good chat yesterday with Daan [Human] and the whole pack and in the first half we got frustrated because Ireland looked to play a lot of tricks at scrum time,” the 33-year-old said in a move to highlight his aggrievances to the match officials.

“Where we just want a fair competition. We want a fair contest in the scrum, and it’s somewhere where we definitely have trained this week and learned our lessons from last week.”

While the Springboks battled to stamp their mark at scrum-time in the first half, the renowned ‘Bomb Squad’ came to the rescue once again as the replacements front rowers Gerhard Steenekamp, Malcolm Marx and Vincent Koch wrestled back dominance culminating in a penalty try that all but sealed the win.

“The Bomb Squad did an amazing job coming on and that penalty try was very satisfying for everyone,” Mbonambi added.

“But there is a lot of improvement to made from us when scrummaging against them.”