The above deficiency came out in the recent two tests in particular when some players ran out of steam completely. The other problem relates to the injuries linked to unfitness. Those are normally muscular injuries and can also pertain to some joint injuries. Players with persistent problems of that nature normally has fitness deficiencies.
The fitness deficiency of the majority of players is worrying Meyer and his following statement is of particular interest:-
" Springbok coach Heyneke Meyer has admitted that a combination of injuries and the two narrow defeats in the opening part of the Castle Lager Rugby Championship have changed his plans slightly, but he is still committed to making conditioning the priority after this week’s clash with Argentina at Kings Park.
Meyer said after announcing his team for the match that several first choice players will stay behind in Durban when the playing squad travels to Buenos Aires next week for what has the status of a return ‘friendly’ international against the Pumas. However, because he is coaching the South African national team and knows how important winning is to the nation, he’s not going to make changes to quite the extent that he intended to when he did his planning for the World Cup build-up.
“I’ve always said that I haven’t been happy with the fitness and conditioning and the last two matches when we lost in the last few minutes proved that we still have a lot of work to do in that regard,” said Meyer.
“My plan has always been to implement a very intense three week conditioning programme after the Rugby Championship is completed, and that will mean that some of the top players will be staying behind in Durban next week rather than going to Argentina. If we are going to win the World Cup it is imperative that we get our conditioning right, and the players can look forward to a really tough camp.
“The players who do travel to Argentina will slot into that fitness camp after they return. We are going to make an all-out effort to get the conditioning right. It is something that has improved gradually over the past few years, but we need the three week conditioning top up that is planned in order to get it totally right.”
The problem for Meyer of course is that the Pumas aren’t regarding next week’s game as a friendly. They’ve made it clear that their intention is to throw everything into the Buenos Aires clash in an attempt to get the win that will see them travel to the World Cup with the massive boost of having beaten South Africa for the first time.
Meyer knows that, and while a successful Rugby Championship campaign might have prompted him to be more risky in his approach to the return game the other side of the Atlantic, he knows that the two narrow defeats to Australia and New Zealand have taken away the space that he might have had to say “So what”.
Judging from the reaction from some sections of the South African rugby supporting public, there has been a widespread bout of abnesia when it comes to how the Boks have approached Tri-Nations/Rugby Championships in previous World Cup years.
Jake White clearly didn’t care much about the competition in the 2007 World Cup year for he sent an under strength squad on the away leg of the Tri-Nations that year, and they went into the main tournament having lost three of their four Tri-Nations matches. The plan worked because his team won the World Cup.
A combination of a few poor selections and the impact of a referee who froze on the big occasion in the match that mattered at the following World Cup saw to it that the same policy that was adopted by Peter de Villiers didn’t translate into winning the ultimate prize, but the fact remains that he did travel the same route in 2011. The Tri-Nations wasn’t the aim for the season, and that reality drove his selection policy, with the first choice players staying behind to be coached by Rassie Erasmus when the away leg of the southern hemisphere competition arrived.
It is clear that Meyer sees the staging of the Championship so close to a World Cup as a bit of a crutch.
“I love the Rugby Championship, make no mistake about that, it is a great competition, but it would suit us better if like the northern nations we were playing friendly internationals now rather than in a major competition. That would make it easier for me to do what I need to do, which is to give players time and to experiment without worrying too much about the result.
“The plan for next week has changed a bit because instead of sending a completely second string team to Buenos Aires, I am going to have to mix and match the selections a bit as the two earlier defeats have made it more imperative for us to win these remaining two matches so that we can go to the World Cup with confidence.”
Meyer has been helped a bit by the fact that injuries have made it important for some first choice players to play in Buenos Aires for the purposes of getting game time. And then there is another factor that shouldn’t be overlooked and which is now starting to weigh on Meyer’s thinking – after Saturday’s clash in Durban there will still be six weeks remaining until the Boks’ opening World Cup game against Japan in Brighton on 19 September.
That’s a long time for the players not to be playing matches and there are enough players in the squad who might actually benefit more from getting game time and lessening the chances of becoming match rusty than they would from going straight into a Spartan type conditioning camp."
I am of the opinion that the most unfit category would include constant loafers on the field of play like JP Pietersen, Francois Steyn, Willem Alberts and Victor Matfield. One also wonders about Jannie du Plessis who has constant injury niggles and does not last more than 40 minutes at the utmost.
