Coetzee thus far

I’m not convinced about Coetzee as a coach in terms of how he wants the game played. I suspect he is more of the conservative type given his reluctance to start Jantjies and the fact that he has pushed the point that Jantjies needs to manage the game and earn the right to go wide……that’s not the Jantjies way, by instructing him as such, one blunts his creativity and end up negating him playing on instinct. Jantjies thrives on freedom to play on instinct……something that never happened when Jantjies played under Coetzee at the Stormers. Time will tell however as Coetzee has spoken of the expansive game. Use the Lions model it works and will work at test level where our pack can impose themselves physically unlike the Lions pack at times.

What Coetzee is getting right is his selections, be it in the Test squad or A squad. He recognises talent and yes he has not got that 100% correct as quotas play a part but lets look at what he has got right in terms of selections:

Bok squad – good selections:

Wilie

JP / Combrink

Jessie Kriel / de Allende / Serfontein / Mapoe

Jantjies / Lambie

Faf

Malherbe / Beast / Nyakane / Redelinghuis / Kitshoff

Strauss / Mbonambi

Etzebeth / Lood / PSDT / Mostert

Jaco Kriel / Whiteley / Kolisi / Vermeulen

Bok squad – poor selections:

Mvovo, Paige, Morne and Louw

A squad – good selections:

Zas

Ismaeil / Skosan / Sergeal Petersen

Frans Venter / Mnisi / Am

April

Groom / v/Zyl

Coenie / Gqoboko / Marcel v/d Merwe / Koch / Thomas du Toit

Marx / Scara / Maratulle

JD Schickerling / Lewies / RG Snyman / Jason Jenkins

Carr / Notshe / Oupa / du Preez / Arno Botha

A squad – poor selections:

Brummer and Kebe

Injured players not considered or just back from injury:

Reinach/ Pollard / du Preez/ Odendaal / Vorster/ Andries Coetzee / Wilco Louw / Jean Kleyn / Ruan Botha / Mtembu / v/d Walt / Coetzee

Players on 7’s duty:

Hougaard / Kolbe / Senatla / Gelant

Good players that have missed out:

Kobus v/Wyk / Ulengo / Rhule / Sithole

Esterhuizen / Jordaan / Rohan Janse v/Rensburg / Dries Swanepoel

du Plessis

Schraueder

Kebble / Maks v/Dyk / Pierre Schoeman

Akers

Lorens Erasmus / Ettienne Oosthuizen / Wegner

Labs / Elstadt / du Preez / Cyle Brink / Kirsten / Liebenberg

Of these, Ulengo, Janse v Rensburg, Akers and Kirsten are glaring omissions

Overseas based players that should have made the squads:

Paul Willemse / Jacques du Plessis / Frans Steyn / Bismark and Goosen

CC, I don't respect your rugby opinions as your calls are a joke, plus your Lions bias shines bright

I'll stick with my opinion CC

Coetzee has mostly got his selections spot on, bar not involving Kitshoff ahead of Beast, Combrink ahead of Mvovo and Jaco Kriel ahead of Louw.

There are a few other calls he should have made like Jessie Kriel ahead of Mapoe and Bismark ahead of Strauss with Marx on the bench.

We cant say the same about Meyer and his geriatric sides......at least Coetzee is getting the selections right - I'll give him that

If you check out the results, the Boks have struggled since the 2009 Tri-Nations, when a three match whitewash of the Kiwis precipitated the corrections that have now contributed to the All Blacks becoming an allround team that is pretty close to invincible.

The identity crisis the Boks seem to be constantly battling with might be half of the problem. There’s a constant call for reinvention, and those who think that Allister Coetzee’s predecessor didn’t try to reinvent would be wrong. In 2013 the Boks tried to play a more attacking game, and succeeded, but there wasn’t enough science to a plan that essentially revolved around the unpredictability of one man, fullback Willie le Roux, for it to be properly sustained.

There has seldom appeared to be the understanding of how much work an effective attacking game requires. It does not revolve just around “Have a go” or “Swing it wide” like so many South Africans seem to think it does. Ask former All Black coach John Mitchell to go through the amendments to his team’s attacking game ahead of two big 50 point wins over the Boks and Australia in the space of seven days in 2003 and you can expect to give up much of your morning.

It probably isn’t a coincidence that the only local coach who can be said to be effectively coaching an attacking game is Johan Ackermann, who just happened to have worked under Mitchell for two years before he took charge of the Lions. And if there is anyone who thinks that the Lions achieved what they have without many misfires and growing pains along the way, then that person either has a poor memory or just hasn’t been paying attention.

The Boks looked last week like a team that was suffering an identity crisis and which may also have been at odds with itself. There were Lions players in key positions once Patrick Lambie went off, but they clearly didn’t satisfy the plan of the coach, and it contributed to the perception that once again here was a Bok team trying to play an attacking game without applying science to it.

As Coetzee said at the Thursday team announcement press conference, it was tactically naïve for the Boks to think once the Irish were down to 14 men it should just be a case of spreading the ball wide in search of an overlap.

He used the old cricketing analogy about hitting sixes again, emphasising the need to build an innings before being too flash – and unless the Boks adapt their approach so they mix it up more than they did in Cape Town, we can expect Coetzee to repeat that analogy ad-nauseam.

While there were doubtless some who, because they’ve brought into the ideology that flashy is the way to go, will think Faf de Klerk and Elton Jantjies did well last week, it is patently clear from everything that Coetzee has said since then that he was one person they didn’t satisfy. And he is the man who decides whether they have a Bok future after Saturday.

The Lions pair are both fine and talented players, there’s no doubting that, but they are going to have to step up and do what their new coach expects them to do in Johannesburg. Coetzee has left little doubt about what he wants Jantjies to do – have a go when the situation presents itself, but otherwise play for territory and ensure the Boks can do their attacking in the right areas of the field. Those who bulk at that thought should ask themselves whether the basic tenet of the All Black approach is that different. It isn’t.

No-one who saw the Boks play at the World Cup will deny that reinvention is necessary. But there needs to be wariness about what that reinvention entails and how quickly it can be achieved. Right now more than anything else the Boks need to be what Coetzee asked for last week but wasn’t delivered – they need to be smart.

Doing something that plays into Irish hands just isn’t smart. The Boks have been outsmarted by Ireland, who have made quite a few changes for Saturday, two games in a row now if you go back to Dublin 2014. It’s time for that to change. The Boks need to buck up in all areas, or what was a difficult situation last week will start becoming a calamitous one.