Ox Nché is far from the finished article. By his own admission, the Springboks prop has just about mastered the basics. He’s not bad at the flourishing touches but there is a long way to go in his development. In short, he is a work in progress. “I’m learning, actually. I can do just one layer so far,” he admits. “And obviously the icing.”
Nché is, of course, talking about making cakes. The 17-stone loosehead is obsessed with them. His favourite is chocolate caramel, his mantra is that “salads don’t win scrums” and asked the secret to his set-piece prowess he bursts into a bout of his gentle, infectious laughter before shooting back “cake!”.
He was given a year’s supply by a supermarket in South Africa after his starring role in helping the Springboks past England in last year’s World Cup semi-final and is responsible for the catering whenever there is a birthday in the squad. We are speaking in Jersey – where South Africa chose to hold a training camp – and his eyes light up when he learns the Channel Island is famous for its cream.
Clearly the 29-year-old Nché has more than a penchant for patisserie but you sense there is an element of modest deflection about it too. He seems happier discussing his recent foray into baking than he does exactly what makes him such a supreme scrummager. Someone who, as part of the “Bomb Squad”, blew a hole in England’s scrum to turn the tide in that semi-final in Paris. Someone who “doesn’t bend” according to his head coach, Rassie Erasmus. Someone who, if there is any justice, will become the first prop to be shortlisted for the world player of the year award in the coming weeks.
He lets out that laugh again when it is put to him that he has a habit of making opponent tightheads black out in training, then explains matter-of-factly: “A practice session is one scrum, 30 seconds, another scrum. It becomes tougher [for them] to get their breath and get oxygen back to their head.” But he really hits his stride when we get on to the white heat of battle, the confrontation between loosehead and tighthead.
“The first scrum you’re going to look each other in the eyes, it’s all confidence, it’s mano a mano and then when you get to the fourth scrum, if you’ve done your job, he’s no longer looking at me in the eyes, he’s having a doubt,” he says. “It’s where we try to get to as soon as possible. You see the other team, their forward pack, they don’t feel that confident in what they do any more, it gives me great pleasure. To know that if they are starting to give up as a pack, it just gives us an extra mental boost.”
Nché works tirelessly on his craft. Monday is his “leg session” – just hearing those words are enough to make you wince – before he begins his video analysis with live scrummaging in training on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. He lists Tadhg Furlong as his favourite opponent – “he doesn’t go away, he has a lot of pride in the set piece and I enjoy that” – and though he acknowledges the role of genetics, he says scrummaging is 70% technique.
“It’s technique and knowing what you’re doing. The rest is when you can’t think any more but the habits, being in good shape, good pictures, that’s when it starts kicking in so if you practise well, it’s easier when you’re tired. You still do the same over and over again.”
It soon becomes clear why South Africa’s scrum is so feared. Against Scotland last week there was an inevitability to their total dominance and England can expect a similarly tough day at the office on Saturday.
Steve Borthwick is so aware of the challenge that when his best scrummaging loosehead, Joe Marler, informed him of his plans to retire, the head coach urged him to have one last hurrah against the Springboks. Without him, the England scrum looks all the more susceptible. In the World Cup semi-final it was Kyle Sinckler who fell victim to Nché – both players came off the bench in Paris – while it is set to be Dan Cole and Will Stuart against him on Saturday.
“I like the confrontation, I’m a very niggly player,” confesses Nché. “Tightheads … I’ll hold you down just to get you more tired, I guess it helps when it comes to scrum time, they think: ‘This guy has been niggling me the whole time’ and he’s thinking about emotion and not really about what you have to do.”
Nché’s rise to stardom is a perfect example of why any plans to devalue or depower the scrum should be resisted. The introduction of a shot clock and that a reset from a free-kick is no longer an option are further evidence of which way the wind is blowing but, as England have been keen to point out this week, an unintended consequence of the clampdown on “escorts” is more scrums during this autumn window.
“A lot of people have opinions about it but the reason that a lot of us are rugby players is because rugby is the one sport that is for all shapes and sizes,” says Nché. “It doesn’t matter how you look, you have a place on the field. So I think for us in the front row, if you say we need to speed up the game we just have to adapt and become fitter and adapt.
“For me, if you take it away it loses a dimension of the game. That’s my opinion, I don’t mind speeding it up as long as there is set-piece focus. If you look at the scrums in the Rugby Championship, I think teams adapted pretty well in terms of scrum completion. There were no injuries at scrum-time. If we have to get fitter then so be it.”
Making Nché’s scrummaging superiority all the more impressive is that he did not take up rugby until he was 13. Before that, growing up in Thaba’ Nchu, the Free State town settled by his ancestors of the Barolong tribe, only 10% of children had access to any form of sporting activity and Nché was “a chubby kid playing soccer”.
That was until his grade seven coach convinced him that he may be better suited to the rugby field. A return home last year, at the invitation of the king who bestowed upon him the Tlotlo ya Morafe wa Barolong-Boo-Seleka – the honour of the nation – demonstrated to Nché just how far he has come.
“It was special for me because I didn’t even know that so many people know about rugby and care about it,” he adds. “The king organised a tour of my home town. We haven’t spoken in a while but we speak and try to make sure there are better chances for kids in the country and the community. It was a humbling experience to see how many kids know about the Springboks and are interested.”
