Mendez can muscle in on Aussie party

14 April 2012

Imagine the scene. You are in the middle of two burly prop forwards, crouched and ready to be launched by the rest of the pack into the scrummagemachine pads. Then an Argentine voice tells the eight players to lean up against the machine because they are going to move the two-tonne beast by just breathing. Nothing else, just the power of their lungs.

It sounds ludicrous, but Steve Thompson, the outstanding England hooker, was in the middle of that Northampton scrum waiting, crouched and coiled to explode into the pads when Freddie Mendez spoke.

Mendez, the Argentine hooker who famously delivered a huge punch which floored England lock Paul Ackford at Twickenham in 1990, was adamant the scrum machine would go backwards if everyone breathed at the same time.

"Freddie's attitude, technique and even breathing are designed to make a real impact when he scrummages," said Thompson, who faces Georgia in England's opening World Cup match in Perth on Sunday. "When he was at Northampton, he showed me how, if everyone breathed together when up against a scrum machine, you can move it.

"It sounds ridiculous but it really does work. I thought, when he first talked about it, 'Freddie's gone a bit mental here, what's he on about?'

"Without even moving our legs, which is normal when putting pressure against the pads on the scrum machine, it started shifting, just because we were breathing together as one unit.

That was really amazing.

"It opened my eyes to what you could achieve at the scrum and it's Argentina all over - they just love every aspect of scrummaging."

Mendez and the massive Argentine scrum take on defending champions Australia in the 2003 tournament's first match in Sydney tomorrow. And if the referee allows the Pumas to scrum properly, then the Wallabies could struggle.

The Pumas call their scrum technique the 'Bajadita', which means 'the low one' and describes the basic necessity for a great unit.

They scrum closer to the ground than any other nation and if you get it wrong against these South American muscle men, then your eight players go into reverse at a morale-crushing rate.

Hold the line with the Pumas and you score a huge physiological victory.

England's chances of Cup glory would be buoyed by a win for the Pumas tomorrow and Thompson and his team-mates will cheer them on.

It was the special scrummage sessions with Mendez that gave Thompson the technique to play a huge part in one of England's most famous rearguard actions.

They were reduced - by yellow cards - to just six forwards against a full New Zealand pack in Wellington in the summer and faced a series of scrums on the England line.