Springboks hooker Bongi Mbonami won’t allow Ireland’s dark arts in the scrums to maak sy bors warm in Saturday’s 5pm second Test at Kings Park.
The Springbok hooker did not mince his words ahead of the second clash by calling out the dirty tricks used by the visitors in the set-piece in last weekend’s 27-20 win for South Africa at Loftus Versfeld.
The Boks were on the charge in the opening 20 minutes at Loftus – dominating the Irish in all facets of play.
But the tide suddenly turned as Ireland got some ascendancy at the scrums and the breakdowns and Mbonambi admits it frustrated them big time, with the 33-year-old’s temper getting the better of him in some argy-bargy with the visitors.
South Africa would, however, regain their forward dominance when Mbonambi, captain Siya Kolisi, Eben Etzebeth, Franco Mostert, Frans Malherbe and Ox Nche were replaced in the 49th minute, as the Bomb Squad (Malcolm Marx, Gerhard Steenekamp, Vincent Koch, Salmaan Moerat and RG Snyman) delivered the slow poison that would see off the Shamrocks.
But of the starting forwards hammering the Iere fair and square in Durban, Mbonambi says: “We had quite a good chat yesterday with [scrum coach] Daan [Human] and the forwards. We know in the first half we kind of got a little frustrated.
“[Especially] with Ireland using a lot of tricks at scrum-time, whereas we just want a fair competition.
“We want a fair contest in the scrum, but it was something that we definitely have to learn from and need to train this week.”
Ireland have lost their star hooker Dan Sheehan for Saturday’s Test and is most likely to be replaced by Ronan Kelleher, who Mbonambi reckons is “quite a good scrummager”.