Well this seems to be a concern of your’s and given I floated the idea, perhaps it’s incumbent on me to help. Firstly, what’s structured play? I’m not necessarily talking about scrums or lineouts, although any try directly from either would be from structured play.
But more generally I’m distinguishing between beating defenses that are fully organized from a static start, eg from a ruck/maul where there have been two phases before that…the defense is fully set. Or from a first phase ruck where the defense is fully set as opposed to a ruck after a breakaway where the defense is scrambled.
Can the Boks beat a top defense that’s lined up against them …man for man. It happens rarely because our ball carrier at 7 and our ball carrier at 12 so rarely beat a tackle or offload to a player in the gap.
Now NZ, this could be a challenge for you, but let me help. Go back to the very last game we played against them….pull up the highlights and watch the disallowed try by Aaron Smith which starts with a lineout. A few phases follow where Jordie Barret creates a bit of momentum. Then a double wing AB attack forms and Mo’unga beats the first tackle and then smokes Dud Allende.
A direct try from structured play…not a kick return breach, not a turnover. It was disallowed for a knock at the lineout.
But minutes later from another lineout, there are a few phases and the ball goes to the backline, a massive pass to Talea cracks our defense and the offload to Barrett leads to the try….from structured play.
Our tries in these areas come 95% from the rolling maul. So yes, we do score from structured play….via the rolling maul. Of late there have been a few tries from open cross kicks, but generally that only succeeds when the defense is pulled apart already. In the case of both AB tries the defense was set man for man before the last phase and it was running/passing skill in that phase that unlocked the try.
I know it’s inconvenient to go all of one game back to be schooled but hopefully it’s worth it.