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, 12:01 pm
#194 St.Petersburgbok:
Super rugby is not test rugby but I don’t expect you to understand it.
15 Jul 2009, 12:04 pm
#181 Transformation: pity, the idiot “the rugby guru” wont even get to understand that *****
15 Jul 2009, 12:04 pm
#200 Shakes:
that
is the level
you pick
your players
from
15 Jul 2009, 12:07 pm
#200 Shakes: Applies to all the 3n’s countries. They all select their team from the same basis i.e. S14 teams so stupid argument
15 Jul 2009, 12:08 pm
#195 Shakes: Eish, Shakes, you dont say those things here, its against the grain
15 Jul 2009, 12:08 pm
#199 mozez22:
Thx, but the father must be quite young then, so I doubt it.
But please do ask.
And where is Zaheer playing now, do you know?
15 Jul 2009, 12:11 pm
#202 Porra the Fat Speedster: #203 bananaboy:
That is where it ends, test rugby is just different and a few notches up.
15 Jul 2009, 12:12 pm
#198 Transformation:
“”“they say they want you successful, but then they make it stressful/ you start to keep up, they start changing up the tempo””"
Classical in this instance…
15 Jul 2009, 12:13 pm
After you move past all the bullshit of this article, Gavin Rich has a point. But it is something we have know and blogged about since last year. There were games when we attempted to move away from the ‘bash-it-up’ stuff, and we were found wanting (against Australia right after the Dunedin win).
The massive wins against the Aussies and Poms are classic examples of what we can achieve when we stick to the gameplan and excecute it well. We don’t just need players who are suited to the gameplan, but they must also be in some sort of good form.
It’s still early doors to be making predictions, but the Aussies did look good, albeit it was against Italy and a tired French side.
It doesn’t matter that the AB class of ’05 or ’06 were better than the current bunch, those fellas will still be very very hard to beat. We aren’t this great, untouchable team that we think we are, not even under JW. We’ve always been beatable in the 3N. A lot of peeps think we need to pitch up under the guidance of Hyneke Meyer and problem solved. PdV isn’t that great, but JW wasn’t Sir. Alex Ferguson, either…
15 Jul 2009, 12:13 pm
#200 Shakes:
clearly….
because I would back Ludekes S14 Bulls to *** whip twakkies Boks every day of the week.
In fact…I’d back anyone of the top 6 to take twakkies Boks.
Adi Jacobs?
Sweet Jezzes, yes please. The chiefs,crusaders and bulls eyes just light up.
15 Jul 2009, 12:17 pm
#194 St.Petersburgbok: so last year when the crusaders where pumping the bulls with 50 points to 12 & the Blues were thrashing SA sides by 55 points, you weren’t suprised that the All Blacks won the Tri-Nations?
In ’07 heyneke & **** led the bulls & the sharks to the finals of the s14 but jake white couldn’t win the tri-nations that year with those “championship” winning players, what the hell was wrong with him then? He should’ve cruised to an easy victory by your muddled logic!
Can you say feeble reasoning….jeepuz
15 Jul 2009, 12:17 pm
#209 St.Petersburgbok: come to think about it, who would want to be your equal?
15 Jul 2009, 12:18 pm
#209 St.Petersburgbok:
idiotic bulls ****, emotion and nothing else, how about astructured motivation of what you want to say. I am not holding my breath too much bloutrein my friend.
I am out chat later
15 Jul 2009, 12:19 pm
#205 Pietman: There’s quite a history of rugby in their family, though. So I’ll check… No idea where Zaheer landed up. I’ve heard squat about him. I’ll ask his bro…
15 Jul 2009, 12:19 pm
#194 St.Petersburgbok:
SA Teams since the inception of the competition:
Sharks – 48%
Stormers – 45%
Bulls – 40%
Cheetahs – 30%
Lions – 28%
SA Teams since 2004
Bulls – 55%
Sharks – 52%
Stormers – 45%
Cheetahs – 25%
Lions – 18%
Great improvement by the teams that contribute the bulk of the Bok team.
But if we are in a golden era, what do we call our opposition, what era are they in?
NZ since inception
Crusaders – 66%
Blues – 62%
Hurricanes – 52%
Highlanders – 49%
Chiefs – 46%
NZ since 2004
Crusaders – 75%
Hurricanes – 59%
Blues – 57%
Chiefs – 54%
Highlanders – 39%
Overall 2% improvement. Their top 3 teams are way better than ours, their 4th team is just 1% behind our best team.
Aus since inception
Brumbies – 60%
Waratahs – 52%
Reds – 46%
Force – 35%
Aus since 2004
Brumbies – 59%
Waratahs – 57%
Force – 35%
Reds – 27%
So Aus slipped a bit and our improved test record against them since 2004 shows this. Their top two teams still better than our best.
But as you said, it is pedantic.
I just wonder…
If we are in a golden era which we are compared to before 2004, is our golden era all that special if we consider the era NZ is in?
15 Jul 2009, 12:25 pm
#208:MOZEZ22
Good call.
When we play to our strengths we do well. The ABs are always tough even in non-vintage years, but the wannabees are looking a settled, well rounded unit. It’s how you use the talent at your disposal that reveals how good a coach is and Robbie Deans is an excellent example of this. Snor has had up and down run, but he is far enough into his tenure so show that he has learnt from his mistakes and knows how to get the best results from the squad at his disposal. This is the season where we will find out if he has the answers or not.
15 Jul 2009, 12:26 pm
Bulls S14 champions 2007 and 2009.
that;s the only statistic.
Shakes.
So long as S14 is not Test rugby.
please please tell Twakkie that it is not school boy rugby either and we desperately need a plan with a coach.He should feel free to jump in any time.
15 Jul 2009, 12:27 pm
#85 the_rugby_guru:
omg … how old are you, son?
15 Jul 2009, 12:29 pm
#210: Transformation
In 2007 Jake rested all his world cup stars for the away trinations games in sacrifice for the world cup.
15 Jul 2009, 12:31 pm
Zaheer is a bit useless at any level above club, which is why he’s languishing at SK and I think he plays touch rugby as well – he should’ve actually tried sevens rather
15 Jul 2009, 12:34 pm
#207 XhosaKid:
black tax?
15 Jul 2009, 12:35 pm
#216 St.Petersburgbok:
How about these stats?
Crusaders champions 2005, 2006 and 2008.
Bulls 10th 2008
15 Jul 2009, 12:36 pm
#219 Grape White:
Oh, so he still in the Cape then?
Maybe I have the wrong guy after all.
I am looking for a ‘cullert’ center who played for WP round about the Tinus Linee era.
Sounds like Rylands was more recent.
15 Jul 2009, 12:39 pm
#222 Pietman:
the only other centre was chester (as far as i can remember) who was later shifted to wing
15 Jul 2009, 12:40 pm
#222:Pietman
Are you by any chance thinking of Wilfredo Cupido?
15 Jul 2009, 12:43 pm
#222 Pietman: MacNeil Hendricks? Played primarily wing, but think also centre a game or two.
15 Jul 2009, 12:44 pm
#218 stormer in a teacup: why? did he bliksem the opposition in the home games where he didn’t rest them? Did he put up record scores?
A lot of bloggers were moaning here in the past weeks that everytime a test is played the best bok team must get on the field & that pdv’s selections for the 3rd test against the lions “cheapened” the bok jersey! But oh jake can rest whoever he wants & “cheapen” the bok jersey but pdv can’t…
In ’07 we should’ve won the Tri-Nations hands down with the players we had that had just won the super14, they had the winning mentality, they were playing under “mr structure” himself, we should’ve won it!
15 Jul 2009, 12:44 pm
#222 Pietman:
do you this rugby_guru thats blogging here?
15 Jul 2009, 12:46 pm
#224 stormer in a teacup:
wilfred was before linee
and
#225 Isigidi:
mcneil played primarily for boland
15 Jul 2009, 12:46 pm
#219 Grape White: Saw him play the Spar witwarm touchie’s tournament. Jeez his nippy, but very very small.
15 Jul 2009, 12:48 pm
#229 Isigidi:
yep, his f*kken vinnig
saw him beat guys in a game between wp/boland with his speed from a standing start
15 Jul 2009, 12:49 pm
#228 ashley: True, slipped my mind. From Malmesbury I think?
15 Jul 2009, 12:49 pm
wise words lie written above!
15 Jul 2009, 12:49 pm
Boks must play BRUIN game.
15 Jul 2009, 12:52 pm
#231 Isigidi:
yebo. saw him at club level (long before he became a bok). jeez, that guy could tackle!
15 Jul 2009, 12:52 pm
#180 skopskiet: LOL.
Exactly my point!My team would be just about the same as the one picked now, its simple. PDV inherited Jakes team.
15 Jul 2009, 12:54 pm
#224 stormer in a teacup:
Daasy, dankie man!
Demmit, ek wonder al heel dag, sien die man se gesig voor my en kan nie die naam byval nie!
Nou kan my brein rus n slag, thx.
Wilfred Cupido.
15 Jul 2009, 12:54 pm
Wit mense dra veel groter skuld
14/07/2009 08:02:17 PM – (SA)
SAMPIE TERREBLANCHE van Stellenbosch skryf: Leopold Scholtz (DB, 10.07) sê apartheid het die nie-wittes in die kern van hul menswees beledig. Ek stem saam.
Scholtz behoort egter te weet apartheid het veel erger dinge aan veral swart mense gedoen.
Oor ’n tydperk van honderd jaar het wit maghebbers ’n stelsel in stand gehou wat byna alle swart mense van eiendomsreg, billike arbeidsgeleenthede en geleenthede tot ekonomiese en mensontwikkeling ontneem het.
Apartheid het aan wittes die geleentheid gebied om oor sê vier geslagte eiendom te akkumuleer.
’n Groot deel hiervan is onverdiend geakkumuleer, want dit het ten koste van die swart mense gebeur.
In 1994 is aan ons wittes die voorreg verleen om bykans al ons eiendom – óók dié deel wat onverdiend bekom is – ongeskonde na die nuwe bestel “oor te dra”.
Die afgelope 15 jaar het die nuwe stelsel besonder vriendelik teenoor die wit én nie-wit eienaarsklasse geopereer.
Die sistemiese skuld wat ons onsself gedurende die apartheidseeu van onreg op die hals gehaal het, is inderdaad baie groot.
Dat álle wittes nie bereid is om te erken hulle is onverdiend deur apartheid verryk en die meeste swart mense is onverdiend daardeur verarm nie, is ’n belemmering vir versoening.
Indien ons dié skuld volledig in ag neem, en die misdade van wit veiligheidsmagte gedurende die struggle byreken, is dit onvanpas om die misdade in ANC-kampe so te oorbeklemtoon soos Scholtz doen.
(Indien na ANC-skuld gesoek word, is dit die wanadministrasie van die afgelope 15 jaar).
Dit ly geen twyfel nie dat wit mense én swartes baie skuld het. Ons wittes moet egter grootmoedig genoeg wees om te erken ons skuld is baie groter.
Terselfdertyd moet ons onthou om nie te vergeet nie dat ons in die bevoorregte posisie is om met bykans al ons eiendom – óók die onverdiende deel – te kan bly voortwoeker.
15 Jul 2009, 12:54 pm
#232 goyougoodthing2:
ag, i cant help it
everytime i open my mouth
wise things just flow from within!
15 Jul 2009, 12:56 pm
#235 dr dre: O gosh, Keo is counting his money already with all the hits his gonna get between you and Transformation.
Here we go again!
Btw, i agree with you.
15 Jul 2009, 12:58 pm
anyway guys
brynmense moet ok eet
see you after lunch!!
15 Jul 2009, 12:58 pm
#237 adi: Nie eers klaar gelees. Herdie soort posting hoort nie op hierdie site boet.
Wrong forum!
15 Jul 2009, 12:58 pm
#197 Porra the Fat Speedster: LOL. Hell man, now thats funny.
15 Jul 2009, 13:00 pm
#238 ashley: hahaha.
How’s this for an idea?
Whoever wins SuperBru gets to Coach the Bok team next year? That’s an equal opportunity playing field!
15 Jul 2009, 13:00 pm
#225 Isigidi:
Maccie never played WP did he?
Only Boland and N.Tvl Bulls, as far as I know.
#227 ashley:
Huh?
#223 ashley:
Chester started as center yes.
First time I saw him he was an 18 year old, playing against Danie Gerber, Saldanha Academy vs Despatch at Veldrift (1990, I think it was, at their annual rugby day).
15 Jul 2009, 13:04 pm
#237 adi:
So, jou punt is wat, in n rugbykonteks?
15 Jul 2009, 13:04 pm
#244 Pietman: Ouderdom Piet!Jy’s reg.
15 Jul 2009, 13:05 pm
You just have to admire my fellw compatriots – South Africans. They just do not appreciate what they have until it is late in life relatively speaking.
Madiba was once called a terrorist by most of the people or their parents here who would like to get rid of PDV as a national coach. BUT NOW HE IS A LIVING LEGEND, ANGEL TO MOST OF THEM. Mark my words, should PDV ever win the tri nation we will be regarded as next thing after the saviour including Keo and his typists. Are they driven by racism in their campaign? I hope not. But there certainly is a campaign of some sort to get rid of him.
15 Jul 2009, 13:09 pm
#244 Pietman:
Who the hell was that flyhalf that missed Carel DuP’s try in the final at Newlands to have the Currie Cup drawn in the late 80′s?
15 Jul 2009, 13:09 pm
#155 Optimus Prime: Ah, the poor old Primus Stove.
Burning wood chips and not clean fuel.
The wood chips on shoulder that can be seen from outer space.
Wood chips that burn messily, emitting years of pent up smoke, lacking direction as it flows, not finding the window.
The window that was opened many years ago for the smoke to be free.
Instead the little Primus huffs and puffs and succeeeds only in showing itself up as an inadequate outdated little stove.
The newer models, in store, have given up the chips for fuel and instead now run on a clean “free” fuel and they are the popular models, with many subjecting themselves to long arduous queues in seek of the stove.
A pity indeed.
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