Boks must play brain game
15 Jul 2009
South Africa will not win the 2009 Tri-Nations if they adopt the high-risk approach that saw them self-destruct in 2008, writes Gavin Rich in SA Rugby magazine.
The standing of the Tri-Nations as the world’s premier international rugby competition, and the challenges faced by the competing teams, was neatly summed up in an interview that former British & Irish Lions great Gareth Edwards did with a London newspaper.
Edwards, rated the greatest rugby player of last century, travelled to Cape Town for a Tri-Nations game in 2005 – and the brutality of it left him feeling quite stunned.
‘After the bashing the Lions received in 2005 I travelled together with the Cardiff chief executive Bob Norster to watch the All Blacks take on the Springboks,’ recalled Edwards. ‘We had left New Zealand after the Lions tour thinking that the All Blacks were the greatest team on Earth and we wondered who was ever going to beat them. Well, in Cape Town that day the Springboks knocked lumps off them. To say the Boks lacked skill would be an injustice, but the Boks really walloped them. Tana Umaga was knocked off his feet, Dan Carter did not know what day it was. To be there in the flesh was almost frightening. I can’t see a British team doing that too often.’
In relating his experience of that Newlands match, Edwards was also pointing to the one element of Springbok rugby that has remained such a key to their challenge throughout the 88 years of fierce rivalry between these powerful rugby nations. In a word: physicality.
To say it was missing from the games between the Boks and the All Blacks in last year’s Tri-Nations would not be accurate. At stages of the tournament the Boks were as physical as ever, and they scored a historic win in Dunedin playing a structured, aggressive game that could have been right out of Jake White’s playbook.
However, those were the days when new coach Peter de Villiers was giving a lot of air to his love of the expansive game. The net result was that, as they did many times during the course of the year, the Boks flitted between playing styles – and they didn’t play to their core strength. Yes, they were physical in all their games against the All Blacks, but they weren’t nearly as direct as they needed to be when the two sides clashed in Cape Town.
For reasons only known to themselves, or to their coach, the Boks took onto the field that day a strategy that could only be described as suicide. Instead of setting play up through the forwards and creating a platform by hitting the advantage line, the Boks ran the ball down the back – and their run-from-everywhere approach copped them an embarrassing 19-0 defeat.
That was the lowlight of the season, but the malaise had set in during the previous match in Perth. Just a week after their epic win in Dunedin, the Boks started as favourites against a Wallabies team playing for the first time in a Tri-Nations match under new coach Robbie Deans.
Instead of taking the good from Dunedin into this game, the Boks abandoned the template. De Villiers telegraphed his intentions to run more by bringing back Conrad Jantjes for Percy Montgomery, who had been steadiness personified at Carisbrook.
Instead of playing the structured rugby that had earned them their first win over the All Blacks on New Zealand soil since 1998, the Boks embarked on the policy that ran them into a blind corner at Newlands. The Wallabies had started tentatively, but the Boks allowed them off the hook by playing away from the South African traditional strengths.
‘To me the big disappointment of last year was not so much that we finished last on the Tri-Nations log, but that we finished the New Zealand leg with one win each, and yet we did not build on that platform,’ admits Bok assistant coach Gary Gold.
One former Bok who watched the world champions getting handed a rugby lesson during their penultimate Tri-Nations match in Durban was Mark Andrews. That was the day when the Boks were booed from the field afterwards, and were booed again by patrons in the King’s Park parking area as their bus left the stadium.
‘When I spoke to some of the people involved, such as [assistant coach] Dick Muir, it was stressed that it wasn’t supposed to be as disorganised as it appeared, the players did go onto the field with structure in mind,’ says Andrews. ‘But it was evident to me that if there was a structure, the players didn’t understand that structure and were battling to get to grips with it. You could make that out when someone like [lock] Andries Bekker ended up taking three balls at flyhalf. The players simply didn’t appear to know where the play was going.’
This makes sense, for De Villiers used to talk the heads-up approach, with the Bok mantra being ‘we’ll play what‘s in front of us’. There have been some high-ranking coaches down the years who have believed in this policy, but can you tally those who have been consistently successful, and more particularly, won trophies? I thought not.
‘You don’t want to be too rigid in your structure, but in my years as a Bok we always seemed to struggle when we had coaches who took on board a philosophy that moved away from structure. I am thinking parts of the Harry Viljoen era, and Carel du Plessis,’ recalls Andrews. ‘In the successful years, such as in 1995 when we won the World Cup and in 1998 when we won the Tri-Nations, we built our success around the physicality and dominance of our forwards. We took on strategies that would ensure that our bigger forwards would always be on the front foot, and we would set up our play through the pack.
‘Last year, in those early Tri-Nations games, we looked like we were trying to set up play through our backs, from behind the advantage line, something that has never worked for the Boks. When we feed the backs we need to be at the gainline or across it. We need to have the opposing defences back on their heels, and bring the forwards in behind, with the ball in front of them.’
For Andrews, as well as another former Bok in Brendan Venter, the selection of the squad will be the key to the chances of South African success in this year’s Tri-Nations.
‘You have to have the players that will suit the game, and vice versa,’ says Andrews.
Venter explains what is needed by holding out one hand and then letting his second fall into place on top of it, all the fingers interlinking.
‘You can’t go out and play a certain type of game if you don’t have the players to do it, or the skill levels required, or if the players are just not used to it,’ says Venter. ‘Everything has to fit together. The combinations have to fit one another, the game plan has to suit the combinations you have and the individual players you have. There are reasons why South African teams tend to be more successful when they adopt a more direct approach, but we keep making the mistake of moving away from this.’
Last year there were some oddities in selection. And even when the right selection was made, there were times when the game plan didn’t appear to suit the player selected.
An excellent example of this was the aforementioned Newlands match. When Fourie du Preez was recalled ahead of Ricky Januarie at scrumhalf it was assumed that the Boks would use his gifted kicking boot to play the territory game. As one official said on the eve of that game, ‘When you pick a guy who can kick from his team’s own 22 to the opposition 22 and he is a scrumhalf, it would be idiotic not to use him to do that.’
Yet the Boks hardly kicked in that game. They ran from everywhere, were repeatedly caught in their own half, and although the player could hardly be blamed, as by then the Boks were forced into playing catch-up, the try that the New Zealanders scored when Jean de Villiers passed to one of them near the Bok line summed up the match.
Du Preez did not look comfortable playing that game, and the Boks, particularly Butch James, were far more effective when they returned to traditional strengths against the Wallabies in the final match. Unfortunately, by then all the pretty birds had flown, and the Boks were playing only for pride.
‘I was encouraged by the fact that after the Durban game against Australia we did seem to return to proper Test rugby, so maybe the penny dropped. I certainly hope so,’ says Andrews. ‘The three matches on the end-of-year tour were encouraging, so hopefully we will stick to that. If we don’t, we could be in as much trouble in this Tri-Nations as we were last year. The one big potential problem that is easy to pinpoint is goal kicking. Like it or not, Test rugby is about kicking your goals, and we don’t have an 80% kicker like we did when we had Percy [Montgomery] playing.
‘I would also like to see the Boks make greater use of the drop goal as a source of keeping the scoreboard ticking. On our home grounds the firm surfaces encourage drop kicking. For a forward who has been throwing everything into defending, there is nothing more demoralising than the opposition sticking over a drop. I have a good recollection of the England faces when Jannie de Beer did it to them in the 1999 World Cup.’
Even if the Boks do bring the structure and levelness to their game that was missing last season, they may find themselves up against better opposition than they encountered in 2008. The Wallabies have lost lock Dan Vickerman, flank Rocky Elsom and Mark Gerrard since last year’s Tri-Nations, but this will be their second year with Deans as coach.
The big question mark over the All Blacks centres on Dan Carter. The ace flyhalf – such a key player in that Cape Town victory last year and the crucial element in New Zealand’s switch to more pragmatic rugby halfway through last season – is unlikely to play.
While the bulk of last year’s players will be back, and there hasn’t been quite the same loss of personnel to the north as there was immediately after the World Cup, Carter was, with skipper Richie McCaw, one of the few really special players in the All Blacks’ line-up. Without him they might lose a bit more of the aura that they appeared to be missing before the Boks and Wallabies let them off the hook at the start of the last Tri-Nations.
The Boks will have to hit the tournament running this year, as the home leg comes first. They will require a minimum of two wins from their matches in Bloemfontein, Durban and Cape Town if they are to be competitive when the show moves to Australasia, where Perth, Brisbane and Hamilton are their ports of call.
– This article first appeared in the July issue of SA Rugby magazine.
596 Comments
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15 Jul 2009, 11:10 am
#147 JL1: I must agree. hehe!
15 Jul 2009, 11:11 am
#118 JL1: gavin rich writes a k@k article in sarugby mag & it is the put up on keo, bloggers find inconsistencies with the facts & question his logic & intentions…how is that translated to supporting pdv? If he was writing about rassie @ the stormers or whoever i’d still expect him to use facts, his facts in this story are incorrects, du preez kicked a lot @ newlands but was inaccurate!
The former boks he has cherry picked to reinforce his angle are inadequate to me because they were always going to side with what they know best which is tantamount to begging the question to me!
Now if you believe rich’s story good for you, but please allow others to express themselves on the blog without you classifying them as “pdv sympathisers”
15 Jul 2009, 11:11 am
#144 Pietman:
Pietman wat ek wil weet is of sy ook die bruin oukies verwens as sy wil hê die ander spanne moet ons spelers seer maak. Of moet hulle net die boertjies seermaak.
15 Jul 2009, 11:11 am
Please help…..
I play http://www.testrugby.com and would like to join the KEO
division. How do I do this??
15 Jul 2009, 11:13 am
#151 Transformation: So sue Gavin Rich
15 Jul 2009, 11:14 am
#146 St.Petersburgbok: I’ll give you an example:
It is common knowledge that SA in the apartheid made laws to oppress people of colour. Those people knew that their government did not care for them. By your sollution. All people of colour at that time should have left the coutry over any boarder they could find and leave, as SA at the time, was not for them. Like you say, Keo and co’s views are prejudicial and we do not agree with them, so you say, we must all fark off and leave you lot to perpetuate your askewed views.
But like in the bad ol days of SA we didn’t walk away, we tried to make it right, again we will not allow a little exclusive hatred group to form anywhere in SA society. We are all one. Too many people died for you to think for a second that all Saffa’s are not allowed a view, on any forum.
So sorry, nobody is going anywhere. We in all our ages, sexes and races are going to keep blogging and giving you our views, no matter how much you wish us gone.
15 Jul 2009, 11:15 am
#112 St.Petersburgbok:
opinion vs. results and facts, you decide who is pedantic.
15 Jul 2009, 11:16 am
#153 Snoek: Almal. Die hele lot. Dis net jy wat die bruin mense verwens. Jy is siek man.
15 Jul 2009, 11:21 am
#155 Optimus Prime:
Oh dear….you are not SERIOUSLY comparing the sheer courage, commitment and incredible dedication of the struggle to PDV’s effort to counter journalists? You are disrespecting whole generations of proud people who died for a cause that we all believe in by lowering their achievements sufficiently to contrast them to a man whose very job description includes taking critisim for performance. You have written a massive amount of pure drivel on these board but this takes the cake. That is shameful, seriously. PDV signed up for the job and is well compentated for his time, nobody who fought the Nats ever applied to have their famalies killed and forcefully removed. Grow up ffs and get over yourself!!!
15 Jul 2009, 11:24 am
#157 Optimus Prime:
Nee ek laaik die bruin mense, my bruin pel sit hier langs my en lag vir al die kuk wat jy kwytraak. As jy wil praat oor siek mense, lees die stront wat jy kwytraak op hierdie site.
Seker apartheid se skuld dat jy nie klas het nie.
15 Jul 2009, 11:25 am
#144 Pietman:the same way you manage to teach yours with amongst all your lies! Farking liar!
15 Jul 2009, 11:26 am
Cheers vir eers.
15 Jul 2009, 11:27 am
#149 the_rugby_guru: In the immortal words of might Mosdef
“Now, who is cat dining out on the town
Maitre’d wanna take a whole year to sit him down
Mr Nega, Nega, Nega
He got the speakers in the trunk with the bass on crunk
Now, who is the cat at Armani buyin wears
With the tourists who be askin him, do you work here?
Mr Nega, Nega, Nega
Nega Nega
Yo, the Abstract with the Mighty Mos Def
White folks got it muffled across beneath they breathe
“I didn’t say it..”
But they’ll say it out loud again
When they get with they close associates and friends
You know, sneak it in with they friends at the job
Happy hour at the bar while this song is in they car
And even if they’ve never said it, lips stay sealed
They actions reveal how their hearts really feel
Like, late night I’m on a first class flight
The only brother in sight the flight attendent catch fright
I sit down in my seat, 2C
She approach officially talkin about, “Excuse me”
Her lips curl up into a tight space
Cause she don’t believe that I’m in the right place
Its a pity the world has to have you
15 Jul 2009, 11:28 am
#159 Thameside Bok fan: Are you daft? Who said we are the Pdv cheerleaders. The question came from people saying that we are attacking Keo and Rich and if we hate their views we are to log off and allow the rest of you who agree with their slanted journolism and lies to freely spew your retarded ****.
I said as a Saffa we have a history of trying to silence people that we do not agree with and that got us nowhere. Too many people died for us to have a voice on any forum and anywhere in our country. So you *******, Do not get to slant my post with your Pdv hatred. It had nothing to do with him, but a right we all have to freedom of speech.
15 Jul 2009, 11:29 am
#152 Snoek:
Sal nie weet nie broer, haar koppie raas, dis al wat ek weet.
Sy is nie te onnosel met sport nie, maar haar rassisme is te blatant vir enigeen hier om haar opmerkings ernstig op te neem.
Jy kan mos sien hoe die ander bloggers teenoor haar, Langkop en daai drie ander militantes reageer, hulle word bloot geignoreer.
En dis waarskynlik die beste…..
#132 St.Petersburgbok: #150 dr dre:
You two ‘seniors’ on keo still at it, I see, after 6 years!
15 Jul 2009, 11:29 am
#160 Snoek: Nee. Niks met apartheid uit te waaie nie. Jy haat mos maar net bruin mense vir die lekker.
15 Jul 2009, 11:30 am
Where is Dawn I feel a brawl coming on…..
15 Jul 2009, 11:31 am
#165 Pietman: Pietman se my as jou dogter aangerand word, se jy vir haar ook sy maak stories op? Ek se mos jy en Julius Malema sien die wereld dieselfde. Ek voel vir jou jammer jong.
15 Jul 2009, 11:33 am
#159 Snoek:
Selle hier met my bruin en swart kollegas, ek wys hulle soms Transportation en Hater se posts.
Hulle skud net kop.
Hulle is ook al lank in die buiteland saam met my, en hulle kan nie glo daar dwaal nog sulke siele in SA rond 15 jaar na die afskaffing van apartheid nie.
Eish!
15 Jul 2009, 11:34 am
#168 Optimus Prime: on second thought. I’m sure you do. You make up the most fantastic stories of all. Also known as lies. I do not expect an honest answer from you, so do not bother. I’d just be enabling you to feed your farked up habit.
15 Jul 2009, 11:35 am
#163 Optimus Prime:
What you said was wrong. Fine defend the right to free speech but don’t bring the struggle against Apartheid into your argument. That disrespects the memory of all those who died for you to be able to have that right. Pdv is well paid and holds a respectable, high pressure job. To compare his plight now with those that fought at Sharpeville is disgraceful.
15 Jul 2009, 11:35 am
15 Jul 2009, 11:36 am
#161 Snoek: Sien jou later, lekker dag daar in KZN(terloops, ek sien Lilith dink jy is wit, hehehehehe!).
15 Jul 2009, 11:38 am
#166 carol: Hi Carol, Just logged on quick to say Happy Birthday. Hope you having a great day. Enjoy.
England done well with the draw on Sunday. Those last two batsmen were superb.
Cheers Carol enjoy your birthday.
15 Jul 2009, 11:42 am
I’m emigrating to Afghanistan.
15 Jul 2009, 11:43 am
#169 Optimus Prime:
optimus
primus stove
suits you
well
like a
primus stove
a lot of
noise
and
a lot of
hot air
15 Jul 2009, 11:43 am
#173 Puma: Hi Puma, that is very kind of you thanks….
Busy day lunch out etc!!
We have got some good cricket ahead of us. Hope we can keep Ponting in his place!!
We missed you last night, it was a laugh!! Thanks again Puma, till later.
15 Jul 2009, 11:44 am
#174 Dawn: More action for you there!!
15 Jul 2009, 11:44 am
#171 Thameside Bok fan: You farking stupid. No point talking to you. You’ve decided to twist my analogy, like Gavin Rich twists the truth. No wonder you are his number 1 fan.
15 Jul 2009, 11:44 am
#175 Porra the Fat Speedster:
!!
15 Jul 2009, 11:45 am
Some these characters this Petersburg fool and his sidekicks, Dr. Dre and this Thameside idiot talk biggest load of hogwash ****, alongside Gavin Rich & co.
I’d like them to pick and choose the team they or White would have chosen for this current tri nations, Pdv made the mistake last year of going along with overwhelming sentiment and including JW’s 2007 palookas James and FdP on the strength of input from his captain and assistants, as well as the WC loose trio, that was the gist of our poor form last year, the inability to adapt, Jake White can thank his lucky stars he has not got his overrated head on the chopping block with the very same players that he would have chosen representing the bok cause.
So far PdV has selected exactly or close enough to the current best form players in terms of reputation and ability that he has on offer, JW would have done exactly the same.
This load of **** that is spewed out here ad infinitum that this is the strongest Springbok team on record, C’mon, show me, each and every one of you asswhip palookas lay your asswhip heads on the line and pick the team you or JW would have picked for this series, and lets see how it differs from the team PdV chose here.
The myth and fallacy that this Bok team is the greatest on record is exactly that, a feeble idiotic myth born out of the mythological mystoque that a one sided WC triumph over rather weak opposition leads some people to believe, like 80-90% of ideologically driven asswhip palookas who frequent this holy White shrine of a rugby site.
15 Jul 2009, 11:45 am
#162 XhosaKid:
“showed her my boarding pass, and then she sort of gasped/ all embarrased put am extra lime on my water glass”
“you can laugh & criticise michael jackson if you wanna/ woody allen, molested & married his step-daughter/ same press kicking dirt on michael’sName show woody & soon-yi @ the playoff game, holding hands”
Ya gotta love the mighty mos! I went to see him @ the jazz in cape town earlier this year! Whoa! Enjoyed it thoroughly!
15 Jul 2009, 11:46 am
#177 carol:
Your biffday card is in the mail!
15 Jul 2009, 11:47 am
#176 Porra the Fat Speedster: Porra. No one, and I mean this kindly. No one cares about your little racist poems. There is a facility I know of here called Hunterscraig Hospital. It’s a great hospital for people like you. Consider it. I beg you.
15 Jul 2009, 11:47 am
#155 Optimus Prime:
that is not a very good comparison.
At the heart of this blog is Keo’s ideal of “freedom of speech, opinion and debate”.
You lot(in a very general term) label him as a racist daily, anti south african, the works…
But therin lies the irony, if he really WAS what You lot say he is…..he’d close down the site.Make it pay for view and veto any comments he does not like and bloggers he does not want.
So again I ask……who is the more comitted to South Africa?
Who is the more rightous?
Who puts their money where their mouth is every day?
Finally that takes me back to the original point. if you don’t like the oke, just leave. It’s not if he is a political leader who is excluding non whites,is it?
Look at it in layman terms.
I still prefer pick n pay and not spar.
i will not continue to visit the spar and complain every time until it becomes more like pick n pay?
….that’s my version of a “snorism” by the way.
15 Jul 2009, 11:48 am
#182 Transformation: By the way. Heard press reports that the family are suspecting that Micheal was murdered.
15 Jul 2009, 11:49 am
#183 Optimus Prime:
maybe
but
you stay
a noisy
pumped up
old
primus stove
bellowing
hot air
15 Jul 2009, 11:51 am
#185 St.Petersburgbok: What if Spar is your closest supermarket. What if SA is my country? What if inclusiveness of all SA communities and their views hold more appeal to me, then telling everyone of one mind to get lost and not speak, as it appears to hold appeal to you?
15 Jul 2009, 11:51 am
#176 carol: Enjoy your lunch Carol. Sounds great.
Supporting England all the way. So hope they can win the test that starts tomorrow. Looking forward to it.
Cheers out of here now.
15 Jul 2009, 11:51 am
#180 skopskiet: The Nazi Sharks stuff was classic last night, congratulations!!
15 Jul 2009, 11:52 am
#187 Porra the Fat Speedster: the doctor’s name there is Sonja Potgieter. Lovely lady and she can help.
15 Jul 2009, 11:53 am
#180 skopskiet:
Ha. You tell ‘em broer.
15 Jul 2009, 11:53 am
#182 Pietman:
Hehehe cheers Piet…
15 Jul 2009, 11:56 am
#184 St.Petersburgbok:
Who dares label Keo a racist.
Show me the fiend.
15 Jul 2009, 11:56 am
#180 skopskiet:
well, possibly you can explain why in the past 3 years our S14 performances have been the strongest ever.
registering more over seas wins…and wins in general than ever before?
why is it that the Bulls and Sharks roast the kiwis and Ozzies regularly at S14 level but put them in different jumpers and they look rubbish?
The national coaching setup has to take the responsibility for that.
Fck man….Ludeke led the Bulls to the biggest *** whipping of all time over kiwi opposition(Chiefs,Crusaders).
These selfsame players will be putting on black jumpers in a couple weeks.
Should we not be expectant of home wins at least?
You sound like you are making desperate excuses already
15 Jul 2009, 11:57 am
Gavin Rich and his long, boring, structured tripe. Clearly we will not win the WC in 2011 with the so called structured kicking away of the ball. JWs away record in NZ is proof of that. I have said it here on many occasions that we need an alternative to FDP kicking the little ball we get away. PDV is correct in trying to move away from the robotic, no thinking ****. We lost last year in CT because FDP and BJ kicked badly and players like Spies had a nightmare in executing basic skills.
Gavin Rich’s continued unjustified criticism of AJ is ridiculous. He also called for WO to be in when after so many opportunities he cannot cut it at test level, unlike AJ who actually thrive at this level. It was WO and not AJ that was run over by the BIL and clear for all to see.
15 Jul 2009, 11:57 am
#184 St.Petersburgbok:
Listen.
Simon lifts articles from Die SON.
How are we supposed to take that seriously.
15 Jul 2009, 11:58 am
#190 Optimus Prime:
weird
she keeps
primus stoves
as patients
15 Jul 2009, 12:00 pm
#162 XhosaKid: the most apt of those immortal words xhosa are:
“they say they want you successful, but then they make it stressful/ you start to keep up, they start changing up the tempo”
Since last year all we’ve been hearing is “let’s after the EOYT, oh oh let’s talk after the Lions’ series”, now it’s “let’s see after the Tri-nations, if he loses, then he must go”
It seems like PdV is in tune with his star player! He knows motherfcukers are always out there to hate on a dude!
15 Jul 2009, 12:00 pm
#41 Pietman: I know Zaheer’s brother, Riyaad. He came close to playing for Province. Can ask him if their dad or someone played for WeePee…
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