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, 12:33 pm
@Kitchener(Kitchener)-250:
I take your refusal to answer a simple question as an admission that the current english team has a … er… let’s just say…. questionable se xual orientation.
“old fruit”? WTF?
29 Sep 2011, 12:37 pm
@Helen(Helen)-251:
I rather like the irony of a simpering little nancy-boy pretending to be a woman on a blogsite accusing a rugby team of having a “questionable sexual orientation”.
Comedy gold!
29 Sep 2011, 12:38 pm
What did Shaun say when he wanted his prossie to stop holding his plastic building bricks?
Lego
29 Sep 2011, 12:38 pm
@Helen(Helen)-247: You she read my blog… to get more excited about the prospect that never could only be a moment away.. CJ langenhoven got fkall on me when it comes to playing with innuendo
29 Sep 2011, 12:39 pm
Where do you hide a R200 note from a pommie?? Under the bar of Soap! LMAO!!
29 Sep 2011, 12:39 pm
@Helen(Helen)-251: “questionable”…? England Rugby players never question a bit of bottybuggering in the post match shower or hot tub… ask Lewis or Simon or James…
29 Sep 2011, 12:39 pm
@Kitchener(Kitchener)-252:
Creative way of deflecting the attention away from the roses…
By the way, who calls their national rugby team the ROSES.
That is our first clue to the soft sentimentality of the english team.
Let me guess, your team practices their hand-offs in private?
29 Sep 2011, 12:41 pm
@youknowwho(youknowwho)-254:
You do know that Lego is spelt this way : L E G O
Innuendo is something completely different
29 Sep 2011, 12:41 pm
@poppa69(p0ppa69)-255:
bwhahahahaa
29 Sep 2011, 12:42 pm
@NoRugbyGuru_0_(RugbyGuru_0_)-253: I will respond so that Helen take notice… but fkit.. If helen falls for that level of lame then I am never going to speak to her again
29 Sep 2011, 12:44 pm
@youknowwho(youknowwho)-254:
Buddy, I haven’t read your blog. Must say, I tried once, but got so bored I went and sat in the garden instead.
As for your attempts to change the world, consider that economic value only has two components; Labour and Profit. Nothing else. Now, ponder that for a few months and when you’re ready, I’ll might let you in on the second lesson
29 Sep 2011, 12:44 pm
@Helen(Helen)-258:
He wears pink shirts when he is on the rag.
29 Sep 2011, 12:44 pm
@youknowwho(youknowwho)-260: Trying to convince her you’re black is going much better?
29 Sep 2011, 12:46 pm
@Helen(Helen)-261: his blog should be called the bog because its filled with S H I T
29 Sep 2011, 12:47 pm
@NoRugbyGuru_0_(RugbyGuru_0_)-264:
he comes here for attention because he has no following there
29 Sep 2011, 12:48 pm
@Helen(Helen)-261: I told you before that de-educated yourself at Uni.. opportunity??..sustainability…life cycle
29 Sep 2011, 12:49 pm
@poppa69(p0ppa69)-255: Welcome back!
29 Sep 2011, 12:49 pm
@NoRugbyGuru_0_(RugbyGuru_0_)-263:
No self respecting black man will call himself Langers.
It sounds a bit too soft and just a tad ho mo.
29 Sep 2011, 12:50 pm
@NoRugbyGuru_0_(RugbyGuru_0_)-264:
TGIF!
…er…. I mean S H I T
(so happy its thursday)
29 Sep 2011, 12:51 pm
@Helen(Helen)-268: Most self respecting black men call themselves Langers.. not related to my surname though
29 Sep 2011, 12:51 pm
@youknowwho(youknowwho)-266:
Relative concepts of value, my friend.
You’ll never change the world with such ho mo ideas.
Profit and Labour. Nothing else.
29 Sep 2011, 12:52 pm
@Helen(Helen)-268:
He calls himself black when he wants to pick up a white guy.
After a date with a guy he has more p ubic hair between his teeth than he has on his sack.
29 Sep 2011, 12:53 pm
@Heavens Game(Heavens Game)-256:
Haskell loves a good video session after a game.
29 Sep 2011, 12:56 pm
@Fern is not a stud,he is merely no19(Fern)-272:
That surprises me.
From Langers’ blog pic, he has gaps between his teeth that are bigger than the gaps between anorexic models’ legs.
It must be a mean-a55 pubic hair to get stuck between his teeth.
Maybe he just puts his own pubic hairs there to make his mom think he has a girlfreind
29 Sep 2011, 12:57 pm
@grant10(grant10)-224: Is this the same person that had a 3 day argument with me , that Butch is the man ??
29 Sep 2011, 12:57 pm
@Gunther(gunther)-273:
In one of the English backline moves, Youngs runs the ball wide from the scrum and that allows Flood to come inside him
29 Sep 2011, 12:59 pm
saw the picture of shaun:
he’s so fat you get clothes in three sizes: extra large, jumbo, and oh-my-god-it’s-coming-towards-us!
29 Sep 2011, 13:00 pm
I would start Bismarck. Having said that I am surprised that the Start Bismarck Campaign has not taken the PDV position more seriously.
It is clear that PDV has intentionally put together a bench of players that are arguably better than the starting counterparts. The innovation is to take seriously the schoolboy coaching dictum that the game starts at 60 minutes. Well if the point is to keep a lid on the game for 60 minutes and then replace nearly half of the players with better players then there is method in the Bismarck & Hougaard madness.
It is a rational plan to put out a starting 15 that can keep you in touch against anyone for three quarters of the match and then to upgrade and finish emphatically. And if that is the plan then commentators need to stop using the notion of being a starter or even an 80-minute player as a greater accolade than being the guy chosen for your unique ability to win a 20-minute showdown. Perhaps the former is the journeyman and the latter is the genius.
So in the context of the RWC, which team has a better line-up than the Boks in minute 61?
29 Sep 2011, 13:00 pm
fcking guppys
Springboks on Tuilagi alert
Teamtalk media | 28 September, 2011 21:14
Springboks backs coach D!ck Muir says that the defending champions ‘have a plan’ to stop Alesana Tuilagi a.k.a the Samoan Bulldozer.
South Africa play their final Pool D game against the Islanders on Sunday with victory synonymous with quarter-final qualification.
At 121kg, the Leicester Tigers wing Tuilagi is one of the most potent attacking forces in the game and one that Muir is very familiar with.
Tuilagi played a warm-up match for the Sharks in 2007 when Muir was the head coach of the Super Rugby side
“We had an arrangement where I had him on loan,”explained Muir at a press conference at the Springboks’ base in Taupo.
“England pulled out a whole lot of players from Leicester so he then had to go back, which was unfortunate for us.
“Interestingly enough, none of the jerseys fitted him.
“We had to get a supporter’s jersey especially for him to wear in that game. He’s a big man.”
(they gave him Sharks_Lover’s jersey)
Asked whether he had a specific plan to combat the power and pace of Tuilagi, Muir joked: “We haven’t got a sniper!
“He’s shown his class all over the world and he seems to just be getting better and better. We need to keep him at bay. We have got a plan.”
Samoa have impressed at the RWC with a far more structured game plan and while less exciting for fans, it certainly have the attention of the South African staff.
“They’ve obviously been together for a long time as a team and you’ve seen the progress,” said Muir.
“They’re a side that are really playing good rugby and they’ve got a lot more structure to their game.
“We’d like to starve them of possession.
“They’ve got big, strong ball-runners so we’ll have to chop their legs and get them to ground as quickly as we can.”
The Springboks are viewing the match against Samoa, coming off a bruising 27-7 win over Fiji in Auckland on Sunday, as sudden death.
“Look, there’s only one side that’s definitely through to the play-offs and that’s the All Blacks,” Muir pointed out.
“For us it’s still knockout.
“If we don’t get the result then we don’t make it.”
29 Sep 2011, 13:00 pm
@Fern is not a stud,he is merely no19(Fern)-228: So the Kiwi press are writing about the aging boks to hide the fact , that the KIWI are actually older thatn the Boks , even Samoa makes us look like spring chickens
29 Sep 2011, 13:01 pm
@capebull(capebull)-275:
Probably the same one.
But he’s just got back from 3 weeks of masturbatory theraphy to clean the cobwebs.
Apparantly, the clinic only let’s you into the canteen if you provide proof of having mastrurbated.
He’s much calmer now
29 Sep 2011, 13:01 pm
@Helen(Helen)-271: Yep, Slavery is ever so popular… its is estimated that UK has about 5000 slaves and in the US all prisoners imprisoned on the three strike rule automatically become state slaves. State slaves deliver a sizable chunk of GDP…
29 Sep 2011, 13:02 pm
@Transformation(Transformation)-279: If you read what Brendon Venter said , t5hey targetted him cause he was seen as a weakpoint in England, make him turn around and make tackles you will find him to be lazy. Have we not seen this type player before?
29 Sep 2011, 13:03 pm
@capebull(capebull)-280: Welcome back the new G10
29 Sep 2011, 13:04 pm
@NoRugbyGuru_0_(RugbyGuru_0_)-277:
…and then there’s Langers’ size, which comes with curtain rails for some reason and is priced by the meter.
29 Sep 2011, 13:04 pm
@capebull(capebull)-280:
pretty much.
the rwc starts after this weekend
29 Sep 2011, 13:04 pm
@Helen(Helen)-274: Come off it Helen.. after you saw my pic you became a lot more amorous with me.. or is it just mating season
29 Sep 2011, 13:08 pm
@youknowwho(youknowwho)-282:
Not sure what you’re on about…. but there must be a point. do continue…
29 Sep 2011, 13:12 pm
@youknowwho(youknowwho)-287:
How do I put this delicately?… hmmmm
Even if it was mating season and you were the last man in the universe and a Parkinsons Maori was holding a gun to my head and I was as rough as a vietnamese badgers ar5e …. I would still not consider making body happiness with you
29 Sep 2011, 13:21 pm
Little Hodiaki
The teacher said, “Let’s begin by reviewing some American history. Who said ‘Give me Liberty, or give me Death’?” She saw a sea of blank faces, except for Little Hodiaki, a bright foreign exchange student from Japan, who had his hand up.
‘Patrick Henry, 1775,’ he said.
‘Very good!’
Who said, ‘Government of the People, by the People, for the People, shall not perish from the Earth?’
Again, no response except from Little Hodiaki, ‘Abraham Lincoln, 1863.’
‘Excellent … !’, said the teacher continuing, ‘let’s try one a bit more difficult…’
Who said, ‘Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country?’
Once again, Hodiaki’s was the only hand in the air and he said, ‘John F. Kennedy, 1961?.
The teacher snapped at the class, ‘Class, you should be ashamed of yourselves, little Hodiaki isn’t from this country and he knows more about our history than you do.’
She heard a loud whisper, ‘F . . k the ****.’
‘Who said that ….. ? I want to know right now ……!’ she angrily demanded.
Little Hodiaki put his hand up, ‘General MacArthur, 1945.’
At that point, a student in the back said, ‘I’m gonna puke.’
The teacher glared around and asks, ‘All right! Now who said that ….. ?’
Again, little Hodiaki said, ‘George Bush to the Japanese Prime Minister, 1991.’
Now furious, another student yelled, ‘Oh yeah …… ? Suck this …. !’
Little Hodiaki jumped out of his chair waving his hand and shouted to the teacher, ‘Bill Clinton to Monica Lewinsky, 1997!’
Now with almost mob hysteria someone said, ‘You little ****. If you say anything else, I’ll kill you.’
Little Hodiaki frantically yelled at the top of his voice, “Michael Jackson to the child witness testifying against him, 2004.’
The teacher fainted.
As the class gathered around the teacher on the floor, someone said, ‘Oh **** …. , we’re screwed ….!’
Little Hodiaki said quietly, ‘The New Zealand Rugby Team, 2011..’
29 Sep 2011, 13:21 pm
@Helen(Helen)-288: Slaves dont work for minimum wages.. they work for a meal.. The lower the cost of the meal the more profit you make. The more disposable the slave is the more profit you make too. Have you ever done an analyses on the viability of the slave trade. Is its worth paying slaves or just providing them an optimal amount of sustanance per day??
29 Sep 2011, 13:22 pm
@Fern is not a stud,he is merely no19(Fern)-215:
i cant wait for the inevitable ‘i told you so’s'…
@grant10(grant10)-224:
please refer the above..
29 Sep 2011, 13:25 pm
@PissAnt(PissAnt)-290:
I will change the ending:
The teacher fainted.
As the class gathered around the teacher on the floor, someone said, ‘Oh Fark …. , she choked ….!’
Little Hodiaki said quietly, ‘Richie McCaw semi’s agains bokke in 2011..’
29 Sep 2011, 13:25 pm
The@Gunther(gunther)-273: A dead give-away that the English are bent is the song they sing before each game:
God we are raging queens
Long live all nubile queens
God we are queens
Send us notorious
Boys who are glorious
Long to fawn over us
God we are queens
29 Sep 2011, 13:26 pm
Got to go.. and its not you Helen.. Might catch up later
29 Sep 2011, 13:29 pm
@PissAnt(PissAnt)-290:
29 Sep 2011, 13:29 pm
@>^..^< katman(katman)-294:
Galleyboy won’t like that.
No sir.
An empire built on rum, sodomy and the lash.
29 Sep 2011, 13:30 pm
@PissAnt(PissAnt)-290:
29 Sep 2011, 13:32 pm
@Helen(Helen)-276: …with Wilko to follow for cheap DYI patch-up.
Just logged on. See Butcher is up to his usual tricks.
29 Sep 2011, 13:36 pm
@youknowwho(youknowwho)-291:
Buddy, I am disappointed. I mean it.
If these are the questions you’re wrestling with, you have a long way to go.
Instead, focus on the Value = Labour + Profit equation. It is the simplest model to determine a MC/MP graph. Surprising results.
Once you find how the intersection on the MC/MP graph is affected by changes in marginal Labour and marginal Profit (use a few multidimensional average cost / median costs to plot nominal graphic disturbances), a light will go on. Trust me.
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