Tasleem Gierdien15 July 2025 | 8:21

Viral schoolboy rugby TikTok inspired Springbok midfield maul: ‘A lekker surprise!’ - De Wet Marais, Paul Roos Gymnasium

Paul Roos Gymnasium is where the controversial but innovative move comes from. Lester Kiewit interviews De Wet Marais, the U19B coach.

Viral schoolboy rugby TikTok inspired Springbok midfield maul: ‘A lekker surprise!’ - De Wet Marais, Paul Roos Gymnasium

Italy's hooker Pablo Dimcheff (CR) tackles South Africa's fullback Damian Willemse (C) during the international rugby union Test match between South Africa and Italy at Loftus Versfeld stadium in Pretoria on 5 July 2025. Picture: PHILL MAGAKOE/AFP

The Springboks scored seven spectacular tries in a 45-0 victory over Italy at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium in Gqeberha on Saturday, 12 July.

South Africa kicked off their second Test against Italy with a deliberate offence to engineer a scrum.

ALSO READ: Springboks tactics: 'The law is clear. You may NOT deliberately infringe' - Craig Ray, rugby analyst

During the match, two more line-out mid-field mauls made the play to help get the Springboks the win.

The successful ploy saw the Boks set up a maul in phase play by getting the scrum-half to throw the ball to a player being lifted into the air by his team-mates - an innovative move by coach Rassie.

It resembled a lineout in the open field and enabled the Boks to gain a stable platform to use one of their most lethal weapons.

They managed to create enough havoc to touch down twice from it, and Erasmus revealed that their defence idea came from an unlikely source: a TikTok of an under-14 Paul Roos rugby team. 

"We noticed it with Paul Roos U14s," Erasmus said after the match. "You just get all the benefits from what you get in the lineout, you actually get if you support in general play."

Marais says seeing the play was a 'surprise'.

"It came as a surprise while watching the game... 'Hey, this looks really familiar!'. It was quite a lekker surprise..."
- De Wet Marais, U19B coach - Paul Roos Gymnasium

Marais explains how this seemingly controversial but innovative play came about.

"We told the guys, we're gonna do something unorthodox, we're pretty sure it'll work, but it all depends on the refs' actions and if they'll allow it... We'll set up the maul, but not a normal one... we're gonna go in the mid-field and we're gonna set it up there, it makes it much harder for defenders to defend. The buy-in from players was great, and they were excited... it went sorta viral... the confidence the players got out of it was massive."
- De Wet Marais, U19B coach - Paul Roos Gymnasium
"Once we came up with the idea, we went through the rule books and there's nothing straightforward,... saying you're not allowed to do it. It's very much a grey area... there's certainly a place for different styles of rugby; the very traditional and conservative style, but then there's definitely a place for this type of innovation... There should be room for different styles of rugby." 
- De Wet Marais, U19B coach - Paul Roos Gymnasium
"Some people do say it's unsportsmanlike, but we say, if the law allows it, why not use it? Teams can use it to their benefit and develop strategies for innovation to develop their game model to help their team become more successful." 
- De Wet Marais, U19B coach - Paul Roos Gymnasium