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, 14:14 pm
#294 Dawn: Jeepers but you watch them like a hawk………ready to pounce at a moments notice…
15 Jul 2009, 14:17 pm
#288 bok_bal:
Iraqgoals?
15 Jul 2009, 14:17 pm
Ashley = naweekdronkie
15 Jul 2009, 14:19 pm
#301 Slappes:
wel,
laas naweek het ek my mooi gedra?
15 Jul 2009, 14:20 pm
#297 Slappes:
Never saw Doppies on the field last week ……………
#299 EEE:
In my next life I’m coming back as a wolf!!
15 Jul 2009, 14:23 pm
#300 Dawn: ja check dit uit
15 Jul 2009, 14:25 pm
I’m actually enjoyin the craven week rugby being played. Some good skills Griquas and border playing now, wp and lions next I think
15 Jul 2009, 14:25 pm
#99 Dawn: Ag ou vrou. Soek jy nou weer aandag? Jy is lekker deur die kak!!!
15 Jul 2009, 14:25 pm
Ashley – moet nooooit weer aan n Michael Jackson dans kompetisie deelneem nie, veral as jy dikgesuip is nie. En dit voor die hele Paarl Mall.
15 Jul 2009, 14:27 pm
#305 Grape White: yeah nice intercept try by Griquas. Some good rugby.
15 Jul 2009, 14:28 pm
That Zim boy (yesterday or the day before’s match not sure) amazing stepping skills I cant remember his name but he’ll probably play for a SA franchise going forward
15 Jul 2009, 14:28 pm
#306 Ed_die_Leeu:
Sorry?
15 Jul 2009, 14:28 pm
#307 Slappes:
neeeeeeeeeeee boet
daaaaai wassie ekkie!!
15 Jul 2009, 14:29 pm
#306 Sir_Earl_die_Leeu:
yes ma se kind
hoesit?
15 Jul 2009, 14:30 pm
#309 Grape White: There’s some good talent. EP’s eightman, not bad.
15 Jul 2009, 14:31 pm
Ashley – ok , maar jy bly n dronkie
15 Jul 2009, 14:35 pm
#314 Slappes:
ja, jong
elke outjie het sy foutjie!
15 Jul 2009, 14:36 pm
#286 WP Till I Die: #297 Slappes:
Geweet julle donners sal my mis, maar julle het my mos nie waardeer destyds toe ek WP ondersteun het nie!
Ok, laat ek sluit hier en oorhol huistoe en Cravans gaan kyk.
#288 bok_bal:
Dankie vir daai tjomma, gaan nou daar kyk.
15 Jul 2009, 14:37 pm
#283 WP Till I Die: look here comrade; they facts & the prgmatism you & pissant are constantly bringing to this blog are counter-revolutionary & are not aiding the propaganda that our hosts want to sell.
as you well know, you can’t go to the beijing olympics & try to toyi toyi there for human rights and stuff. So at this juncture i have to ask you two comrades what makes you think it within the normal protocols of diplomacy to bring facts & figures to a blog where all of that stuff clearly holds no mileage? I beg you comrades to cease & desist from your ways.
Your comrade in Arms
Transformation.
15 Jul 2009, 14:37 pm
#306 Ed_die_Leeu:
Stadig, die antie het n swak blaas, netnou is haar stoel weer nat……!
15 Jul 2009, 14:40 pm
#316 Pietman: Border en Griquas op die oomblik, lekker rugby. Eintlik dankie aan die blogger van Saterdag wie se nick ek nie kan onthou nie. Connection is nogals vinnig ook. Geniet.
15 Jul 2009, 14:41 pm
#313 bok_bal: What really surprised me this year is the intensity at the breakdown, dam these boys dont mess around they hit the breakdown and the rucks real hard lol good quality though. That try (Free State I think) where (nearly) the whole team participated was good to watch the other day. Definitely some quality games and I dont normally watch Craven Week all that much or as much as the varsity cup but there’s definitely more quality this year in the Craven Week.
15 Jul 2009, 14:43 pm
lol, just when I about to praise the maul they go mess it up but good try nonetheless
15 Jul 2009, 14:44 pm
316 Pietman –
Ja pieta maar ons gaan nie jou bul vriende vertel nie. Jyt te veel WP in jou om dit net so weg te gooi!
15 Jul 2009, 14:47 pm
#320 Grape White: I think they studied the video of Bakkies on how to clean out at the rucks. You’re right, high intensity at the breakdowns. I only started watching today and enjoy it. They can just work on their handling and 50/50 passes. But hey, it’s schoolboy rugby. Good stuff.
15 Jul 2009, 14:52 pm
#319 bok_bal:
Ok, ek is by die huis, gaan nou rustig n dop drink en kyk hier in die rustigheid.
Daai blogger was Big Hit, terloops, nice ou.
15 Jul 2009, 14:54 pm
#322 Slappes:
Ek het meer WP in my as Luke Watson, dis verseker!
Hy is n Xhosalander.
15 Jul 2009, 14:54 pm
Hey does anyone have the Keo night owls 3N superbru pool code?
15 Jul 2009, 14:59 pm
#323 bok_bal: haha yeah what i also noticed is that almost everyone running with the ball, run with their arm out in front hoping to hand off everyone in their paths. But some good offloads some unnecessary no look offloads as well with some coming off and others just looking ridiculous. Some of the scrummies also look tiny I wonder how these guys will ever make it above school level. It’s unrealistic really to have a tiny but fast scrummie cos he wont make it at that build when he tries to find a club after school but he will shine in Craven week.
15 Jul 2009, 14:59 pm
#325 Pietman: Wanneer maak hy die skuif na pappa toe?
15 Jul 2009, 15:07 pm
I managed to get hold of this article by Steven Friedman. Have a read and let’s hear some thoughts.
Whites wait on the touchline to label the next black buffoon
Steven Friedman Published: 2009/07/15 07:05:48
FIFTEEN years after apartheid formally ended, it is time for those whites who never tire of accusing others of “playing the race card” to realise how often they do it themselves — without even noticing.
I don’t understand rugby: I have never fathomed why 30 adults would want to jump on each other to grab a ball that is the wrong shape. And so I have no idea whether our national coach, Peter de Villiers, is good at his job. But what I cannot help noticing is how common it is in our society for black people who cross boundaries, which whites create, to be reduced to figures of fun.
The problem is not that people criticise De Villiers — or Percy Sonn or Norman Arendse or black lawyers and business people whose names come to mind: in a free society everyone can criticise everyone else. It is that they are reduced to buffoons, butts of ridicule, much as smiling minstrels were in the days when prejudices were expressed more directly because they were the law.
It is possible that some who are reduced to comic cutouts in this way are as foolish as those who denigrate them claim. But it seems highly unlikely that there is a law of South African life that decrees that all black people who gravitate to posts many whites believe to be beyond them, or express views many whites would rather not hear, happen also to be clowns. It seems far more likely that some end up saying injudicious things because the constant sneering of detractors convinced that black people are simply not up to particular tasks take its toll — and more than possible that some are not foolish at all but are lampooned in this way because this enables some whites to convince themselves of their own superiority and to console themselves for their loss of power.
There seem to be two sources for this prejudice. First, many whites still believe there are jobs only they can do. Can anyone who is honest about the prejudices that dominate cricket — our national one-day team has fewer black players than England and, sometimes, the same as New Zealand — believe that any black person who, if the guardians of the sport lost concentration long enough to allow this, was appointed coach would last more than a few days before the buffoon label was slapped on them?
Second, ingrained prejudice ensures that the margin of error for black public figures is much smaller than that for whites. While some senior black legal figures have been quickly relegated to buffoonery for their utterances, the same fate does not seem to await the white judge who implied recently that, as an inheritor of English tradition, he honoured his work obligations whatever the state of his health — and that, by implication, Africans book themselves off at the slightest excuse.
And we all know of a white columnist whose racial stereotypes have landed him plum positions on the lecture circuit. Would the same happen to a black columnist who blamed all whites for Auschwitz, Hiroshima and global economic crises?
More is at stake here than just pointing out that the prejudices that kept apartheid alive still survive.
The prejudices that allow some to be pilloried in this way do not present themselves openly as racial biases — their power stems precisely from their ability to appear as expressions of nonracial common sense.
That is no doubt why some black commentators and whites with strong nonracial credentials join in the baiting — because reducing some black public figures to jokes seems to be what sensible people do; that the victims are invariably black people who have offended some whites is presumably coincidental.
This trend is part of a wider pattern in our public debate: it portrays our divide as one between those (usually white) who want to put race behind them and those (always black) who want to use it as a stick with which to beat the competent.
But reducing others to buffoons in the name of “merit” and “standards” is not prejudice-free. It is the old prejudice in a slightly new guise: it continues to express a deep-seated belief that whites are competent, blacks are not.
And which sort of racial prejudice should worry us more — that of black professionals and politicians who react to bigotry in selfserving ways or those of bigots whose prejudices are so deeply rooted that they manage to convince themselves and others that they are not prejudices at all?
- Friedman is director of the Centre for the Study of Democracy, an initiative of Rhodes University and the University of Johannesburg.
15 Jul 2009, 15:07 pm
#327 Grape White: It’s a pity that a lot of these guys will fade. Some are very scrawny while others look like monsters. I remember playing against a guy like Ryan Walker, played scrummie for Hilton College, he was big and strong for a scrummy, went on to play for Natal a few times, but soon dissapeared.
15 Jul 2009, 15:12 pm
#329 Optimus Prime: ‘n klomp k@k as jy my vra.
15 Jul 2009, 15:15 pm
#330 bok_bal: yeah well at least he went on to represent Natal, lol some of the boys will end up as call centre agents when they cant even find a club haha, anyway, that bulls flyhalf was really impressive the other day. His kicking game was on point even though the wind was swirling he played it as well as he could in the conditions – big build as well
15 Jul 2009, 15:15 pm
#331 bok_bal:
Dis soos sy haar dae spandeer, soek sulke kuk op om op n rugby site te pos.
Pleks dat sy soos n gewone jongmens n kerel kry en die lewe geniet, nou pla sy ons geharde ou rugbyondersteuners met daai snert.
Die vroumensie se koppie raas erg jong.
15 Jul 2009, 15:17 pm
#331 Okei Bokbal, hoekom se jy so?
15 Jul 2009, 15:18 pm
This Cloete boy for Border is impressive. Stealing balls like hell at the breakdown
15 Jul 2009, 15:20 pm
#334 Pietman: I think you are exactly the personality Steven Friedman is talking about. It’s great that we bloggers have a ready example so handy.
15 Jul 2009, 15:22 pm
#332 Grape White: He was really good, don’t know what happend to him. When are the Bulls, Lions, WP, the bigger guns playing?
15 Jul 2009, 15:25 pm
#335 Grape White:
Hey, Border is good, they are giving my old Griqua Cravens ( I am a N-Cape boytjie) a run for their money!
Lots of talent down in the EC, pity about the politics….too many black lawyers/reverends down their that know jackshyte about the game.
15 Jul 2009, 15:26 pm
#334 bloukie: Dis wat ek dink. Voel rerig nie lus om in ‘n politieke debat ingetrek te word nie. Ek laaik rugby, nie lus vir ander nonsens op ‘n rugby blog nie. Sy kan maar haar artikels op facebook post, vir al wat ek omgee.
15 Jul 2009, 15:26 pm
ok, before the next world war break out here on keo,
can i have the codes for superbru please?
anyone?
15 Jul 2009, 15:27 pm
#329 Optimus Prime: Pat yourself on the back, you have managed to dig up a supporting article that aims to suport the chip you have on your shoulder.
When, all you are doing is showing yourself up to be fixated by black and white.
You are boring and tired.
15 Jul 2009, 15:27 pm
#326 Corndog: its “clamjoke”…
15 Jul 2009, 15:28 pm
#340 ashley: clamjoke
15 Jul 2009, 15:28 pm
#343 grant10: thats the code for 3 n
15 Jul 2009, 15:29 pm
#340 ashley:
Watse codes soek jy, TriNations of wat?
Vra vir superbul, ek het jou al hoeveel keer gese my boet.
Ek is in by almal, maar het die goete vergeet, so lank terug was dit al gepost hier op keo.
Laat ek mail en sien hoe ek jou tog kan help…
15 Jul 2009, 15:29 pm
Well done Border!
15 Jul 2009, 15:30 pm
WP and Lions after this match. Natal and SA Academy tomorrow (thats going to be a cracker SA Academy look good) and Bulls and Free State tomorrow as well. But I tell you what, theres very little difference between the tiers – no such thing as big guns. The red and yellow cards tho make a bigger difference at this level than at senior level though and the games become boring one sided affairs. I enjoyed the first 10 minutes of the Boland vs Bulls game even though they red carded a Boland player in like the first few plays of the game for a tipping tackle. After the 15 minute mark or so, Bulls just rolled over them and it became a bit boring. Mind you, the Bulls flyhalf looked good in that game playing against 14 but it was his kicking that impressed as you couldnt really gauge his other skills playing against 14 men. WP and Lions about to start now
15 Jul 2009, 15:31 pm
#342 poppa69:
#343 grant10:
are you guys sure?
i think thats the exact code given to my by pietman, and i ended up in another pool!
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