All Blacks scrum coach Ryan credits Springboks lessons for Scotland dominance at Murrayfield

All Blacks assistant coach Jason Ryan has credited the hard-fought Springboks series as a turning point for New Zealand’s scrum, pointing to a dominant set-piece display against Scotland at Murrayfield as evidence of genuine progress.

Ryan’s forward pack muscled up against Scotland throughout the Nations Championship fixture, winning several scrum penalties and forcing the hosts to backpedal — a marked contrast to the struggles that defined the four-Test series against South Africa. Speaking to reporters at the All Blacks’ Bath base on Monday, Ryan said the work put in since that series had paid off.

“Yeah, it has [pleased him]. We’ve worked extremely hard on that. I think we’ve taken on some lessons there,” Ryan said. “I thought it was officiated extremely well. We got some reward for staying square and going forward. But we still have got to be better.”

Ryan was quick to highlight the youth of his front row as a reason for optimism, singling out Ethan de Groot and Fletcher Newell for particular praise while noting that the quality of opposition in training drives individual improvement.

“All props make props. If they’re scrummaging against the best, they’ll get better themselves, and I think that’s what we’ve sort of created in the last couple of years,” he said. “They’re still pretty young, to be honest. They’re all sort of early mid-20s, and that’s exciting.”

The return of Scott Barrett was also identified as a catalyst for the forward pack’s uplift, with Ryan noting that Barrett and Fabian have raised the intensity across the entire back five.

“I think that’s probably a little bit of confidence that’s come through with having Scott Barrett back and him and Fabian, who have really turned on the revs with our loose forwards, our whole back five group. So it all has reasoning for that.”

Ryan also addressed the tactical balance between exploiting scrum dominance immediately and holding the pressure to build momentum, acknowledging that timing is everything when deciding whether to play off the back.

“The balance of when you play off the back and front row boys not getting too excited — it’s got to complement the whole game,” he said. “It’s similar to the lineout specials. One sets up the other effectively, so the balance is important, but also you could feel that we had their scrum under pressure and the boys wanted to stay there for a bit.”