Science Debunks Springboks Bomb Squad Hater Matt Williams

Former Scotland coach turned television rugby pundit Matt Williams has upset Springbok rugby fans before. The Australian has criticised South Africa's Bomb Squad strategy. But has Williams gone too far this time?

In this episode Peter examines what Matt Williams has said now and tries to analyse it fairly. You might find that you even agree with the Aussie this time around. Peter will also share scientific evidence courtesy of Professor Ross Tucker that will hopefully, once and for all, end the Bomb Squad/safety debate.

00:00 Introduction
00:22 Matt Williams
01:10 What He Said
02:26 My Reaction
03:19 What Else He Said
04:12 Forwards Win Matches
05:38 Scientific Evidence
08:22 More Matt Williams
09:33 My Reaction
17:15 Your Thoughts

[willieexplore]

Hi Peter, I enjoyed this episode immensely - thank you! Especially the history of the bench development from amateur days to the professional era. Many people forget that almost all coaches added an additional forward when the rule re the number of substitutions increased (i.e. going from 3-3 to 4-3 and 5-3), before the more recent experiments of 6-2 and 7-1. The comparison of doctors and lawyers to professionals with specific diets, gym programmes and conditioning puts the Beaumont argument to bed as well. On the presentation front, I loved your voice tonality as well, emphasising key words effectively where appropriate. Cheers again!

[anthonylees]

You can only select a 7/1 split if you have depth, player versatility, and a big set of balls! Most sides don't have the capability to do this.

[JGraemeH]

So, we have been given a bollocking about ethics & spirit of the game - by an Aussie.
I would love see Matto give a detailed expose on what the spirit of the game actually is... and why he is the self-appointed spokesperson for it.

[shanemorrison]

As a kiwi, I have always admired the tough SA style of play, This bomb Squad innovation suits the Boks strengths and is within the Rule's.Your analysis is sound the Pros evident and the Cons Revealed.Recent success supports your hypothesis for now.Physical dominance is second only to Mental fitness, reserves introduced late in the game committ more mistakes than those 70 mins in, The fresh Muscle up front can be defused with an educated boot, forward power in your own 1/4 uses a lot of gas, also Ireland and France may have experimented but come crunch time they will prefer fleetfooted backs to top heavy forwards especially with their style of open running rugby like the ABS, Aussies and Pacific teams who play the game at high speed as opposed to tight tussle in the middle of the ruck, Goodluck to the boks but the squad will bomb if all they got is Giant forwards in your Arsenal of Weaponry.

[naidoo]

Aussies always call the poms whingers but aussies are in fact the king of whingers !😮

[SiphoMnisi-pv]

One thing that amazes me about that Bomb squad vitriol, is how all teams have gone on to emulate the Boks method. Everyone knows playing like that comes with risks, and the Boks are a team that knows that just as much as anyone else. I would like to argue, the Boks usually being pragmatic when it comes to Backs carrying the ball and doing defensive dogwork, is a reason why it works for them. The less contact the backs have when carrying the ball, the less likely injury happens

[izakoosthuizen]

Williams reminds me of a the word 'weany.' Rugby is not for the meek and mild sir. He should rather concentrate on pin-ball; or marbles. It is so much safer

[vict]

Let's be honest, if world rugby "acts" to do something about how many reserves we currently have it's just gonna ruin rugby. These old timers just don't understand that rugby has evolved over the years.

[NeilWeston-nf]

The game has gone professional and so the physical demands on the individual players, the split is more about player management in the modern day game and in fact does improve player longetivity and does too lesson injuries to an extend, please bear in mind that rugby is still a contact sport and injuries will happen still.

[Mzansi]

South Africa hasn't been the one setting the rules—we've simply adapted to them faster than others. Whenever "they" decide to change the rules, they must acknowledge both the intended and unintended consequences that follow.

I've noticed that South Africa often gets singled out for its style of play, especially when we win. If the rules shift toward a more expansive game, then naturally, we'll adjust—perhaps by selecting more sprinters for our backline. And when that happens, they are going to complain that we avoid scrums in the second half.

[petervandenheuvel]

A solution to avoid fresh players playing tired players is to have the same split on both benches. That exposes the depth of each team

[andresdeks]

Just check Matt Williams coaching record😂

[Gavsta]

Matt Williams was the worst coach that Scotland has ever had...so he comes with a poor track record. World Rugby just released it's findings and it found SCIENTIFALLY that the 7-1 does NOT increase any injuries whatsoever!! Lastly - Matt Williams is a knobhead Aussie so anything he says needs to be taken with a pinch of salt and a large dose of bullshit!!
I was attending trials for our club when a good mate of mine broke his neck and they'd only been on the park for about 10 mins, so that blows Williams theory out the water!!
Thanks again for the great channel Peter!!

[ricklobb]

Poor old Matt Williams never ever played international rugby, shame, no wonder he has such weak ideas.

[PhillipDawson]

I am sorry but even bringing up spinal injuries in this discussion is not right. A spinal injury can happen to anyone, at anytime and is more of a freak incident, and that is why some of the laws have already been added and expanded around the safety of the game.`

There is only one rule about the bench that ALL teams has to adhere to, and that is that both teams have to have 2 props and 1 hooker as replacement on the bench. That means that no team has an advantage or a disadvantage on this, and the choice of when the props and hooker is brought on is completely up to the coach and the agreement he has with the player. If for some reason, there is no frontrow replacement anymore, it goes to uncontested scrums, and that is one of the law changes that negates any of the previous issues around unfair contests that can cause any unwanted injury because of the scrum.

that leaves 5 other substitutes that has no direct involvement in the front row of the scrum, and any possible spinal injury because of that, can only be caused by an illegal action by another player, that has nothing to do with the rest of the distribution of forwards and backs on the bench.

I think if anything they should get a scrum referee inot the mix and make sure that illegal scrumming is addressed. A lot of this goes on in teams that are trying all sort of illegal techniques to gain front dominance (not going to mention any team or player in particular), but Matt Williams and other's that do not like a forward dominated bench are the ones that support some of these players and teams. If you really want to make sure that career ending injuries are limited even more in rugby, then get all these illegal actions out of the game.

There is a good discussion with Stephen Kitshoff, who has now been forced to retire, talking about getting a scrum referee, to get rid of illegal scrumming techniques.


thanks for the video. Good to have a good and open discussion about improving the game and player safety

[brooklyniron]

Poor Matt. He’s probably sitting in a dark room at the moment …

[evka]

Even a traditional 5/3 split will usually 3 Front row & 2 taller Lock type loose forwards. Only difference now, is that they select 2 more loose forwards that can play in the backline

[oldman]

The important thing to remember is that when the replacements went to 8, a replacement front row became compulsory.

Thus if you look at the standard deviation of forwards vs backs, in a matchday 23, 11 forwards are compulsory and 7 backs are compulsory.

That leaves the head coach with 5 tactical substitutions. Thus a 5-3 split is in actual fact a voluntary 2-3 split. Hence a 6-2 split a 3-2 split, and finally a 7-1 split a 4-1 split.

Standard represenation of the 18 compulsory players are 61% forwards and 39% backs, so a 5-3 split it becomes 56% forwards and 44% backs. A 6-2 split becomes 61% forwards and 39% backs.

The 7-1 split ends up at 65% forwards and 35% backs.

Summation, easy to manipulate stats to argue a point.

[ockiev]

Following Williams' logic, selecting tall loose forwards to give more lineout options is discrimination against short players. The game was never intended to use more than the two locks in the lineout.

[Mr-Litch]

Didn't the science just say that fresh v fatigue still has less injuries then fatigue v fatigue seems to me the issue clearly points to time on field and not and is less to do with who comes on but rather when they come on and Dr Rassie has found the perfect balance