The buck stops here
29 Sep 2011
MARK KEOHANE, writing in Business Day Sport Monthly, says Springbok rugby must never again lurch from one World Cup campaign to another. It must become a results-driven business with expectation and accountability.
The Rugby World Cup is a tournament that lasts six weeks. It should not be a four-year excuse for any player or coach.
When you read this, South Africa’s fate at the Rugby World Cup could largely be decided. They may be getting close to successfully defending the trophy – or they could be on the brink of packing up and going home.
There will be arrogance among South African supporters. Alternatively there will be denial when there should be insistence that a repeat of the past four years should never again be tolerated, let alone allowed.
The World Cup is undoubtedly the tournament every rugby nation wants to win. The Tri-Nations is a tougher trophy to win but it doesn’t have the global appeal or the romance of the World Cup. It isn’t quite knockout rugby, even though New Zealand has often won the Tri-Nations in a must-win last outing against South Africa or Australia. Everyone seems to forget that because they have blown every World Cup campaign since their successful 1987 tournament.
I don’t understand the view towards the World Cup when it comes to planning and preparation and South Africa is no exception when it comes to putting all the emphasis on the World Cup. It is a tournament that should form part of a four-year cycle. It should not constitute the four-year cycle. Peter de Villiers’ successor should not be judged on whether the Boks win the World Cup in four years’ time. His successor should be judged on how the Boks perform every season, in every Test and in every tournament.
Give the coach a four-year contract, but include performance-based clauses. Make it reviewable after two years. That way the national rugby union is protected, the coach has a form of protection and a responsibility to deliver and no player has the comfort of a four-year cruise because of an affiliation with the incumbent national coach.
Jake White, in succeeding Rudolf Straeuli as Bok coach, gave South Africans a lesson in building a team and the importance of having experience in the change room. But no player can ever be allowed to control the environment in which he plays – and that has been the curse of the Boks in the past four years. Old players, settled, comfortable and calling the shots, do what suits them and what accommodates them. They don’t encourage change, they seldom celebrate the introduction of youth and they grey the area of playing experience and job security.
Whether South Africa win the World Cup or not, South African rugby, to have sustainability, has to have a new approach to the national team, both in terms of expectation and delivery. The expectation has to be that the Boks win every time they play at home and win more than they lose when abroad. Results must be the priority because if a coach has to get results he invariably picks the form players capable of producing a winning sensation. No player is given a four-year guarantee and a 48-month salary advance.
Giving a coach a four-year cycle is an act of suicide if the intent is to evolve and mature into a team of winners. It allows for four years of excuses, either from a coach who supposedly builds in those four years and sees the World Cup as the defining moment of his tenure or it allows for four years of comfort for a coach and players who have no fear of change.
Bok coach Peter De Villiers has convinced himself and a nation that because he put his faith in the 2007 World Cup winners (back in 2008 and again in 2009 and 2010) it was too late to make a change in 2011. He did this because of his shocking results in 2010, when he said that losing in 2010 was a consequence of the grand plan to win in 2011. Other coaches have also used this argument to justify defeats between World Cups.
It is wrong.
Strong leadership is desperately sought within South African rugby to change this mindset. Decisions must be made that make the players and coaches accountable but also ensure that those officials making such massive rugby decisions have to be judged by the
calls they make.
There should never again be a situation when a group of players two years out from a World Cup inform the coach they have a desire to play in the competition and are effectively guaranteed a plane ticket, regardless of form.
There has never been strong managerial leadership within the Boks since White was thanked for winning the World Cup in 2007 and then told to bugger off. Tough selection decisions have not been made because the senior players won’t entertain such behaviour from a weak coaching staff.
The concept of a national selection committee is outdated in a professional environment. Think of the madness. The coach, whose livelihood should be dependent on his team’s results, doesn’t get exclusivity when it comes to selecting his national squad. Two blokes, who have careers outside rugby, make up a three-man selection committee to determine the national squad before every major tournament, be it an incoming series, the Tri-Nations, the end-of-year tour or the World Cup. It is just rubbish and another example of amateur ideals compromising professional principles.
Rugby is a business. Don’t kid yourself that it is a sport, so treat it like a business – and expect those in rugby’s employ to be assessed corporate-style. In business you survive or fall by your decisions, your choices and you are held accountable for those decisions and choices.
Which CEO would survive not investing in a talent like Bismarck du Plessis? He wouldn’t, because shareholders would not accommodate an excuse that the veteran tasked with making the profit would hit his target only every leap year. The board would demand investment in the individual best suited to get results in that year and the demand would be ongoing post every Christmas lunch. A new year would bring a new expectation.
Rugby is a lucrative business for the best players and coaches but it should be accepted that it also ruthless and if the performance does not match the predetermined budgets, that coach and player should be out.
It would also define the type of individual willing to coach the Boks and the kind of player who wants to be part of the Boks. There would be no guarantee of a job if the match returns weren’t proportionate to the salaries being paid.
Think of the financial and emotional investment of the nation when it comes to the Boks. Rugby and government officials implore the average South African to support the team regardless. Forget the make-up of the side, forget how they are playing and forget whom the coach is selecting. Support because you are South African and it is the patriotic thing to do. What crap. Would you invest in a company where government officials urge you not to question the decision-making of the CEO? Would you accept asking a question that involves your investment being dismissed as unpatriotic? I didn’t think so.
The only way to grow our intellect as a nation is for us to debate issues and to educate ourselves that it isn’t a bad thing to ask questions and hold accountable those who survive on supposed patriotism.
If the South African public is the most important shareholder in Springbok rugby there has to be a yearly plan around the team – and this plan includes officials, coaches and players fronting in return for the R450 a person pays to watch a live Test in South Africa, and the huge amounts sacrificed when following the team abroad or purchasing team merchandise.
De Villiers, a week before the Rugby World Cup, did not blink in telling the media that John Smit was the best hooker in the world – and the form hooker of world rugby. Bear in mind Smit did not start against the All Blacks in Port Elizabeth and played only the last 16 minutes. Smit, to his credit, responded by telling the audience his wife also thought he was the best looking bloke around. Everyone chuckled, but imagine if a CEO of a blue chip company made that statement a week before the financials were due to be made public? The share price would drop. Take it as a given.
De Villiers knows Du Plessis is the best hooker in the world. He knows he should be playing him for 80 minutes but he doesn’t know how to negotiate Smit’s role within the team. De Villiers isn’t equipped technically, intellectually or emotionally to make the decisions expected of one in his position.
De Villiers told Butch James he was his starting 10 for the World Cup and that is why he wanted him back in South Africa and not playing club rugby in England. Pressure from within the squad, by seasoned grizzlies who wanted mates selected and deemed themselves to be untouchables, meant James did not start the World Cup at No 10 but was given a bench role as an insurance policy.
The selection of James on the bench, as one example, made very little rugby sense because he offered so little in terms of versatility. The decision to ignore Du Plessis’ form and pedigree was described by international critics as shameful.
I could cite several other examples in the build-up to this Bok World Cup campaign and the campaign proper once at the tournament, but that is not what this is about.
It is about getting it right post-2011 and ensuring the South African rugby public doesn’t get fed propaganda like Smit is the best hooker in the world on form and Bismarck isn’t.
Smit, a wonderful leader of a team who has achieved everything in winning the World Cup, the Tri-Nations and beating the British & Irish Lions, must have cringed at that statement because he knows where he was once the tutor to Du Plessis he is no longer the master.
In this magazine some months ago I made a plea to support Smit’s captaincy at the World Cup and his starting role ahead of the superior playing qualities of Du Plessis. I did it because of the inadequacies of the coach and his assistants.
Smit had to lead the Boks to the World Cup, but that should never have been a guarantee he should lead them in the play-offs at the World Cup. The best should play. The best should always play, otherwise what is the point?
I just watched Wales lose to South Africa in Wellington by a single point after two of their kickers missed a drop goal and penalty within five minutes of the final whistle. To trail Wales by six points on the hour and then pray for their flyhalf to miss a drop goal from straight in front and their goal-kicker to fluff a match-winning kick with three minutes to play couldn’t have been part of the master plan as sold to a nation of Bok supporters.
This is what you were told to invest in and not question.
To watch a coach describe the one-point win as ‘brilliant’ against a nation that has beaten South Africa once in 100 years was embarrassing. To hear him say everything is on track was simply insulting to the intelligence of every South African rugby supporter.
Accountability! It is the missing piece in rugby’s professional puzzle.
De Villiers has had a four-year excuse from the day he got the Bok job. He has done what any coach would do if given such a free ride. I don’t blame him; I blame a system that allows mediocrity to dwarf excellence. And then rewards the non-achievement with a healthy monthly salary.
Watching Du Plessis play against Wales in the final 20 minutes symbolised everything that can be right about our game. Watching him huddled among the substitutes for an hour before that put into perspective just how much is wrong with our rugby.
Who would invest in a company whose board applauds De Villiers and ignores Du Plessis?
South African rugby’s challenge as a company with national commercial and emotional investment has to be to demand excellence every year and not just hope for it in a play-off match every four years.
To reach this rugby nirvana so much has to change about the way those in rugby do business and we as supporters invest in that business.
– This article first appeared in the October issue of Business Day Sport Monthly, which is distributed FREE with the newspaper on the second last Friday of the month.
673 Comments
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29 Sep 2011, 18:05 pm
A little old lady answers a knock at her door to be met by a traveling vacuum cleaner salesman. Before she had a chance to speak, the man tips a bucket full of dog shiit over her carpet and explains, Madam if this vacuum cleaner does not remove all traces of that dog shiit from your carpet, i will eat whats left.
Well, she says, i hope you are farking hungry, because the ******** cut my electricity off this morning
29 Sep 2011, 18:06 pm
******** = Basturds
29 Sep 2011, 18:45 pm
” You see yourself firstly as part of a minority group whose constitutional and human rights are being disregarded by the ANC. ”
The strange thing about this true statement, by an Afrikaner, about the AfriForum is that, at least, 95% of the posters on this Keo site see themselves in exactly the same light. Thus they claim and campaign ‘victimhood’, even in world rugby where they are a participating team in this present RWC.
It would thus not at all be wrong to extrapolate and say that the ” at least 95% of the posters” must then be AfriForum members, supporter’s or , at the very best, closet AfriForum adherents
What is new then in the Keo zoo as I have tagged the very same set of people of being adherents of neo-racist rugby?
Clearly a case then of where I lead you are all still to follow. Stop restricting yourselves just to the one limited box, get out and roam about as there is a globe in a universe somewhere out there.
29 Sep 2011, 18:46 pm
@Helen(Helen)-548:
You really shouldn’t make fun of disabled people, Helen old girl. If it wasn’t for disabled people I’d never find parking at the mall.
29 Sep 2011, 19:20 pm
@Helen(Helen)-490:
So very strange that the loud-mouthed blood gusher would respond to my post # 483 but not to post #479 which takes her/him/it on at her/him/it’s own game?
She likes making a loud noise about her cyclical purging of ‘her’ cyclically, highly vascularised endometrium and of ‘her’ purging of GIT too, whether that be in solidified form or fluid form.
Now when told to treat ‘her’ ‘drol’ as a cigar ‘zol’ and possibly become a P.POL she is still, hours later, floundering around to grasp what has happened and how to respond.
‘Her’ cohorts, too, are no better as they conflict and contradict themselves when they talk of ZZZ but direct more than half a dozen posts at me and use the E and the T excessively.
Great pity they do not listen to their “mother” sing advisingly to them. But then just how many Afrikaner mothers can truly sing to the point that anyone in this global existence wants to listen?
29 Sep 2011, 19:22 pm
Yes there is a globe in the universe
29 Sep 2011, 19:25 pm
@Kitchener(Kitchener)-554:
You have them on the run. They are up the creek.
But do not give them too much please.
Fight the war oof the flea. Bite them on the balls as you cunningly do, then run. Whilst they are distracted by scratching their itchy balls then you bite them on the belly button. Thereafter the bite is close to their hairy armpits. That is what the flea will do.
Hit and run. The longer you stay in battle at any one time, the more likely a crack will develope.
29 Sep 2011, 19:26 pm
Your globe has long since blown its fuse.
29 Sep 2011, 19:27 pm
@ET.(ET.)-555:
“‘Her’ cohorts, too, are no better as they conflict and contradict themselves when they talk of ZZZ but direct more than half a dozen posts at me and use the E and the T excessively.”
Your ramblings are the internet equivalent of slowing down to watch a car crash.
29 Sep 2011, 19:37 pm
Extraball cannot spell for ****.
Yes it’s true.
29 Sep 2011, 19:44 pm
Things That Make You Feel Old…
1. Windows XP was released TEN years ago, in 2001.
2. The “new” Millennium is more than a decade old.
3. Pierce Brosnan last acted as James Bond 9 years ago.
4. It’s been 10 years since 9/11
5. The Matrix came out 12 years ago, Keanu Reeves is 46 today
6. Mother Theresa and Lady Diana have been dead for 14 years.
7. Macaulay Culkin is 30 today. “Home Alone” came out over 20 years ago.
8. Terminator 2 is 20 years old. Edward Furlong who portrayed kid John Connor is 33 now.
9. Sean Connery is 80 years old and retired.
10. The youngest Spice Girl is 35, the oldest Backstreet Boy 39, Gwen Stefani is 41, Madonna 52
11. The first Harry Potter book came out 14 years ago!
12. The first season of F.R.I.E.N.D.S was aired 17 years ago!
13. ‘Kids’ born in 1993 can legally drive, drink and vote this year.
14. Jurassic Park is older than Justin Bieber.
15. Bryan Adams’ cult song “Summer of 69? was released 26 years ago.
16. Kids whom you remember in their diapers posting their pics on Facebook.
17. Facebook has been around for 7 years.
29 Sep 2011, 19:46 pm
@Gunther(gunther)-560:
I think Yoda taught him how to construct a sentence.
29 Sep 2011, 19:54 pm
@JockBok(JockBok)-562:
Are you sure?
Yoda is thought to be an afrikaans neo-racist who consumes too much red meat.
29 Sep 2011, 19:55 pm
Catharsis is good for the soul, even if there is a hole in your sole.
But please be aware it is NOT catheterization. Most of you lazy Africans will need that too and probably sooner than you deem it rquired.
29 Sep 2011, 19:57 pm
Sole or soul?
…Because sole is a fish
Hahahahahahaha
29 Sep 2011, 19:58 pm
Looking at the size and “content” of this thread, some people obviously don’t work.
29 Sep 2011, 20:04 pm
Ja I don’t know were people get the time to blog, they obviously self employed or unemployed
29 Sep 2011, 20:05 pm
@Dawn(Dawn)-566: Not that hard anyway…..
29 Sep 2011, 20:05 pm
@NoRugbyGuru_0_(RugbyGuru_0_)-561:
Try remembering the release of Bob Dylan, the Beatles and the Stones first albums.
29 Sep 2011, 20:07 pm
@ET.(ET.)-564: This not a realtive of yours perhaps? Something tells me there’s a good chance he went to the same Med School as you….:
“Bloemfontein – A gardener has been charged with rape after he apparently pretended to be a gynaecologist and “examined” two heavily-pregnant women.
The 30-year-old man from Jagersfontein went to the Diamant Hospital for treatment on September 18 after being assaulted….”
I guess if a gardener can be a gynae then an internet fool can be a doctor,
29 Sep 2011, 20:08 pm
Stormers I try but I can’t there just no time!!
29 Sep 2011, 20:09 pm
That’s disgusting…
29 Sep 2011, 20:10 pm
@Gunther(gunther)-563:
Johnboy is thought to be an afrikaans neo-racist who consumes too much red wine (25 year old pinotage of course). English is obviously his second language.
How else could you possibly explain his rape of English in his incomprehensible ramblings? The fact he is trying to sound clever makes it even funnier
Surely you’ll remember how Chris Eubank used to strangle English while trying to sound cultured? You being a neo-pom and all…
29 Sep 2011, 20:10 pm
@Dawn(Dawn)-571: you need to work on your time management babes. Seriously
29 Sep 2011, 20:12 pm
Boots & All on SS if anyone is interested
29 Sep 2011, 20:14 pm
@NoRugbyGuru_0_(RugbyGuru_0_)-575: watching.
29 Sep 2011, 20:14 pm
All I know is:
There is a globe in the universe.
29 Sep 2011, 20:16 pm
@ stormer, peter de villiers look bleak and shaved his mustache
29 Sep 2011, 20:18 pm
So se(kappie ‘e’) ou “harrige” omtrent die spel.
True to form only the fictional can be called upon as a aid to the conceptually crippled.The life of a factually challenged AfriForum closet adherent
Since you are so boring and bored why not hook up with a site that connects you to lonely wives?
Some like short guys in pink cars who can neither really jump and definitely not adequately pump.
Dennis Rodman is your gold standard, remember?
29 Sep 2011, 20:19 pm
Samoa’s coach looks like a burgie with his rotten teeth and poor english
29 Sep 2011, 20:22 pm
What? Who?
29 Sep 2011, 20:30 pm
WP will be missing out on CC semi’s
You heard it 1st from the guru
29 Sep 2011, 20:33 pm
Now that I got rid of eedjit, lemme go read Afriforum missive posted by mysterious blogger.
29 Sep 2011, 20:34 pm
570:
” realtive ” ? Really? Really, really now?
Hey! You, yes you ‘boertjie’ of the AfriForum does a smartarsed one truly need to answer your errors even if grounded in extreme fiction?
Try the correct word one more time and I will promise to answer when the Final is played.
Better still direct that at Cab as his dad is in that domain.
Bye now but say hi to your wife for me you fat, shortarsed foolish hooker.
Have you had that CT scan done, as it may show up some questionable areas where capillary rupture may have occurred wiping out very small but important cortical areas?
Maybe you should not as it might just be a capillary haemangioma.
29 Sep 2011, 20:34 pm
Goosen is now the best prospect ever. I’ve heard this before:
Lionel cronje
Sias du plessis
Lambie
Jantjies
Van aswegan
Ishmail dollie (WTF)
Etc etc etc…
29 Sep 2011, 20:37 pm
Joshua strauss with his beard, red and white jersey looks like young santa claus
29 Sep 2011, 20:39 pm
@David(David)-569:
I have read between these lines too even after I left a truthful but not potentially acceptable post for you the other night when you were swirling wine(maybe too much?).
29 Sep 2011, 20:46 pm
Blah blah. Everyone’s an alcoholic.
This from a recovering one.
Obsessed.
29 Sep 2011, 20:47 pm
@ET.(ET.)-587:
I missed it, due most likely, to the sophorific effects of the wine. I assume it was in response to my post regarding a certain football team.
29 Sep 2011, 20:48 pm
@ET.(ET.)-587: That’s just pathetic. Stop groveling. In one week you (deservedly) lost your only two “friends” here. Time for a little soul searching, you big fat phony.
29 Sep 2011, 20:52 pm
SA coaches by far the most boring, the one cliche after the other.
“Take it game for game”
“There’s no easy game in CC”
“We only look at what we want to do”
“The other team got world class players”
“Griquas always difficult at home”
Fark it !!! Our rugby analyst and shows just isn’t good enough anymore !!!
29 Sep 2011, 20:53 pm
“Bye now but say hi to your wife for me you fat, shortarsed foolish hooker.”
Very smart, EedjiT. Pinnacle of excellent debate.
29 Sep 2011, 20:53 pm
@ET.(ET.)-584: “570:
” realtive ” ? Really? Really, really…….zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
ps my wife says go take your meds.
29 Sep 2011, 20:55 pm
@>^..^< katman(katman)-590:
Why are you responding to a post that wasn’t directed at you?
29 Sep 2011, 21:00 pm
David you need a bit of Keo historical context for the answer to your question.
29 Sep 2011, 21:03 pm
Besides we all do it.
29 Sep 2011, 21:03 pm
@Dawn(Dawn)-595:
Why are you answering a post that wasn’t directed at you too?
Shiit, now I’ve done it as well………..
29 Sep 2011, 21:04 pm
@David(David)-589:
You said something to the effect of ” The problem with ET is you need to read between the lines ” as you addressed yourself to others.
How possibly can it be my problem if THEY do not read between the lines?
29 Sep 2011, 21:06 pm
@David(David)-594: It’s tradition to mock ET.
Sh it now i’ve done it too……..
29 Sep 2011, 21:08 pm
@David(David)-589:
NO Leeds are absolutely fine, believe me.
Just watch were we are on the 26th Oct. when after we win that make-up game against Birmingham. Do not be surprised if we are in the top four.
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