‘Attacking rugby won’t win World Cup’
20 Apr 2011
Peter de Villiers believes the Springboks have the right template to win the World Cup and feels the All Blacks will falter if they favour an attacking brand.
The Crusaders have set the standard in the 2011 Super Rugby tournament with some enterprising displays. The stars of this team are likely to form the core of the All Blacks’ side, and New Zealand will employ a similar playing style.
The Springbok coach said on Wednesday that an overly attacking approach will result in disaster, and pointed out that past World Cups have been won by the best defensive teams. He suggested that the Boks would not stray from their current tactics, and even highlighted the Stormers’ game plan as one that could possibly win tournaments.
‘The Stormers have played one bad game [the defeat to the Reds], and in that game they failed to dominate up front. Otherwise they’ve done well to bully opponents, and Peter Grant has been outstanding at flyhalf.
‘They have something in common with the Crusaders. When they make a turnover, they make a lot of metres. That causes defences to scramble. The big defensive hits also create opportunities,’ said De Villiers, who forgets that the Stormers’ are the second-worst attacking team in the tournament with only 12 tries.
‘I am not worried [about New Zealand players like Williams]. As soon as somebody works him out, he won’t be as much a factor. I can’t wait to see him going up against Jean deVilliers. Then we will see if the boxer can box, and if the dancer can dance.’
De Villiers added that an attacking style would be difficult to maintain in a World Cup tournament that spans seven weeks.
‘It’s a risky game, and if you slip up once, you’re gone,’ he said. ‘Everybody wants entertaining rugby, but it’s not about entertainment, it’s about bringing home the trophy.
‘We know what we’re good at, and we plan to stick to it.’
70 Comments
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21 Apr 2011, 02:31 am
Very simple really, since ’95 the WC has been won on defence and defence only. There is no reason why 2011 will be any different.
On the flipside, the only team capable of beating the AB at home in this WC is the AB team…it is there for the taking and only they can muck it up.
21 Apr 2011, 03:08 am
TheTackler, you usually make sense in your comments, but the latest one above is nothing but hogwash. Knowing the players for each position doesn’t mean winning matches with those players. Winning performing on a specific day is what counts.
21 Apr 2011, 03:52 am
If they don’t beat themselves it only needs a cheating referee to beat the ABs.
Been done twice before.
21 Apr 2011, 04:16 am
To have a proper game plan you MUST have seen what all your players are capable of doing and seen them doing it in proper white-hot test action — not just in theory or by extrapolating their bench-presses and beeps or by basing it on lower-order provincial performances.
You must have trialled all your key combinations in proper test-match contexts too. In wet and in dry conditions. Against strong and weak opposition.
That is the whole point of “experience”.
And you only get there by working through all your questions in a methodical, measured and planned way, but not in a panicky, chop-and-change, let’s-see way, hoping desperately to make a lucky strike.
21 Apr 2011, 04:29 am
Similarly, the Boks aren’t going to win the RWC if SA players continue to kick away possession and show the one-dimensional approach they have this year. And all the SA teams do it. It’s all very well to boast that once Williams has been”worked out” by “our boys”, he won’t be such a factor. Well, the other teams have worked out the predictable Bok approach already and if it doesn’t change, we’ll be out in the quarters. At least the All Blacks can play different types of games against different opponents. SA may have some great players, but let’s face it they aren’t all gonna be in the Bok team. Our selectors have not done a great job in the past year. And our coaches haven’t (yet) figured out how to deal with the Henry team’s innovations.
There’s no point in making statements like this. Over the past 2 years we’ve seen changes in the laws changing results dramatically. ABs completely dominated the Boks last year.
21 Apr 2011, 05:32 am
@rossoneri(rossoneri)-21:
I’m bloody sure the 2007 finalk was terible to watch……….most Kiwi supporters would say that….. suck it up!
21 Apr 2011, 05:39 am
@TheTackler(TheTackler)-49:
Tackler, did you just cut and paste that from your April 07 post
21 Apr 2011, 05:41 am
@Auntie Mavis(Auntie Mavis)-53:
boo hoo
21 Apr 2011, 06:03 am
@whatever(whatever)-58:
Tell you what whatever, you better find another country if they manage to f it up this time around. there will be nothing left…
Refs twice, Suzie once…running out of excuses after 24 years I think.
21 Apr 2011, 06:23 am
@Slartibartfast(Slartibartfast)-59:
21 Apr 2011, 06:26 am
@Slartibartfast(Slartibartfast)-59:
May have to join you in Oz mate, will be a very dire place if they do f ….. it up.
Tell you what, the new Eden Park is looking good. Hosted there for the Blues v Tahs game, very impressive. Pity about the crowd tho…
21 Apr 2011, 06:43 am
@Slartibartfast(Slartibartfast)-59:
@whatever(whatever)-61:
We may well not win it this time as well, but one thing is certain we’ll still have the wood on your boys 4 out of every five years.
21 Apr 2011, 06:52 am
Yeah! Well said PDV! Because rugby is not about who scores the most points…
Fck, help us. This guy is a dimwit.
21 Apr 2011, 06:53 am
@garth(garth)-63:
PDV has no choice, his backs couldn’t score at a knocking shop.
21 Apr 2011, 07:14 am
@whatever(whatever)-57: No.
21 Apr 2011, 07:23 am
@stand-off(Braders)-45: The last time the Boks won a test in Auckland was in 1937…
21 Apr 2011, 10:54 am
Yes mate , and we never won in the house of pain for decades as well !
21 Apr 2011, 10:58 am
Forget old stats and past records , the world cup is a different ball game .If im not wrong the Springboks have never lost to the All Blacks in a world cup game . Or have we ? Maybe 2003 , cant remmember .
21 Apr 2011, 11:09 am
@Slartibartfast(Slartibartfast)-59: but the Boks should be favourites..
we’re told consistently here they have the “best players in the world”
that NZ will undoubtedly choke again
that SA and Eng play the type of rugby that Wins WC’s
so therefore how could NZ be favourites if they continually choke at every WC?
(which also downplays the oppositions effort, meaning that the ABs lost the game rather then the opposition winning it… but still, I guess one should expect comedy friom the country that gives us clowns in rugby… )
doot doot oodle doodle oot doot do do … eish.
@Haydn Sais(Haydn Sais)-68: youre wrong, they have… in 2003 we knocked you guys out of the 1/4s, legitimately though and not with the aid of a ref who penalised a team twice that only had 30% possession the entire match… they played superb rugby in the second half and didnt concede one penalty… was an amazing game by the French….
21 Apr 2011, 23:20 pm
@Haydn Sais(Haydn Sais)-67: Carisbrook? Never, actually. Until Ricky Januarie chipped and miraculously regathered to score and break a 90 year duck. (He couldn’t do that fluke again if he had 20 more attempts.)
Just as how Jake’s 2007 team, a year earlier, had the eye-wateringly good fortune of progressing to the final without encountering not one but BOTH of their Antipodean rivals, who had been removed from the equation by someone else! And both Oz and NZ had easily defeated the Boks in that very year’s 3N. Good luck on that scale almost amounts to a miracle!
Yet you won’t hear yarpies admitting their awesome good fortune. No, the default noise from SA is an incessant dental-drill whine of how UNFAIR everyone is: Paddy O’Brien tells refs to nail us, the evil one-eyed citing people always sentence our boys to 20 years hard labour while “they” (anyone else) get a 5 minute suspended sentence and a tap on the wrist with a wet bus-ticket, we alone have a mysterious “travel disadvantage”, bzzz bzzz bzzzzz…
And then all of yarpiedom is puzzled about why are our boys nowhere as globally popular and welcome as those rock-star All Blacks? Well, duhhhh!
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