Pulling the strings
15 Jul 2010
Springbok assistant coaches Gary Gold and Dick Muir have had a major influence on the team’s playing philosophy, writes Gavin Rich in SA Rugby magazine.
In the movie Robin Hood, the hero plays a defining role in the battle that enables the English to beat off an intended French invasion.
The English monarch, King John, seeing the French surrender, asks who they are surrendering to. One of John’s right-hand men points at the Robin Longstride (later to become Hood) character, played by Russell Crowe, and says, ‘They are surrendering to him’.
No doubt the king is aware of the role that Robin has played in saving England, but at the same time he is jealous of his popularity. He reacts by declaring Robin an outlaw of the state.
Why are we starting off a story about the Springbok assistant coaches by retelling a Hollywood screenplay? Because there may be a little of King John in Springbok coach Peter de Villiers. His public tirade against his management team in April could only have been sparked by dissatisfaction that others were being credited with the Springboks’ success.
In the end, the coach’s threat to sack staff never amounted to anything, and the same management team that ended the last international season were working with De Villiers when the Springboks started the new one.
What De Villiers was doing, or so it emerged, was just blowing off steam, doing a bit of sabre rattling to warn his management members while at the same time sending out the message to the public that he is the boss.
To understand why there would be a need to do that you have to understand that like all of us, De Villiers is human. That means he does have an ego, and while publicly he did all the right things last year by staying in the background when the players celebrated the Tri-Nations triumph, privately it must rankle with him that he didn’t get full credit from some sections of the media and public.
That the Springbok team is run by committee should be obvious to anyone who has read John Smit’s autobiography. It should have been clear to anyone who understands the game that the Springboks did not achieve their success against the British & Irish Lions and in the Tri-Nations playing the off-the-cuff rugby that De Villiers spoke about when he first took over.
Behind the scenes a long battle was being waged in 2008 to get the Boks back to the game that won the World Cup just a year earlier. The players were part of that battle, but the assistant coaches were also facing each other across the trenches, with the different philosophies of Dick Muir and Gary Gold having an impact on the initial formulation of policy, as well as the evolution that followed.
To explain all of this, it is instructive to go back to the article I wrote on the assistant coaches for SA Rugby magazine in May 2008. At the time they were being appointed, they were clearly not being recruited as assistants who would just follow the head coach’s policy, but would be part of policy formulation.
The problem was that even back then they knew they had conflicting views on how the game should be played, though they tried hard to make it seem like a positive.
‘I know Peter’s style from his time with Western Province [he coached the Disas], and obviously I know Dick from what he has done with the Sharks, and I would say that in a subtle way we do have different philosophies,’ said Gold. ‘Neither philosophy is right or wrong, but while I believe there should be some structure, I think Peter and Dick are what you could call “heads-up coaches”. They like their players to play what’s in front of them.’
Gold went on to say that Muir probably wouldn’t disagree that it was only when John Plumtree arrived as his assistant that structure was brought to the Sharks in 2007, and it was then that the Sharks evolved into the finished article. Gold was right, Muir didn’t disagree.
‘It’s about striking the right balance between structure and letting the players make the decisions, and I think your ability to get this right depends heavily on where you are with the players in their development,’ said Muir. ‘Looking back, I think that in a manner of speaking I was trying to run with players who at the time just weren’t ready to run. I firmly believe that if you have the complete product, in other words players who are experienced and developed enough, you don’t need structure.’
That Muir statement explains a lot. Clearly when he became involved with the Springboks, he thought the players were the finished article. Let’s wind the clock back to the first Springbok training camp under the De Villiers regime in Stellenbosch in late May 2008.
The Sharks had made the Super 14 semi-finals, so they weren’t part of the Bok squad at first muster. Muir wasn’t part of the management that first addressed the players at the Lord Charles Hotel in Somerset West.
Perhaps it explains why when the Boks went into their first training sessions, structure was not just a small feature of what they were doing – it was massive.
I watched one of those sessions with Brendan Venter, who was the Stormers defence coach at the time and is now in charge of Saracens. Venter was open mouthed at what he was seeing, and exclaimed that the structured session he was watching was the antithesis of the heads-up approach that De Villiers had been preaching in the media.
Venter was even more confounded when he heard some of the regular Stormers codes being called out, and saw the Springboks running Stormers drills and moves. Stormers coach Rassie Erasmus was also watching from the stands at the Danie Craven Stadium.
Understandably, Gold became unpopular with Erasmus for a while, and he was also in hot water with De Villiers when I wrote in the Weekend Argus that the Springboks were employing Stormers strategy. I know this because Venter, a good friend of Gold’s, told me as much.
But Venter wasn’t the only person I chatted to during that Stellenbosch camp. The players were more talkative in those early days about the De Villiers reign, and one of them told me towards the end of the camp that everything had been well on track and the squad had been heading towards a structured approach before Muir arrived and, in his words, ‘messed it up’.
The Boks continued with what they started, however, when they played the first game under De Villiers against Wales in Bloemfontein. For the first 50 minutes it was text-book traditional Bok rugby, with Butch James playing one of his better games of that year. The Boks won comfortably.
Unfortunately, though, they scored a couple of long-range tries once the Welsh were forced into a massive catch-up game in the second half, and this must have duped De Villiers into leaning back in the direction of the Muir heads-up approach. We media probably didn’t help when, in praising the Boks the next day, we noted that little had changed in overall strategy since the World Cup.
It was heads-up rugby that the Boks played in the early part of the Loftus game, only the heads were clearly missing – it looked like chicken-without-heads rugby. The Boks won in the end, but they nearly ran themselves out on their feet, and the Welsh were allowed to be far more competitive than they had been in Bloemfontein.
This pattern of doing well with structure one week and then forsaking it with near disastrous results was to continue for much of the season. For instance, the overly frenetic approach of Wellington was followed by a more controlled and structured approach in Dunedin, and the Boks scored a historic victory.
But instead of going to Australia retaining the same approach, the Boks telegraphed an intention to become more attacking by dropping Percy Montgomery. The Boks lost in Perth, and they lost 19-0 to the All Blacks at Newlands playing rugby that was a long way from the tried and trusted Bok template.
And so to Durban, and the match against the Wallabies, where the chasm in the camp in terms of the intended approach was made obvious to the media by the massive differences in the utterances of the players, the two assistants and the head coach.
At the media conferences during the week, Jean de Villiers spoke about the need to play from the right positions on the field and to kick when on the wrong side of halfway, and Juan Smith spoke about the virtues of structure. So did Gold. But when Muir spoke he was clearly speaking heads-up rugby again, and he and De Villiers seemed convinced there had not been any error with the strategy in the Newlands disaster.
Behind the scenes a meeting had taken place, at the behest of the assistant coaches, between players and management at which a new way forward was formulated. Under pressure, De Villiers was forced to let the players have their way – but judging from his and Muir’s statements, they didn’t know what that way was.
The return to structure didn’t bear immediate dividends in Durban because some 50-50 calls went against the Boks early on. When they fell behind they lost composure, and it was clear not all the players were on the same page. Neither were the coaches, for The Mercury reported afterwards that two different strategies were suggested to skipper Victor Matfield by the respective assistant coaches at half-time.
History shows that a return to direct rugby saw the Boks score a massive win over the Wallabies in Johannesburg in the final Test of that Tri-Nations, and but for a slight wobble in Edinburgh, the template was retained for the end-of-year tour and into 2009.
Of the two assistants, Gold played the more important role in the success of the new player-driven culture because his understanding of the need for a structured approach led him to act as an interface between the players and the other coaches.
Percy Montgomery, when he was with the Boks last year, also played a massive role in preaching structure, and in the Tri-Nations he played a bigger role than merely performing the duties of a kicking coach.
The reality is that strategy within the Springbok set-up has never really been driven by De Villiers – there have been occasions, such as in the beginning in Stellenbosch, when Gold was clearly allowed to have influence. There were other times when Muir had more influence, usually coinciding with a heads-up playing style, and of course, over the past 18 months the players have been steering the ship.
But the senior players cannot be fall guys because they are seen as indispensible. The assistants may be more expendable to De Villiers, which explains why it was management who were in the line of fire when he thrust out his chest and proclaimed ‘I am the boss!’ That was what De Villiers’ media outburst was about.
In order to do so, he had to find a suitable fall guy, and his fellow management were easy targets.
By Gavin Rich
– This article first appeared in the July issue of SA Rugby magazine
218 Comments
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15 Jul 2010, 10:29 am
for farks sake…
gavin rich isn’t scraping the bottom of the barrel here… he’s tipping the barrel over and scratching for the goggas that sneak around in the dark underneath it…
so if **** is so influencial… how come he couldn’t influence his own team in the S14???
15 Jul 2010, 10:31 am
@ufo(ufo)-1:
okay…
so if Richard Muir is so influencial… how come he couldn’t influence his own team in the S14???
so now PDivvie is jealous of Richard Muir and Gareth Gold…
get the f.uck outta here Gavin Rich… what a poor f.ucking excuse of an article..
15 Jul 2010, 10:35 am
here we go again
fark me
15 Jul 2010, 10:37 am
Is this one of those ‘open secrets’?
15 Jul 2010, 10:39 am
@Papoose(papaown)-3:
yeah… groundhog day…
15 Jul 2010, 10:40 am
@ufo(ufo)-5: Good movie that…
15 Jul 2010, 10:41 am
very pathetic article and it wont do the boks cause any good when such dribble is written
my interest is in the boks and nothing else
poor gavin
very poor
15 Jul 2010, 10:42 am
@ufo(ufo)-5:
But …….. is “Robin Hood” a good movie!!
Or am I thinking of “Men in Tights”
15 Jul 2010, 10:43 am
One loss and this ****. Get a life Mrs Rich …think it’s a bit rich of you even going back as far as 2008…reminds me of a song that say “how low can you go”.
15 Jul 2010, 10:44 am
@Papoose(papaown)-7:
Isn’t it Simon?
15 Jul 2010, 10:44 am
this is reminiscent of the british journo who tried to sabotage our world cup by sneaking tht pom into the change room
the bladdy agent was found guilty and is not allowed back in the country
why are some in the media intent on bringin us down. i mean this article..what is the purpose of it?
15 Jul 2010, 10:44 am
@Dawn(Dawn)-8:
knowing you, you’re “thinking of men in tights…” (your words)
15 Jul 2010, 10:45 am
@Dawn(Dawn)-8: Maybe PdV, D ic kie & Gold should wear green tights on Saturday.
15 Jul 2010, 10:48 am
@Dawn(Dawn)-10: @ the bottom of the article it says
“By Gavin Rich”
i know, it was tough for me to read the WHOLE article as well
15 Jul 2010, 10:48 am
@Papoose(papaown)-11:
The purpose is to say Div is responsible for everything and Friar Tuck and Maid Marion are innocent of all kuk play by the Boks.
Nou ja!
15 Jul 2010, 10:50 am
I like this article. It makes a lot of sense to me.
15 Jul 2010, 10:50 am
@Papoose(papaown)-14:
15 Jul 2010, 10:50 am
He speaks the truth! The Boks were very reminiscent of the Lions last Saturday, but as far as playing philosophy is concerned, de Villiers and Muir share the same screwed up vision.
15 Jul 2010, 10:52 am
@Tacitus(Tacitus)-16:
Ten minste het jy die krag om die hele ding te lees
15 Jul 2010, 10:52 am
actually Gav, his outburst was directed towards the medical staff.
15 Jul 2010, 10:54 am
Pathetic. The article promises to say much but ends up crashing and burning in speculation and conjecture. Whatever.
15 Jul 2010, 10:57 am
Good piece Simon!
There are still three questions which I feel need greater exploring on this issue:
(a) Who wanted to persist with the blueprint kick-chase strategy this year in the absence of FDP and Frans Steyn? Was it the players, management or both?
(b) How much influence do the senior players like John and Victor have in the final XV that plays, and in particular, about controversial selections such as Januarie?
(c) How much influence do the players have in determining logistics, eg. when to travel to NZ to play in a 3N test?
The answers to these conundrums will in turn explain a lot more about the balance of power in the Bok camp.
15 Jul 2010, 10:57 am
@Papoose(papaown)-11:
it’s one for thing for poms etc to always try and tear us down… but it gives me the ghrills when south africans do it… for no more reason than to drive agendas and has nothing to do with news or informing the public…
all innuendo dug out of three year old notes… focusing on only one side of the ‘issue’ and ignoring everything that happened since then that conradicts Rich’s agenda…
sheesh… tabloid journalism at its unsubstantiated and biased best…
15 Jul 2010, 11:01 am
Let’s face it. Muir is a clown. His philosophies have been disproven time and again.
Even the Lions had to bring in John Mitchell to try and undo the “structureless” damage he has done in his short stint there.
In short, Muir’s coaching philosophy is fine, as long as you don’t mind not ever winning. Like the poor Lions in this year’s S14.
15 Jul 2010, 11:01 am
Actually I think this article lays a lot of blame at muir’s door.
Time for fleckie.
15 Jul 2010, 11:03 am
@Dawn(Dawn)-17: anything positive we can comment on dawn
nt this depressing article
15 Jul 2010, 11:03 am
Am I right in assuming Gold’s personal record is the weakest of the 3 coaches discussed? I think I am. So much so that we’ve had to actually call upon a new coach to sort our scrumming issues out because our very own “forwards” coach couldn’t manage the job? Where has he managed the job though? Where has he ever excelled in fact?
It’s strange because many of the senior players have been open about how they’ve never been happier playing under PDV.
Unfortunately there are 2 writers on this site that are using the Keo platform to further there own agendas, and when you consider that there are friendships that exist between these writers and Springbok management you would be an utter fool to expect a truly objective assessment of the situation.
15 Jul 2010, 11:05 am
@gunther(gunther)-25:
or Pieter Rossouw
15 Jul 2010, 11:05 am
Gavin Rich is just a pathetic excuse for a journalist. In one article its the players who are running in the team. in another it’s all down to **** Muir and Gary Gold. Now Percy is “playing a big part in the team’s success” and next it will be Os Du Randt. Before long he’ll be writing an article to praise the team physio’s for getting Smit and Matfield through to the World Cup, and then it will be the team psychologist, and finally he’ll be down to the baggage master (they can’t play in the birthday suits after all).
He’ll praise anyone but Div…pathetic!
15 Jul 2010, 11:06 am
@Yetirat(Yetirat)-27:
That is the ultimate tragedy of this whole situation.
When you have to resort to relying on Gold as the voice of reason among the three stooges, then you know you’re in trouble.
I still don’t understand why they couldn’t just have appointed Heyneke Meyer and thereby avoided all of these issues.
15 Jul 2010, 11:07 am
Why praise someone who can’t do their job?
15 Jul 2010, 11:08 am
@gunther(gunther)-25: this article started off in trying to ridicule Piet Snor
that is my bone of contention
yes i currently unhappy with all 3, especially Richard”the lionheart” Muir and Gary “No Medal” Gold
but this continuing question of whose in charge has got to stop
15 Jul 2010, 11:08 am
@Tacitus(Tacitus)-30:
Because this is South Africa, where rational thought is clubbed to death. They thought a quota could just step in a keep the engine running, well, it hasn’t happened that way.
15 Jul 2010, 11:10 am
@Yetirat(Yetirat)-27: i just dont get it
the players continually state tht yet these writers portray like they have the real inside information…WTC
15 Jul 2010, 11:11 am
“No doubt the king is aware of the role that Robin has played in saving England, but at the same time he is jealous of his popularity. He reacts by declaring Robin an outlaw of the state.
Why are we starting off a story about the Springbok assistant coaches by retelling a Hollywood screenplay? Because there may be a little of King John in Springbok coach Peter de Villiers.
His public tirade against his management team in April could only have been sparked by dissatisfaction that others were being credited with the Springboks’ success.”
only in ‘certain’ sections of the public… lead by ‘certain’ sections of the media…
if Richard and Gary were so offended by the ‘public tirade’ why the fark didn’t they resign and get other jobs…? instead of crawling back like subservient wimps… that says all I need to know about who pulls the strings and wears the pants in that relationship…
and it ain’t Richard or Gary
15 Jul 2010, 11:11 am
Muir is a plonker but really what difference to our game plan when white was around besides a fetcher
Really like we just kick the ball away all the time and rely on intercepts and mistakes and line out domination?
15 Jul 2010, 11:11 am
@Papoose(papaown)-32:
Especially Muir and Gold? If de Villiers is definitely in charge., then you should be especially peeved at him, because then the regression of the Boks over the last 2 and a half years is squarely down to him, that is unlless Muir and Gold have been doing as Gavin believes, then and only then can you blame them most. But even then, de Villiers would have to be ridiculed for being such a weak and incompetent coach that he relys on to imbeciles to do his job. Either way you look at it, Div is at fault.
15 Jul 2010, 11:14 am
@KevinRack(KevinRack)-36:
Under Jake we had a completely different system at the breakdown, one that we need to go back to now that fetchers are no longer the force they used to be. Also, our defence was the best ever, and our counter attacking was the most feared in the world. ALL aspects of our game have deteriorated under de Villiers. There is a big difference between the two. 2007 Boks would beat de Villiers side 10/10 times.
15 Jul 2010, 11:14 am
@willievz(willievz)-22: Good questions!
Further on a comment you made a while ago regarding FdP influence on MS.
Would you agree that with Ricky on nine AND WO on 12, Morne doesn’t have anybody to help him, and that – given FdP is not there, that JdV should keep the 12 position ion order to assist MS with attack and vision, and assist JF with defensive management?
15 Jul 2010, 11:16 am
@Alucard(Alucard)-33:
that ‘quota’ not only kept the engine running but fitted some better parts, fine tuned it and has a better win-loss record than the previous non-quota driver…
15 Jul 2010, 11:16 am
“only in ‘certain’ sections of the public… lead by ‘certain’ sections of the media…”
You mean the one with two eyes and an active brain? Yes I agree. The biased ones are just in denial, like cult members.
15 Jul 2010, 11:18 am
so gary gold is the “inteface”, the middle man, the front, for coaches john smit, matfield & du preez?
I’m so happy to be a Bok supporter because now i ca finally tell all our kiwi bloggers that their coaches got outsmarted and walloped by a bunch of senior players, even robbie deans got snotklapped!
this weekend in wellington it’s graham henry, wayne smith VS john smit, viic matfield & du preez (via twitter) – brng it on
15 Jul 2010, 11:19 am
UFO
Post world cup coaching staff
Coetzee
Proudfoot
Fleckie
15 Jul 2010, 11:20 am
@Alucard(Alucard)-41:
to be frank…
in the bigotted, racist sections of the public and media who, like you, will never accept that a coloured or black man can do anything, let alone play or coach rugby, better than a white man…
you asked what i meant…
that clear enough for you…?
15 Jul 2010, 11:21 am
@gunther(gunther)-43:
bittersweet… but yes…!
15 Jul 2010, 11:21 am
@Alucard(Alucard)-33:
Go back and read what you’ve written in this post.
10 times.
And you wonder why I get bevok with you.
15 Jul 2010, 11:22 am
The problem here is that we are 1 year out from the WC and there is no clear direction of a game plan the can continue to work. The kick and chase game is not sustainable and relies on one or two players being available. Now these guys are gone and there is no strategy on adopting better balanced methods of putting points on the board. The kick and chase should just be an option in a game plan and not the entire game plan. This weekend I would rather put the ball out and try and win it back from lineout. If you don’t get it back make sure you put tons of pressure on them in their own half. Also, when we get the ball in hand in their half, don’t ever kick. Get the ball out to the wings. Don’t try drop goals, which only work in 30% of cases and give away possession in their half. Make sure we get lots of players to the breakdown really quickly. Make sure each player understands that if he is not committed to tackling, defending and clearing out the ruck, fighting for the ball and getting stuck in (Mr. Spies)he will leave the field immediately and be on the first plane home. We are playing the All Blacks, not a make shift S14 team. The only way to win is to put everything you have on the line.
15 Jul 2010, 11:23 am
@Alucard(Alucard)-33: You’re a plank…”the quota” has not only kept the engine running, he’s shifted the car from 4th to 5th gear.
Look at the facts and not at the colour of the man’s skin.
15 Jul 2010, 11:23 am
@ufo(ufo)-40:
Lets have a look at those better parts…
Conradie, Bobo, Britz, Watson, Jantjes, Adi, Mujati, Grant, Januarie, Chili, de Jongh, Rose, Newman, Johnson, Reubenheimer (sp?), Hargreaves, Viljoen, Maku, Odwa, Bosman, Bekker, Morne, Brussow, Beast, Nokwe, Kirchner, Jantjes
Of all of those, only Morne, Brussow and Beast are any good at test level. Of those three only Beast was willingly selected. Plumtree played a part in Brussows selection, and de Villiers was under pressure to select Morne. He never wanted him, and wouldn’t acknowledge his achievements after last years TNs.
So you are wrong. There.
Fine tuned the Boks? Our defence has been worse throughout his tenure, our attack worse, our set-pieces are deteriorating. Brussow added the presence we needed at the breakdown last year and that changed our fortunes from 08, but now the coaching staf are exposed, and clearly have no idea how to play New Zealand under the new laws. So you are wrong on all counts. Jeez, you made this so easy.
15 Jul 2010, 11:24 am
@Tacitus(Tacitus)-16: it does to myself too…no open secrets, it is all there for everyone to see that gary gold is gavin rich’s ‘impeccable source’ and if de villiers in his sabre rattling tirade removed him, there senior players would’ve revolted (because their ‘interface’ would’ve been removed), hence nothing came of pdv’s threats of firing gold.
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