A Contrarian manifesto

Things that would be true if conventional wisdom was always right: 1 The Earth would be flat 2 We would be entering a new ice age. 3 Blood letting would resolve many illnesses 4 Man would never fly 5 Trump could never be elected 6 Brexit could never happen 7 The Lions would be leading the way forward for Bok rugby. Stay sceptical my friends, dont be one of the lemmings urging Bok rugby to leap off the cliff of greatness.

 your last effort to win mike's awards?

How did I do? Bet I got you excited you humourless plank....,probably thought it was the Communist Manifesto.

 Mozart

Your rugby world is flat - so the rest of your story has been sabotaged by you. 
By the way Fat Fransie and Sloph Alberts can make your rugby world round by just lying flat on their backs on a rugby field.   

See I knew you had a sense of humour, but for a real belly laugh I'd try Victor.

 Another one

SA could still afford 15 professional rugby.

I dunno Moz. The conventional wisdom seems to be that we need big slow forwards and kicking 10s. The Lions experiment was a) halfar5ed and b) too short-lived to make any meaningful conclusions from it. On a side note, I was talking with an American sports nut the other day about the rise of the game in the States. Obviously it was just this guy's opinion but he said that it was odd to him how few stats were garnered from rugby. His conclusion was that the lack meaningful stats in the game made it easier for non-performing players to remain in the team, amongst other things. I agree.

Let me try this again Plum, I'm hoping an intelligent chap like you might get it. We have been an incredibly succesful Rugby Nation. Since we returned to the mix there have been 6 WCs.....we have won 2 of them, lost in the semi twice and lost in the QFs twice. Last time we lost in the semi. ............... In the same time period NZ won twice and Oz/Poms won once each. ................. Clearly we are doing something right, but 2011/2015 suggests we havent got the attacking force to put away top 3 opponents in close matches.So clearly we need to evolve. But to simply try to play NZ rugby, when they have a pipeline of big, fast Polynesian backs is naive. .................. We need to be far closer to the Pom model, which I would describe as traditional Bok rugby. The Up and Under game is not traditional Bok rugby, it's traditional Bools' rugby. The Boks have a long list of great running backline players, most recently Habana and JdV. Name a great Bok runner that started at the Bools? ................. So when I see us playing Mostert, Whiteley and Kriel I just know we are veering off course. These guys can never deliver the 80% we are doing right. What has happened this year is not that we have failed at the 20% we need to improve, that would not have masde us so vulnerable. It's that we have lost the things we typically do well.....maul, turn over possession and defend like blazes. If we lose those things no improvement in our attacking game will ever be a sufficient offset. We proved that this year. .............. We need an Eddie Jones in 2007 intervention, not a Dingo Deans in Oz intervention.

Yes. Recently though, under Meyer, who was probably trying to play as traditional as possible, we had succesful scrums, lineouts and mauls, yet we still got beaten easily by NZ. I know you don't agree but the scoreline in that WC semi didn't tell half the tale. We never looked like winning that game. Whether that was because of Meyer bringing players out of oblivion and straight into a WC squad or if Pollard was just too inexperienced to guide the Boks home against a good NZ team, will always be points of conjecture. We did lose to Japan and Argentina though. Maybe it is a case of there being excellent players in the team who ultimately just weren't good for the team. Poor synergy? Like the injured JDV and the uncertainty that surrounded him, followed by his poor showing. Or if Matfield and FDP had a positive influence or in some way, not intentionally, undermined whatever cohesion had been built up until they joined. We played both a great and horrible game against the Welsh, where we dominated every single aspect of the game, aside from the scoreboard, and almost lost that game. Two more tries in that game and it may have been perceived as a perfect Bok performance. Did we take "traditional" Bok rugby too far in that on that occasion, when Meyer instructed the entire forward pack never to offload? Did we make full use of Pollard, considering that Schalk was our ten? There was something that prevented us winning that game as convincingly as we should have. We did so well yet were so poor at the same time. I know that you don't think that aimless kicking up field is traditional Bok rugby. You've expressed that in the past. I think we agree that traditional Bok rugby is a good mix of playing to our various strengths. Set piece, accurate kicking, solid defence, running when it's on etc Maybe the problem is that the conventional wisdom in SA is a skewed one presently. In some people's minds anyway. So skewed that we were able to completely dominate a game(the Wales one) to the tune of 80-20 in terms of possession and territory, yet had to rely on a lucky try in the dying moments to win. Maybe a less skewed view by Meyer at the time, would have seen us give up a bit of possession/territory by allowing the players a bit more freedom. As for the Lions, it's pretty clear to me that their lightning quick ruck clear outs are the key to their success. Obviously it's just my opinion, but when I think back on the SR season, they scored a great deal of tries by recycling the ball quickly, and some from quick counter rucks. They also managed to have, I think, the most succesful scrum in the league, or close to it anyway. Their lineouts were not a problem either, though if I recall it did fail at a few vital junctures towards the end of the season. And then, the Lions kicking game was pretty succesful too, because it was used in conjuction with a positive running game. Which, I guess, is traditional Bok rugby? Just a bit more free flowing? But yeah, maybe rugby is just at one peak/trough of what is described in biology as an ESS, and soon, kicking will dominated again. Maybe England are currently starting the curve back in that direction. I've always believed that in the absence of many examples one has to, for better or for worse, rely on the few/single example/s that you do have, regardless of the possibility of it being the exception to the rule. And the Lions have been a good example, at a time when SA rugby has been at an all time low. They played well, as a team and with pride. I want to believe that the Boks perceive each other as brothers. The same way that Aaron Smith in the WC, when the NZ scrum was under crazy pressure by Tonga, right on the NZ goal line, was yelling "Cumon brothers!". You believe in that moment that he is talking to his brothers. You feel the camaraderie. That's what I think we all want for the Boks, and the Lions are the closest thing to that in SA. So, I'm not disagreeing with you. The Lions aren't necessarily the best players on offer but there is a big part of what the Lions represent as whole that is very missing from the Bok team. We are willing to pick players purely on reputation time and time again. And it fails almost completely every time we do that. My feeling is that had Coetzee recognized the value of transplanting the Lions rugby frame of mind and brotherhood into the void that was the Bok dressing room at the start of the year, his job would be much more secure than it presently is. He was, after all appointed late, on the back of many greats retiring and his aim was to build a new team. He could have done a great deal worse than picking a lot more Lions in that team, giving them all the backing and support they needed and then bolstering that team gradually with "better" players as the year progressed, and once the team spirit had been successfully transplanted into the Bok dressing room. My guess is that he wasn't brave enough nor humble enough to make a such a move. When last did we get the impression that the Boks were playing for each other the way the Lions do? I struggle to remember that far back haha Oh, I watched The Big Short. Probably some of the best directing I've seen in ages, well since No Country for Old Men anyway. Steve Carell was brilliant. His WTF moments were awesome.

Good points from a young man...good post

 

As for the Lions, it's pretty clear to me that their lightning quick ruck clear outs are the key to their success. Obviously it's just my opinion, but when I think back on the SR season, they scored a great deal of tries by recycling the ball quickly, and some from quick counter rucks. They also managed to have, I think, the most succesful scrum in the league, or close to it anyway. Their lineouts were not a problem either, though if I recall it did fail at a few vital junctures towards the end of the season.

And then, the Lions kicking game was pretty succesful too, because it was used in conjuction with a positive running game. Which, I guess, is traditional Bok rugby? Just a bit more free flowing?

I like that post a lot Plum, one of the best efforts on this Board for a long time.....your point about the Lions' quick recycling as opposed to the more conventional view that they were all about running the ball (the result not the cause) for example. ........... HM was a competent coach, his teams were way more prepared than this year.....but he did fall short in back play. So much time inside the 22, so few tries. We needed an inside the 22 set of tactics....a few set moves, a much greater emphasis on runners at pace cutting onto the ball. Kriel did that in the RC....not at the WC. ........... In general we were stretching our 2007 WC team in 2015....not because HM didn't try new players, but because so many never took the chance. So the team was creaking at the WC but still competitive on the day.....the Japanese farce aside. ............. We give so much to NZ but while we long for their systems, we ignore the key one.....build a team, keep it together through form fluctuations until a genuinely better prospect proves his case. We hand out the jersey far easier. ............... And then also learning that the playing style has to reach back through our various levels. The Lions uniquely found a playing style not in our national game. It took 3 years to gel, but did this year. The vulnerability was only against teams with great defensive speed. ............. For the Boks playing Lions' rugby was a pipe dream absent a Lions majority team. The other guys didn't get it and even the Lions players slipped in form once outside their own group. And if we get it right....NZ will still do it better. Oz have been far closer to the NZ model, but always a loser as NZ just did the same things better. ............ To me the solution was to graft capabilities onto our existing game.....better handling in the forwards, more pace to the backline moves, multiple lines in attack, wrap arounds....double wings. The kind of stuff Eddie added in 2007. Not a total revolution of team and tactics as we have tried to do this year. ........... Find our tactics of late 1997, 2004, 2007 and the 2014 RC and we have an approach that emphsizes our relative competitive advantage....big mobile forwards and fast backs who exploit turnover ball. But it all doesn't work right in the absence of a long range threat....like Andre Snyman in 97 or Jean/Habana in 2004. ........... We have to find some viable speed to exploit the turnovers that will come if we get our pack right.....perhaps Senatla for starters. But it cant be a flawed player like Sergeal Peterson who is so defensively vulnerable. That's the hard part, we can define what we need....finding those players is the challenge. We simply can't afford to keep making mistakes....our coach has to be professional enough to sift out no hopers like Mapoe and Jantjies.....and brave enough to resist the hype.

 Mozart
The problems outlined above can be summarized easily and has been consistent under Meyer as well:-
*   An utterly predicted game plan aimed not at attacking play - but safe play.   When in the opponents 22 the only format used was really never to take the ball wide - but to pass the ball back to forwards.
*    An atrocious collection of loosies - which failed in most aspects of loosie play.
*    In accurate and aimless kicking away of balls effectively handing over of ball  possession  to opposing teams. 
There was a massive shprtage in playing THINKING RUGBY and no real reading of the game and consequential decision-making,  
The key problems in the teams over the last two years can be summarized as the flyhalf situation, the loosie alarming deficiencies and deficient implementation leading to a serious deficiency in scoring of tries.  
The problem was that the 2008 rule changes favoured comprehensive rugby being played - not only based on the NZ model even though they were the top exponents of using of the rules - but rather on the need to play thinking rugby . 

Thanks Seb and Moz

I hear you Moz, and i agree in that though i seriously began to dislike Meyer towards the end of his term, he was good at a lot of what he did. I got the feeling that he allowed the players too little freedom though in terms of the game plan that he wanted them to carry out. Whatever it was, we totally lacked attacking edge for the second half of his tenure. It is true that big tackles, monsters scrum pushes and the like give a team confidence, but only successfully running the ball over the goal line gives a team the attacking confidence. We seemed to do that less and less under Meyer and that lack of attacking confidence seemed to make its way into other aspects of the Bok game. Almost like a salesman who does does everything right, apart from getting your money and giving you the goods.

The net result, for me, was that up and unders began to look more and more like long shots rather than attacking or pressure options, to the point where the best team in our country was reduced to not a great deal more than a team who kicked aimlessly a lot of the time.

You are probably correct in that a total revolution was not exactly what was required. I guess the Boks have just been so bad for so long that it just becomes very tempting to get one's Che T-shirt out and call for the slate to wiped clean. I'm kinda on the fence, but i think SR i 2017 shall provide some answers.

 

 @Basque.. South Africas first world cup was 1995. 

 you are right (and mozart),... my fault

I'm not advocating a tactic like the up and under or garryowen. It's a very one dimensional tactic. But done well it can be devastating against a fullback who is weak in the air like Goosen....why not have it as part your arsenal. If the 15 is Rob Kearney or Smith....don't bother.

 WC 2011 and 2015 weight more than the others as they are ending the transition to professionalism.
Players on the field only knew and were drilled through  professional rugby.

Professionalism has been enlarging the gap between NZ and the others.

"I'm not advocating a tactic like the up and under or garryowen." I know you aren't. I do read your posts ;) Was just saying how I saw things play out under Meyer and how I thought that affected the average fans mindset.