Habana’s main mission
6 Jun 2012
RYAN VREDE writes that while many in a youthful Springboks’ squad want to prove they have the aptitude for Test rugby, Bryan Habana wants to prove to himself that he still has it.
Habana doesn’t shy away from the issue of his poor form prior to the start of the current Super Rugby campaign – a nightmarish passage that began around 2010 and gradually descended. At the time he certainly had a sense that he was playing below the standard he sets (in Tests in particular), but couldn’t comprehend the intense criticism. Time has given him perspective.
He understands he raised the bar of expectation with his showings between 2004 and 2007, a period in which he scored 30 tries in 36 Tests and became the IRB’s Player of the Year off the back of irresistible form at the World Cup. But this expectation felt unrealistic for him at times, and on the evidence of his performances, the harder he tried (and he never lacked for effort) the greater his struggle became.
Just before the 2011 Tri-Nations, Heyneke Meyer, then in his capacity as Bulls director of rugby, told keo.co.za: ‘It’s like being stuck in quicksand. The more you fight, the deeper you sink. I’ve seen it happen to many players.
‘It’s not my place to comment on Bryan because I don’t know the full picture – what’s happening in his personal life and so on – but generally the players I’ve seen recover from those situations have done so when they’ve rediscovered a natural enjoyment of the game again. How he gets to that point is for him and his coaches to determine.’
That enjoyment seems to have returned with greater on-field success, and the more he enjoys it the better he plays. A vicious cycle has given way to a positive one.
‘Having achieved what I have, the pressure was always going to be on me to perform [at a consistently high standard]. I’ve been a player that has been able to make a differences in matches. The most disappointing thing to come out of the last 12-month period was the amount of individual errors I continually made,’ Habana says.
‘It was something that wasn’t in my game before. I had to go away and look at the reasons for this and rectify them [Habana has since worked with world-renowned visual skills coach Sherylle Calder]. I was fortunate to have a coaching team and team-mates that backed me. No matter whether I believed in myself or not, I constantly had that support structure. Coming off 2011 I had to go back and see where I was as a player and establish what I wanted to achieve.’
However, Habana, who turns 29 in a fortnight, stressed that his Super Rugby form was merely a glimpse of the standard he expects of himself.
‘I wouldn’t call what I’m producing now good form because I’m not where I want to be. There’s a lot more that I want to achieve. It’s been a good start but there’s a lot more for me,’ he offered.
A winger will always be measured primarily by the number of tries he scores and with what regularity he scores them. There are widely held concerns that with the Springboks’ pragmatic game plan Habana won’t see much of the ball. Habana doesn’t share that pessimism.
‘I see our game plan the same way I saw it nine years ago. Everyone told me going from the Lions to the Bulls was going to make me a worse players because of the perceived 10-man style. Then I became part if the most successful South African franchise in Super Rugby. As players we understand what we’re trying to achieve and believe in the structures.’
This Test season will be one of the defining ones in Habana’s career. If his torrid form endures, his mentor Meyer is unlikely to be as charitable with the No 11 shirt as his predecessor Peter de Villiers was. But I sense it won’t. I sense Habana is set for a statement season. Here’s hoping that sense isn’t misplaced. Here’s hoping that statement is: ‘I’m back’.
By Ryan Vrede, in Durban
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368 Comments
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6 Jun 2012, 12:35 pm
@wpstormerbok(wpstormerbok)-345: Just a quick correction:
“Correct. If it’s another oke then it’s all good I have no problem with that. My only wish is that more people advance in time who will in turn be of great service to Rugby and the people of this country who deal with challenges that’s maybe hard for those who aren’t in their shoes to fathom.”
Melanin 101… Lesson 2
6 Jun 2012, 12:36 pm
@Sharks fans are genuine Bok supporters. Stormers support England.(Predawn)-349:
A wise man told me don’t argue with fools, coz people from a distance can’t tell who is who.
6 Jun 2012, 12:37 pm
@Heavens Game(Heavens Game)-344: instead of the rush-defence we will have the “give them the silent treatment defence”
“hey coach, how was my game?”
“.. it was fine.”
“err…”
” is there something wrong coach?”
“no, why would there be something wrong?”
“you seem a bit upset”
“i saw you talking to that other coach after the game”
“he was just congratulating me for that try”
“DO YOU TAKE ME FOR A FOOL!?”
etc etc.
lets stick to guy coaches.
6 Jun 2012, 12:37 pm
@wpstormerbok(wpstormerbok)-350:
“there’s little relation other then the fact that we’re all South Africans.”
there is your problem right there.
goodnight nurse.
6 Jun 2012, 12:38 pm
@Heavens Game(Heavens Game)-351:
In time yes I hope it will be like that but for now that’s not the reality unfortunately as not all race groups face the same challenges.
6 Jun 2012, 12:40 pm
@the artist formerly known as gunther(gunther)-354:
Not all South Africans share the same privileges unfortunately.
6 Jun 2012, 12:41 pm
@roobarb2(roobarb2)-353: 100%
6 Jun 2012, 12:43 pm
another blazing saddles quote…
What did you expect? “Welcome, sonny”? “Make yourself at home”? “Marry my daughter”? You’ve got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know… morons.
6 Jun 2012, 12:49 pm
@wpstormerbok(wpstormerbok)-355: You do know reality is a choice, yes?
Red Pill… Blue Pill?
If you persist, talk and post about demographic generalisations based on melanin… then that could be your reality. Your added barrier to seeing actual true worth of individuals…
Similarly if you see the Boks as Blou… or Black and White only… Then that is your chosen reality… Others’ reality is not like that…
Seeing is not believing… Rather believing is seeing…
See?
Melanin 101… Lesson 3
Ps. Now go take the Blue Pill
6 Jun 2012, 12:56 pm
@Heavens Game(Heavens Game)-359:
Reality is a choice.
Go tell that a kid who hasn’t had a meal in days.
His reality is hunger, but if you applies his imagination he’ll have more than enough to eat.
6 Jun 2012, 12:56 pm
As Bokbefok Saturday Draws near…
A Captains Speech:
“But he’ll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words-
Beast the King, Morne and Frans,
Bismarck and Zane, Eben and Marcell-
Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb’red.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Heyneke Meyer shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in Kings Park now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Heyneke’s day.”
(With Apologies Bill’s Agencourt )
6 Jun 2012, 12:58 pm
@wpstormerbok(wpstormerbok)-360: His reality may be hunger… But would it be colour?
6 Jun 2012, 13:07 pm
I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the Springbok dream. I have a dream that one day this Team will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created Rugby Players.” I have a dream that one day on the Green Field of Kings Park the sons of Bulls, Sharks, Cheetahs, Stormers and Lions will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood and Victory…
(Martin Luther King)
6 Jun 2012, 13:31 pm
@the artist formerly known as gunther(gunther)-336:
@ufo(ufo)-342:
lmao
6 Jun 2012, 15:16 pm
@>^..^< katman(katman)-268:
I love it that more and more people are coming out and calling that particular BS out for what it is. Well done.
6 Jun 2012, 15:24 pm
@STBUR(STBUR)-365: Ja, imagine the sheer harmonious bliss if my butcher and my doctor and my mechanic and the bloke who sells me braai wood also “regognise the demographic and social realities of our country”.
6 Jun 2012, 15:25 pm
@Tacitus(Deucalion)-102: A coach isn’t going to deliver consistent victories to SA, only centralised contracts with control over test players granted to the national coach can achieve that. That is what is behind NZ’s consistency.
6 Jun 2012, 16:32 pm
Have faith in Habana, he’s only 28 and he still has it in him to be there at the next RWC. His form has increased tremendously the last 6 months and we need his experience in the bok team!
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