Boks must make mental shift
25 Jun 2012
MARK KEOHANE, in his weekly column for Business Day, writes the anger Heyneke Meyer will feel this morning is that a new group of Springboks mentally couldn’t front for a Test match because a three-Test series against England had already been won.
The Springboks never had the mongrel to beat an opponent that – by rights of a season that has been going since the 2011 World Cup last September – should have been the disinterested and reluctant participant.
England’s players had the appetite for Test rugby in Port Elizabeth. They had the collective will to play for 80 minutes, motivated by a first win against the Boks in 10 starts.
That they didn’t get the win was because they were not good enough to put away a Bok team whose forwards were ordinary in what they produced as a unit and who individually offered very little intent in the collisions.
The Springboks, when dismissed as pretenders, invariably always rise to the occasion and find the extraordinary in ambition, persistence and resistance, but in 20 years of writing about South African rugby’s elite the one consistency is that when the players believe there’s nothing at stake there’s never quite the same urgency.
Springbok midweek teams, so many of them a collection of outstanding players, often played like a bunch of clueless club players and rarely produced performances worthy of their provincial pedigree.
Watching the Boks in Port Elizabeth was like watching a midweek Bok team with individual ambition but not collective hunger or cohesion.
Attitude is everything in Test rugby because with attitude comes intensity, confrontation and refusal to be beaten in the collisions.
We saw it with the All Blacks against Ireland in Christchurch a fortnight ago. Mentally they lacked the urgency because of a disregard of Ireland’s challenge and they nearly lost.
Not so in Hamilton where they apologised with the most emphatic performance in humiliating Ireland 60-0.
It was not the nine tries that spoke of New Zealand’s ambition and desire for sustained excellence. It was the refusal to give Ireland any consolation in the final minutes of the Test – a passage of play that saw All Blacks captain Richie McCaw chase down an Irishman with the urgency of a man whose team was defending a one point lead. Instead the All Blacks, 2-0 up in the three-Test series, were leading by 60 points.
McCaw, who as captain of the All Blacks, has won everything and lost just 12 of 106 Tests, was a man possessed in Hamilton, such was his embarrassment that the All Blacks had let themselves down in Christchurch.
McCaw’s attitude epitomised why the All Blacks are the only team in the world with an 80 percent winning record in the professional era. There is no such thing as a meaningless Test. He defended his tryline in a supposed dead rubber (with his team leading by 60 points) with the same conviction he did in last year’s World Cup final.
Meyer, if you asked him what he covets most as Bok coach, will tell you that every South African player understands the importance of every Test match – not just the ones at the World Cup.
The Bok coach has said he knows his team will lose matches, but he will only accept defeat when he knows his players were not good enough to win; not because it wasn’t important to win.
The mentality in South African rugby for too long has been that it is okay to deliver mediocrity as long as it does not happen at the World Cup or in a series decider.
In Port Elizabeth the Boks showed Meyer that the fight within his own camp to change this mentality will be his greatest challenge.
No Bok player ever wants to lose and there wasn’t a lack of individual commitment in Port Elizabeth. There just wasn’t the bloody mindedness you would have seen had this been the series decider.
The usual clichés of inexperience, human error in decision-making and a failure to adapt to the wind and rain were offered as mitigating factors, if never as an excuse.
Don’t believe any of it and don’t believe the purple prose so willingly offered in respect of England’s performance.
The visitors had determination, desire and enthusiasm, but they didn’t play particularly well. A team with greater attacking pedigree would have embarrassed the Boks and would have won comfortably.
South Africa’s determination and refusal to be beaten at home has historically masked the limitations of many a Bok team, but the greatest positive for Meyer is that nothing was masked in Port Elizabeth.
Some of those who wore green on Saturday are not good enough to wear it with the necessary authority if the Boks are to consistently be among the game’s best and the Boks will never reach the consistent level of winning that Meyer so desires if they can’t reach a consistent level of attitude the players need take to every Test.
It was a poor result for the Boks but it was also a very necessary one because it will force Meyer to acknowledge that he has players who talk about consistently being number one but he doesn’t yet have a group who plays with the belief and conviction every Saturday to be number one.
274 Comments
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25 Jun 2012, 13:12 pm
I’m with Skop on the Brussow issue, we clearly missed his presence in this series
25 Jun 2012, 13:12 pm
@STBUR(STBUR)-192: don’t bring sbw into the equation because there’s no like for like in SA to compare him with…when it’s time to smash it up he does, when it’s time to run into space to exploit a mismatch in defence and offload he does it, no rigid, blinkered “sticking to game plan” nonsense.
25 Jun 2012, 13:13 pm
@louis schropnel(louis shrapnel)-186:
*lol* There we go again. More grunt! Then he talks about Brussow. Brussow is not a bad ball carrier, he is good for his size but he does not provide what you are moaning about.
@Transformation(Transformation)-197:
You love being intellectually dishonest don’t you? Pienaar was only on for 25 minutes or so. So unless we score 4 tries in 30 minutes the game plan is not working?
Englands defense is not useless. And in wet conditions it is more difficult to score tries. We scored one in 25 minutes and went for the posts the rest of the time.
We might’ve scored 1 more try if our set piece didn’t cough the ball up. And we got several penalties. Of which we missed all or most of them. That is more than good enough to have put the English away good and proper.
Still has nothing to do with loose forward “grunt”, “imbalance” or whatever other coconut tree you guys are shaking. Because if we did not have the needed balance or grunt we would not have generate the attacking line out or the myriad of penalties in our favour.
25 Jun 2012, 13:16 pm
Nice to read an Article by Keo.
It is his Site after all.
But strangely, he no longer shows up to chat with us Muppits.
25 Jun 2012, 13:16 pm
@STBUR(STBUR)-195:
Not confused at all. All parts of a gameplan play into its fruition or lack there off. Our loosies who are are primary ball carriers in contact/set phases etc failed to provide momentum or platform for backs especially 9/10 to work off. Add to the fact that our strategy or caterpillar/kicking didnt work we didnt have anything else to go to.
You are the confused one.You do not see correlation as gameplan is a sum of parts.
maybe you need to relook at how you see the game
25 Jun 2012, 13:18 pm
@mshiniwami(mshiniwami)-200:
And all of that goes out the window when a team smashes them hard at the collissions like Ireland did in the second Test. Go figure.
As for the slow caterpillar, well that is Hougaard again and I agree he is a problem right now.
25 Jun 2012, 13:18 pm
RUN INTO SPACE
25 Jun 2012, 13:18 pm
It is unlikely that Jantjies would have been worse then Steyn on Saturday.
Pienaar is not the number 10 solution.
The Sharks management must help us here and pick Lambie in 1 position only, no 10.
Until the bokkies are ready for senior rugby then we’ve got Lambie, Goosen, Jantjies and Steyn
to fight it out there.
Based on the JWC Jan Serfontein could be the future answer to number 12 then F Steyn can be the fullback.
In the head to head battle with Tuilagi, WO was much better on Saturday than the Captain in Durban 2 weeks ago.
25 Jun 2012, 13:19 pm
AND LEARN TO OFFLOAD IN THE TACKLE DAMMIT
25 Jun 2012, 13:24 pm
@mshiniwami(mshiniwami)-205:
Of course the game plan is the sum of its parts. Which is why it makes no sense why people are complaining about the game plan when two crucial focal points (9-10) was a complete shambles.
You lot are just stating that the crucial problem was the loosies’ grunt when it was obvious that once Pienaar came on we scored a try, forced several penalties and easily took the ball up for an attempt at a drop goal. How would he have had clean ball to do that if our loosies were useless?
Hougaard had plenty of clean ball but he made bad decisions and his service was often wobbly, high, low or slightly “behind” the receiver.
Rewatch the game.
25 Jun 2012, 13:25 pm
@Transformation(Transformation)-202:
And that is what we did in the first 2 Tests. Except in the 3rd Test our 9 was AWOL.
25 Jun 2012, 13:31 pm
My biggest worry right now is that HM is showing no signs of changing 9 and 10. He acknowledged that Steyn had a shocking game, but says that he has a couple of Super rugby games to get his form back. C’mon man, he has had his chance and been ****. 10 successful kicks out of 22 in a series, any of the other flyhalves in contention would have done better, and offered more on attack. Hm musn’t fall into the trap of supporting players that are not on form. His loyalty will result in him losing test matches, public support and eventually his job. Not worth it!
25 Jun 2012, 13:31 pm
@STBUR(STBUR)-206:
Yeah but the Ab’s still managed to close out the game
And secondly as the 3rd test proved,that type of bloodymindedness without set gameplan,variation,creativity etc is not SUSTAINABLE on a week to week basis. The attrictional aspect is too concentrated. To achieve a 80% win streak the team has to be flexible,play smart,embrace ingenuity. SA is too attrictional,predicable and easy to close down.
You base your entiregameplan o n attriction vs a quality team you will lose more than you will win
we have lost more games vs Oz who SHOULD not be in the same region as such due to the athletes we churn out. BUT we are predictable and thus fall prey to them time and time again.
It will happen again
25 Jun 2012, 13:38 pm
Mental shift metal shmift,
Most of the critical areas are of HM wrong doing: scrum with Spies and the Beast is pathetic, M. Styen and Hougaard combo is dysfunctional, and with Vermuelen, SB, Albert and J. Smith not available anytime soon, he needs to call up Brussow, Elstadt and Deysel but he won’t.
At the 9-10 axis should have been Pienaar and Grant who are currently the best we have, it’s a sure bet HM will pick none for the 4Nations
25 Jun 2012, 13:45 pm
@vaaldam(vaaldam)-208:
WO is BETTER than JdV in almost any aspect of the game and I am not a Bulls fan to state so.
His defence and tackles are better, he does break the advantage line more often, playing so long with M. Styen and Derrick Hougaard prior to has diminished his attacking opportunities,
WO still scores more Super Rugby tries than JdV btw
25 Jun 2012, 13:45 pm
[Player] [SPACE] [Player]
^ ^
I I
Bok All Black
One is world champs
The other got kicked out at quarterfinals
25 Jun 2012, 13:48 pm
:/ OK thats different to how I did it in the reply box
25 Jun 2012, 13:52 pm
@Hondo(Hondo)-214: Completely agree!
25 Jun 2012, 13:56 pm
@Hondo(Hondo)-215: Hahahahahahahaahha!!! *cough cough* *choke*
If **** comes out in a nice shape its still ****. Given WO had 1 good game for the Boks out of 37 doesn’t make him a good player. Still highly average.
25 Jun 2012, 14:07 pm
The problem is our backs are relying on the forwards to bash it up and create holes in the defence and overlaps. When this fails, they no longer posses the skills to create their own gaps and overlaps. They only ever score from “broken play” created by the forwards. That is the HM and BB game plan and it failed on Saturday because the forwards were not able to dominate the collisions and provide the backs with the space and it will happen again because the other international teams are on to us already.
IMO the forwards should only be allowed to run with the ball from broken play, but their priority should be to provide good go forward possession from the set pieces for the backs to play with.
25 Jun 2012, 14:17 pm
@STBUR(STBUR)-161: Look buddy, when the coach himself says there is no need for a plan B, there are serious issues! If you look at the personnel and the style of play England went for in the tour, they had 3 very different approaches to each game, they picked different personnel and for a very young inexperienced team and coaching staff they may not have got the wins they wanted, but there have been many questions asked and answered. What on Earth does Heyneke Meyer learn when he loses the services of Alberts and Frans Steyn, by selecting Kankowski and Olivier as their replacements? Two tried and tested failures, when there is a plethora of young exciting talent that hasn’t had its chance? When ever anyone faces the Boks, they know exactly where the attack is going to come from and how its going to come, its just a question of can they stop it. I’m pretty sure a few tricks and surprises up their sleeve should be executable by professional rugby players. Bok rugby needs vision and HM is Mr Tunnel vision.
25 Jun 2012, 14:22 pm
@Hondo(Hondo)-215: Bullshit.
25 Jun 2012, 14:41 pm
Would be interesting to see where Jean plays the remainder of 2012 Super Rugby?
Does AC rate him the same as HM?
25 Jun 2012, 14:45 pm
@vaaldam(vaaldam)-223: Probably at 13 with JDJ at 12
25 Jun 2012, 14:48 pm
@bangkok-bok(bangkok-bok)-224: AC is even less likely to change tactics or selection then HM. He will stay at 12.
25 Jun 2012, 14:54 pm
Am still worried about HM bringing in The Bulls pattern of play into the Boks. THe fact he has Koen as kicking coach is a worry, bring back Monty, as we can all see M Steyn’s kicking has gone bye bye!
Also it would benefit HM to an outside technical advisor to sharpen up the Boks for e.g. Eddie Jones.
But it seems to me, as in the past, that provincially biased Bok coaches always go with what they know and inevitably fail hopelessly.
ME i am pooing myself for the 4N, the Ozzies & ABs are both settled!!!
25 Jun 2012, 15:01 pm
Bring in an outside technical with no provincial bias for e.g. Eddie Jones.
25 Jun 2012, 15:27 pm
@HongKongSlong(HongKongSlong)-221:
That is because there is no such thing as Plan A, B or C. It is just a stupid one liner know-nothings on the internet like to throw around to sound insightful.
25 Jun 2012, 15:29 pm
@STBUR(STBUR)-228:
I have yet to see one person actually define what a Plan B or any type of plan should be. At best I see “too much kicking” when in fact we did not kick that much. Nah, I wash my hands of you lot. Thankfully the Boks are not being coached by Joe Public or we would truly be up shite creek.
25 Jun 2012, 15:37 pm
@race of tan(race of tan)-226: Wouldn’t that just have been the plan for this series? Get the series win, even if it’s a bit ugly and expand on the game plan from there….
25 Jun 2012, 15:49 pm
@STBUR(STBUR)-229: and you are part of “joe public” hahaha
25 Jun 2012, 15:49 pm
@STBUR(STBUR)-229: meyer’s game plan is limited, if you don’t see it, that’s fine.
25 Jun 2012, 15:50 pm
@race of tan(race of tan)-227:
i would be partial to an outside technical but he would have to actually be a technical and low down the order.
there for giving insights and advised analyses and not for authoritative orders that shape the outcomes definitively. like for instance as coach.
25 Jun 2012, 16:01 pm
truth be told,
i think that in regard to the opinions on this site and how it fits or otherwise with the national coaching setup then there is a case to be made for ‘fact being stranger than fiction’ as concerns what and whether joe public’s ideas matter to them, the coaches.
yes, i think they read these sort of blogs in addition to other material and that a great degree of thier thinking is informed by the types of people acting as advisers to them who would and do post commentary on such places as these.
case in point is the boks tactical decision to run everything in the oz 1/4 final….?.. how wierd was that..?. that after we had for all intents and purposes exhibited only repeated and dangerously embraboer kicking tendencies for all of 2010, 2011 and 2012 up until that game… what changed and why?
exactly my point…..
(knowledge in the right hands is power, but in the wrong hands is dangerous…)
25 Jun 2012, 16:05 pm
the biggest fail @ the NMB stadium was during half time when everyone “had” to sing happy bday to madiba which was to be recorded and then played on to him on his bday. about no one sang!! seriously only about 1000 people hummed the tune! then the anouncer goes mental and shouts at everyone to show respect etc etc …. *farking idiot! halftime wil ek gan pis en bier koop nie klomp k@k sing nie* .. anyway, after the uitkak sessie, it went better the second time! afgedwing op die mense!
25 Jun 2012, 16:42 pm
@grant10(grant100)-235:
lol
that must have been bloody funny.
in the ec nogal.
25 Jun 2012, 16:58 pm
@grant10(grant100)-235:
@Brigadier Van Zyl(Brigadier Van Zyl)-236:
Nothing really beats in this regard watching the plataland afrikaans boys pumping chests with tear in their eyes singing nkosi sikele,,,,,
25 Jun 2012, 17:04 pm
@grant10(grant100)-235: They should have done it before kick-off. However yes, people should have shown respect regardless of the dumb scheduling.
@Hondo(Hondo)-237: Dead-beat moron.
25 Jun 2012, 17:07 pm
@grant10(grant100)-235: hahahahaha i can’t even remember that as i was either buying draught, or taking a photo with Os
25 Jun 2012, 17:14 pm
For me the problems started on the Bench where we missed Coenie… Beast only playes a good 60 minutes and then gets tired and starts getting scrummed. Second was Potgieter who did nothing which affected the backrow… Hope Vermeulen comes back quick and he plays 8! Coetzee was fine and actually one of the few standouts… Kolisis should have been on the bench… And then Hougaard is a good player but at 9? And its time to play the younger guys at 10!! If Goosen is fit play him and Lambie…
25 Jun 2012, 18:23 pm
“The Bok coach has said he knows his team will lose matches, but he will only accept defeat when he knows his players were not good enough to win; not because it wasn’t important to win.”
Very well said.
25 Jun 2012, 18:26 pm
“McCaw’s attitude epitomised why the All Blacks are the only team in the world with an 80 percent winning record in the professional era. There is no such thing as a meaningless Test.”
Amen.
25 Jun 2012, 18:40 pm
Can anyone tell me has alberts played at lock before for the sharks or the boks,the boks need a mongrel like bakkies at No4 and etsebeth is to young at the moment for that job,if alberts can play No4 he would be a short term answer for that position.Jaque potgeiter should not have started that game,he should have been on the bench at best,as he deffinately did not look match fit,he is one for the future.
25 Jun 2012, 19:01 pm
@fantasticbarnsmell(fantasticbarnsmell)-201: Me too.
The first guy I pick in my Bok team.
25 Jun 2012, 19:14 pm
After this weekend will pick WO first and then choose the team around him…. All this talk selecting players on form…… Was the only player on form and the rest were fairly useless!!
25 Jun 2012, 19:18 pm
@Stompie till I die!!!!(phil72)-245:
Form is temporary, class is permanent!
25 Jun 2012, 19:34 pm
@IAAS(I am a stormer)-246:
Class in the bok team at the moment?
1, Hougie……… useless scrumhalf
2. Habanna …………… scoring on average once every 7 matches
3. Steyn ……….. cant kick anything
4. De villiers…. can not hold onto a ball in the wet
5 The rest all wannabees
These class players the future of SA Rugby?
25 Jun 2012, 19:40 pm
With the next round of Super Rugby looming, the Bok team for the Rugby Championship might look a lttle bit different. Players on the outside and those coming back from injury all know that they can stake a claim. I said at the outset when Heyneke selected his squad of 32 that players will fall off the bus or get injured.
Right now, players must know that they have everything to play for. No one in the Bok side – with exception possibly the skipper JDV, Frans Steyn, Alberts, Habana – can take their places for granted.
25 Jun 2012, 20:06 pm
You see what happens when you pick a blou bevokte coach as international coach it divides the rugby sentiment down the middle.. us vs them.. all over again.. us vs them
Now they wanna try tell you Spies and Olivier were the real uitblinkers on Saturday.. that is how denial deluded debilitated they become
And Potgieter was A for Away the best ball carrying battering ram we have ever seen in green and gold.
This is how deluded they become.. when it becomes a provincialist favoritism thing about who deserves their place in the national team.. it ain’t ever gonna work the Bokkie dream because it will ALWAYS revolve around Us vs Them..
25 Jun 2012, 20:17 pm
@louis schropnel(louis shrapnel)-249:
Agree 100%… All these m.o.f k.o.p forwards from the coastal teams not making the grade… we need some hard core boere to go and do the job!
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