Winning with robots
21 Sep 2009
Peter de Villiers has matured as Springbok coach, writes Keo in his weekly Business Day column.
Springbok rugby is in a good place and so is Bok coach Peter de Villiers, whose team has been allowed to play without the interference of politicians and without their coach being flown back to South Africa to explain why he selected two non-white wingers and a black Zimbabwean prop in picking a merit side to win the Tri Nations.
It is how it should be when searching for normality in our sport and when looking to the future and not being stifled by the pain of the past.
De Villiers, his media mauling over the last 18 months mostly self-inflicted, has been at his most impressive in the last two months. He has answered rugby questions with rugby answers, steered clear of mixing his metaphors and left his biblical rhetoric for his Sunday church sessions.
De Villiers, when he succeeded World Cup-winning coach Jake White, promised greater transformation than the two non-white wingers who featured in South Africa’s winning World Cup final in 2007. De Villiers said it was a disgrace that Bryan Habana, the world’s best finisher, did not touch the ball in the World Cup final from structured play and said his aim was to turn White’s robotic players into individuals who thought for themselves and played what was in front of them. De Villiers said he did not coach from a clipboard and that it all came from within.
Ironically, it was mostly the same two non-white wingers (Habana and JP Pietersen) who made up De Villiers’s non-white selections in the successful Tri Nations and Habana, in the 32-29 win against the All Blacks in Hamilton, hardly touched the ball as the structured and robotic Boks used their robotic strengths to defeat an All Blacks team that played from the heart but with no appreciation of what it means to play with a bit of common sense.
De Villiers said he wanted to be judged as a rugby coach and not the first non-white bloke to coach the Springboks. When he lost, he struggled and was criticised because of a questionable game plan and poor selections he blamed the media and those doing the criticism as the work of racists. He said it was because he was not white. That is the minefield De Villiers created for himself when he took over from White.
It is important to remember how De Villiers found himself in this position at the end of the 2008 Tri Nations when a Bok team capable of winning the competition ended last with two wins from six. It is important because it shows how De Villiers has matured as a national coach in the last few months.
The Bok coach is saying less idiotic things, allowing his squad to play to their strengths and publicly stating that you don’t fix things if they aren’t broken. He also seems to have lost the inferiority complex of succeeding a coach who won a World Cup.
To be fair to De Villiers he was initially always on a hiding to nothing. If he won with the core of White’s World Cup squad, playing a similar pattern, then where was the credit? If he changed, for the sake of change as happened in 2008 and lost, there would only be condemnation.
Fortunately, De Villiers in the 2009 Tri-Nations applied logic to the squad he has at his disposal. He has allowed them to further mature, playing the kind of game that best suits them and currently is dominating the world order.
I find the comparison of the 2009 Bok squad to the 2007 World Cup winners absurd as 90% of the starting XV are the same players and naturally these same players would be better players since beating England in Paris in 2007. As individuals (and a collective unit) they are 20-odd Tests wiser and at their peak.
De Villiers deserves all the credit for not tweaking a winning formula and accepting that the winning way of 2009 may not be what he had in mind when given the job as Bok coach. He is winning with robots, unlike All Blacks coach Graham Henry who is losing with a bunch of headless chickens.
De Villiers, damned a year ago, is being applauded now because the Boks are winning, and that is the biggest lesson of 2009 for the Bok coach. He is and will always be judged on results; not on the game plan or the colour of his skin.
173 Comments
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22 Sep 2009, 02:44 am
is it a public holiday in SA tomorrow or something
22 Sep 2009, 02:46 am
bump
22 Sep 2009, 02:48 am
This is funny. After writing negative articles about PdV rather than admitting he was wrong Keo decides that PdV has gone through some recent remarkable improvement.
22 Sep 2009, 02:56 am
#148 skopskiet: Unsurprisingly you make it out to be a race issue again. You sad sad person.
22 Sep 2009, 03:30 am
who’s sad kwas? Why don’t you just simply admit your feeble attempt to deride and deny the man his value you punk *** feeble creep. So if its not f’ng racial in your esteemed bullsh’t baffles brains agenda then wtf is it you feeble self righteous liar?
22 Sep 2009, 03:51 am
Let White or Meyer or for that matter Streauli or Markgraaf achieve what the little sooth saying quota coach achieved this year (which for no lack of f’ng trying could they in all their feeble attempts) and watch the sanctimonious holy rugby fundi establishment sing their ardent credentials to the rooftops. But if a simple and relatively humble down to earth rugby coach come rub their sanctimonious holy noses in their pre determined agenda’s and then they have the gall to pretend their sanctioning attempt at down playing his value or ability is non racial, the f’ng bull talking denial driven delusional winning ways delinquents.
22 Sep 2009, 03:58 am
#145 SjamBok: good analysis sjam.
#147 kwas: the worst England side was in 2006 when Robinson was fired. Last year’s team wasn’t too clever but it was more young than poor.
22 Sep 2009, 04:05 am
and the most beautiful irony of all this bullsh’t baffles brains agenda denomination is that most of this elevated and rugby based, non discriminating analysis is more often than not from out the minds of those esteemed highly principled individuals who already skipped the country in search of some other haven of non racial, fair minded, non discriminatory, illumined valhalla.
22 Sep 2009, 05:49 am
All PDV has “improved” is to learn to keep his silly mouth more or less shut most of the time.
22 Sep 2009, 06:56 am
#157 TheTackler: So he’s learnt more than you then.
22 Sep 2009, 07:59 am
skoppietjie,
Say after me “I must stay off the bad tik” then repeat. Leave the past man. Who is going to understudy Bakkies for 2011?
22 Sep 2009, 08:03 am
#159 husky:
22 Sep 2009, 08:35 am
#158 spykerbaard:
LOL! Well said, ou Spykerbaard.
22 Sep 2009, 10:10 am
#158 spykerbaard: Mooi gese, meneer!!
22 Sep 2009, 11:43 am
Keo what is his Win, loss , Draw stats looking like and where does he fit in with past Bok coaches?
I think only Kitch is ahead with Mallet just behind?
22 Sep 2009, 12:29 pm
Gosh,does anybody on this blog ever listen to what PDV
has to say about the Boks.On Super rugby on Kyknet
he admitted that he could not teach the Boks anything about
rugby.He is more a father figure how occasionally corrects
his off springs mistakes and keeps them on the right and
narrow winning track.
He also admitted that he listens to his senior players
about what should happen on the field,depending on the
opposition.
So that attitude makes him a good but not great coach.
Great coaches are those who can turn a bunch of losers
around and make them winners by departing his knowledge
and game plan.
De Villiers knowledge will be tested then the greats of this team are gone and have to be replaced.
And this is not a racist but realistic comment.
22 Sep 2009, 13:01 pm
and thats exactly what makes him a great coach and the other palookas before him mediocre ones. Because with his style we beat Nz twice away, and 3 times on the trot, while those other so called great strategic students of the game never one once away and coughed up 6 from 9 losses to Nz and the rest both home and away. Yes Brentlie believe whatever you realistically will, the reality of the situation is Pdv is 100 times superior coach to his predecessors otherwise they would have done what he’s done in only his second year at the helm. Instead they all Lost handsomely most times against same opposition he beat hands down. Stop deluding yourself about who’s who in the zoo and checks the score board.
22 Sep 2009, 13:32 pm
Will someone just please tell me who I can blame for (and credit with) the whole kick-and-chase thing?
22 Sep 2009, 14:19 pm
#157 TheTackler: At least he and the team have improved … unlike the AB’s that have gone backwards, much like the Boks under Straeuli.
22 Sep 2009, 15:17 pm
#167 biobot: Argentina circa 2007.. the Boks have simply refined and improved the Argies game plan of the day… and why not, it suits the SA game perfectly and has provided some wonderful results…
#168 CharlieBrown: one season with a lot of injuries and they have gone backwards? bwahaha too rich… they will be back next year, and one better hope they suffer the same amount of injuries, even compared to 08 this AB team had quite a few new faces and rookies.. looks promising for NZ, and worrying for SA .. while SA may have some room for improvement, if your honest you will admit the scope is much larger in terms of NZ and improvement..
but saying that, the Boks have been the dominant team all season and rightly deserve and are carrying the title of World champs with some aplomb.. actually refreshing that finally we have a WChamp living up to it, even those with multiple WCs have failed in the past.. so kudos to PDV and his team…
22 Sep 2009, 15:21 pm
#158 spykerbaard:
#168 poppa69: yes, Argies in 2007 is pretty much the last time we saw that gameplan, I’m not sure the Boks consciously replicated it however. NZ won’t be back next year unless they find some new tight five players. The current crop with the exception of Thorn are poor.
22 Sep 2009, 15:44 pm
#170 Big Hit: I dont think they consciously replicated it either, but I am sure they would have noted, as everyone else did by their beating France, that it was an effective game plan… still need the personnel to implement it correctly though.
As for Nz, we have unearthed a few potential stars, should have a few return from injury, thus providing competition for places, which can only be a good thing in the long run…
Woodcock, well his ear infection meant his usual high standard has dropped (much like the rest policy of GH affected the form of the 07 lot), due to limited game time IMO..
as for the rest, Tialata and Afoa are passengers, Franks is a future star (21 and playing test match rugby at prop says he has the goods, or we have no one better, I prefer to think he has the promise)… Locks, feel for Ross, pretty hard initiation into test match rugby, but must remember blokes like Matfield werent exactly world beaters in their first season of test rugby either… he will be better for it in the long run…
we also have props coming through… Newton, Crockett, Franks, Hayman if he returns…
Donnelly showed promise, and I would think he has ensured himself a ticket to the NH… our locking depth is quite strong really (Williams, Boric, Ross, Eaton, Donnelly, Jack)
loosies
McCaw – injury plagued season, finally starting to show he is getting back to his best
Think the balance with Read and Thompson worked in the last game, but again, we have plenty coming through… Whitelock, Latimer, Messam (6,7,8), Vito (6,8), Waldrom
so while we didnt play well at all this year, and discovered some issues that need resolving, it wont be too long before we are back to our level of consistency..
22 Sep 2009, 20:15 pm
165. skopskiet
No Skopskiet,he is a good manager.He has not proven that he
can build a team from scratch and take them to victory.
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