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Nathan Catt: 'I think that’s sexy... it's unbelievable the progress'

The power of the England scrum wielded a major influence in the World Rugby U20 Championship final (Photo by Carl Fourie/World Rugby)

Nathan Catt was like the fabled Cheshire Cat in Cape Town on Friday night. All mischievous grin when stopping outside the dressing room for a chat, the England U20s assistant coach was beaming that scrummaging had just been shown to be sexy and that the eight-man shove was indeed worth its weight in gold.

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It was early February, a few days after the English had gotten their Six Nations title charge up and running in Italy, when the former Saxons and Bath prop initially purred to RugbyPass about the intricacies of this pack versus pack contest that helps give rugby its very attractive uniqueness.  

The scrum generally gets a bad rep, its critics vocal that it takes up too much time and whatnot. But when it works, as it has sumptuously done for newly crowned champions England at the World Rugby U20 Championship, it’s undeniably a thing of beauty capable of hugely influencing the results of matches.

Video Spacer

HITS, BUMPS AND HANDOFFS! | The biggest collisions from the 2023 U20s World Championships

A showcase of the most ferocious collisions from the 2023 U20s World Championships all in one place!

Video Spacer

HITS, BUMPS AND HANDOFFS! | The biggest collisions from the 2023 U20s World Championships

A showcase of the most ferocious collisions from the 2023 U20s World Championships all in one place!

Just ask Ireland, whose pack was filleted last Sunday in the semi-finals, and also ask the French whose hopes of winning a fourth successive World Championship were buried by the clinical scrummaging exploits of Asher Opoku-Fordjour and co.

Scrum coach Catt revelled in the dominance. “I’m on the touchline, I’m dancing around. I’m waiting to get some abuse for it because I proper jump up and down and get overly excited,” he told RugbyPass about his emotions when the England scrum is on the march, an example being the 53rd-minute try finished by No8 Arthur Green when a five-metre shove advanced on the French line.

“I love scrums and the best thing about this group, the front row, they are genuine and to be fair to all eight of them, they genuinely love scrummaging.

“Like, as soon as we finish a scrum session they are looking straight on the laptops, on the computers, going through it with each other, just always giving each other feedback, critique, and yeah, there is a genuine love for scrumming in this pack and it’s pretty cool.

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“I thought the scrum in the final was refereed really well. As soon as it was advantage, a relatively square scrum, it was play away and it invited attacking rugby and then if it didn’t go well you came back for the advantage.

“That’s sexy but that’s pretty biased. Yeah, it can be time-consuming. I do understand the frustrations but when they are going well and it’s all kind of going to plan for both sides and it’s a genuine battle, it’s great. It’s unbelievable the progress.

“Probably where we started in the Six Nations to now, the objective was we wanted all our scrums to go the same and against Ireland they all looked the same and the same tonight.

“They have been so consistent in what they have been practicing and then you end up against a very good French pack and I thought the boys did very well.”

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Streamlined practice very much made perfect in South Africa. “In terms of time on the pitch as the whole group, we don’t spend huge amounts. It’s the amount of individual time the boys spend watching the footage and then practising little bits, front row groups,” he explained.

“It’s a lot of minutes of time in terms of individual aspects – that’s big. Actually the time on the pitch, you are not going to hit any more than eight scrums in a week in a normal match week, let alone a five-day turnaround.

Set Plays

13
Scrums
2
85%
Scrum Win %
100%
17
Lineout
14
76%
Lineout Win %
86%
7
Restarts Received
2
87%
Restarts Received Win %
50%

“So it’s how you can prepare yourself best without having full live scrummaging in terms of key aspects where you can just get that consistency.”

Off the top of his head, what was the total scrum penalty count in England’s favour for their entire five-match campaign in Cape Town? “I don’t know how many penalties we have won. I know what our percentage was, I don’t know how many we have won overall.

“Scrums won prior to today was 95.7 per cent which I’m a bit annoyed about because we had a free kick against us. But the boys have been unbelievable. They are unbelievably diligent but they are also properly strong. Freak athletes, they are impressive.

“The thing I love is seeing the boys genuinely love scrummaging. When I walk past some of the lads and they are sat in their phones watching scrums in slow motion, that’s what I love and they have got their rewards from it.”

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1 Comment
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finn 123 days ago

Could Nathan Catt be in with an outside chance of being the Lions scrum coach next year?

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JW 3 hours ago
'Passionate reunion of France and New Zealand shows Fabien Galthie is wrong to rest his stars'

Ok, managed to read the full article..

... New Zealand’s has only 14 and the professional season is all over within four months. In France, club governance is the responsibility of an independent organisation [the Ligue Nationale de Rugby or LNR] which is entirely separate from the host union [the Fédération Française de Rugby or FFR]. Down south New Zealand Rugby runs the provincial and the national game.

That is the National Provincial Championship, a competition of 14 representative union based teams run through the SH international window and only semi professional (paid only during it's running). It is run by NZR and goes for two and a half months.


Super Rugby is a competition involving 12 fully professional teams, of which 5 are of New Zealand eligibility, and another joint administered team of Pacific Island eligibility, with NZR involvement. It was a 18 week competition this year, so involved (randomly chosen I believe) extra return fixtures (2 or 3 home and away derbys), and is run by Super Rugby Pacific's own independent Board (or organisation). The teams may or may not be independently run and owned (note, this does not necessarily mean what you think of as 'privately owned').


LNR was setup by FFR and the French Government to administer the professional game in France. In New Zealand, the Players Association and Super Rugby franchises agreed last month to not setup their own governance structure for professional rugby and re-aligned themselves with New Zealand Rugby. They had been proposing to do something like the English model, I'm not sure how closely that would have been aligned to the French system but it did not sound like it would have French union executive representation on it like the LNR does.

In the shaky isles the professional pyramid tapers to a point with the almighty All Blacks. In France the feeling for country is no more important than the sense of fierce local identity spawned at myriad clubs concentrated in the southwest. Progress is achieved by a nonchalant shrug and the wide sweep of nuanced negotiation, rather than driven from the top by a single intense focus.

Yes, it is pretty much a 'representative' selection system at every level, but these union's are having to fight for their existence against the regime that is NZR, and are currently going through their own battle, just as France has recently as I understand it. A single focus, ala the French game, might not be the best outcome for rugby as a whole.


For pure theatre, it is a wonderful article so far. I prefer 'Ntamack New Zealand 2022' though.

The young Crusader still struggles to solve the puzzle posed by the shorter, more compact tight-heads at this level but he had no problem at all with Colombe.

It was interesting to listen to Manny during an interview on Maul or Nothing, he citied that after a bit of banter with the All Black's he no longer wanted one of their jersey's after the game. One of those talks was an eye to eye chat with Tamaiti Williams, there appear to be nothing between the lock and prop, just a lot of give and take. I thought TW angled in and caused Taylor to pop a few times, and that NZ were lucky to be rewarded.

f you have a forward of 6ft 8ins and 145kg, and he is not at all disturbed by a dysfunctional set-piece, you are in business.

He talked about the clarity of the leadership that helped alleviate any need for anxiety at the predicaments unfolding before him. The same cannot be said for New Zealand when they had 5 minutes left to retrieve a match winning penalty, I don't believe. Did the team in black have much of a plan at any point in the game? I don't really call an autonomous 10 vehicle they had as innovative. I think Razor needs to go back to the dealer and get a new game driver on that one.

Vaa’i is no match for his power on the ground. Even in reverse, Meafou is like a tractor motoring backwards in low gear, trampling all in its path.

Vaa'i actually stops him in his tracks. He gets what could have been a dubious 'tackle' on him?

A high-level offence will often try to identify and exploit big forwards who can be slower to reload, and therefore vulnerable to two quick plays run at them consecutively.

Yes he was just standing on his haunches wasn't he? He mentioned that in the interview, saying that not only did you just get up and back into the line to find the opposition was already set and running at you they also hit harder than anything he'd experienced in the Top 14. He was referring to New Zealands ultra-physical, burst-based Super style of course, which he was more than a bit surprised about. I don't blame him for being caught out.


He still sent the obstruction back to the repair yard though!

What wouldn’t the New Zealand rugby public give to see the likes of Mauvaka and Meafou up front..

Common now Nick, don't go there! Meafou showed his Toulouse shirt and promptly got his citizenship, New Zealand can't have him, surely?!?


As I have said before with these subjects, really enjoy your enthusiasm for their contribution on the field and I'd love to see more of their shapes running out for Vern Cotter and the like styled teams.

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