This is a sharp tactical breakdown piece that argues the visible contest — the jackal, the turnover, the cleaner — is largely a sideshow. The real contest is decided at the moment of tackle and presentation, a second and a half before any arriving player makes a decision. Five specific myths get dismantled: that the jackal is beaten by the cleaner (he's mostly beaten by post length); that the first decisive hit belongs to the arriving forward (it belongs to the tackler who set the post); that post-contact metres indicate quality ball (they measure the journey, not the destination); that you need a specialist 7 (both sides have redistributed that role entirely differently — New Zealand giving fetching duties to Savea at 8, South Africa licensing only Marx and De Villiers to gamble); and that South Africa's slower ruck speed is a weakness (it's a structural consequence of their kicking game, not sloth).
The piece pays close attention to how each system depends on the same underlying skill — long, accurate ball placement — and why Matthew Carley's gate discipline could turn good Springbok presentation into penalty currency. The Du Toit and De Villiers analysis is particularly useful, framing South African contact work as a precision model built on scrum mechanics rather than brute force. For anyone wanting to watch Saturday's match with sharper eyes, this is worth the full read.