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

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.

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.

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!

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.

Showing how to dominate in the scrum! ?@EnglandRugby score their second try in this final with everything still all to play for! ???????

Watch all the action live on RugbyPass TV ?#WorldRugbyU20s | #ENGvFRA pic.twitter.com/C6JuUJrBTx

— World Rugby (@WorldRugby) July 19, 2024

“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.

“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.”

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.

“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.”