When the data says to do the absurd – South African scrum dominance

My family and I are devout rugby fans. Every year, I do my best to make it back to Aberdeen to shout at the screen with my Dad - high-quality father-son bonding at its finest. The dog goes mental, my Mum gets upset, but it’s a tradition.

Like all rugby fans, I’ve had my soul slowly destroyed by the scrum. I used to play second row in the scrum, so I’m well acquainted with the dark arts: the convenient guiding hand, stealing a yard, or what even is a straight scrum feed? (For the non-rugby crowd, these are all questionable acts).

Every rugby fan has shouted some version of:

“What’s the point? Our scrum is so bad, the opposition might as well just knock the ball on - they’ll get a penalty anyway!”

That’s like saying:

“Please, please keep the ball. If you give it to us, we’ll just make things worse.”

Possession becomes punishment.

This exact scenario came to life in the recent Test between South Africa and Italy. In the most ridiculous and ludicrously brilliant way.

South Africa, so confident in what their data told them about scrum dominance, deliberately infringed from the kick-off.

They, literally, intentionally kicked the ball barely one metre, knowing it had to go at least 10 metres to be legal. The ref immediately blew the whistle and awarded Italy a scrum - exactly what South Africa wanted.

Madness? Maybe. But also genius. SA were certain they’d destroy the Italian scrum, win a penalty, and then kick 20 metres for an attacking lineout.

It was staggering to watch. As someone who loves new ideas, I went from “this is genius” to “this is madness” to “classic Rassie” (the South Africa coach). And like most things, it got me thinking about LoopFX.

There’s a kind of confidence that only comes from seeing the data clearly. Not guesswork. Proven dominance. When you’ve got that, you can flip the logic, challenge convention, and still win.

Whether South Africa technically broke the rules (see Law 9.7: “A player must not intentionally infringe any law of the game...”) is up for debate. But what’s clear is that they trusted what the numbers told them - and used the rules to their advantage. That’s exactly what we try to do at LoopFX.

I didn’t see this one with my dad, but I know what he’d have said:

“Bottle merchants, the lot of them. If you back yourself to do that, why stop there? If you can win a penalty from every scrum. Just keep scrummaging until the whole team gets sent off, one by one.”

And as always - in rugby, in markets, and of course, with my Dad! - it’s only genius if it works.