There shouldn’t be much doubt about who might have been the happiest South African after Japan shocked the rugby world by beating the Springboks the other day.
Sorry though he may have been for the team he played for and also helped coach, Gert Smal must have struggled to keep a smile off his face.
Maybe it was just coincidence that Western Province chose Monday, less than 48 hours after the Brighton upset, to confirm what everybody knew. But it would have been hugely satisfying for them to announce Eddie Jones as the new Stormers coach when the current mentor of Japan was being praised as a Bok conqueror.
There has never been any doubt about Jones’ tactical and strategic acumen 9But we ended up with loubcher as backline coach!!!!!!!!). Like the last former overseas international coach to ply his trade in South Africa, John Mitchell, the question marks have tended to revolve around issues such as man management rather than coaching ability.
Rugby players play a rough game but yet they are a sensitive bunch away from the field. If you look at the list of complaints brought against Mitchell by the Lions players during their fall-out a couple of years ago, you will note that things like being sworn at were among the severest charges levelled at them.
In my view the petty things that appeared on that list answered the question that Mitchell asked in the book that I co-wrote with him: Would Sir Alex Ferguson, Louis van Gaal, Jose Mourino and some of the other Premier League soccer managers who were considered to be difficult and eccentric have survived in rugby? I think not.
If you read the biographies of those guys it becomes clear that there wasn’t too much care given to those who were sensitive. Professional sport is a tough business. If you aren’t tough enough for it, do something else for a living.
Seeing all the interviews with Jones that followed the Brighton game got me thinking. How is he going to treat Stormers veterans such as Jean de Villiers, should he decide to play on, when he takes over the reins in the Cape? Is Jones going to be sensitive and pay deference to De Villiers on the basis that he has been a Stormer for so long, or is he going to make the hard unemotional decision that South Africa coaches are perhaps incapable of?(HOw true we still see Dr Mzzz, cerundunce windpomp and desert fox cling on to matfiled!!!They need to stop being so emotional and use their heads!)
The Japanese targeted De Villiers in Brighton, and the Bok captain made it worse by exhorting his fellow players to follow a game plan that was completely contrary to what the coach had asked for. You just have to read what Heyneke Meyer said during the build-up week, and how much it differed from what was carried out on the field in Brighton, to realise that the coach was ignored.
It was pretty much the same in Durban against Argentina, which was the other game where De Villiers led the Boks this year. The South Africans kicked the ball only seven times in the entire match and it was that naïve rugby that cost them their unbeaten record against the Pumas.
De Villiers is being given a chance to redeem himself this week against Samoa, and perhaps rightly so. But it has to be his last chance. He needs to improve his own game, he needs to rectify his shoddy decision making, or he needs to ship out and make space for the in-form midfield combination of Damian de Allende and Jesse Kriel. (Fair comment! )
Not that there would be any easy solution to the problems Meyer will face should De Villiers not come through what some have described as his Last Chance Saloon. In choosing De Villiers, Meyer left a good player in Jan Serfontein out of the squad. Serfontein or Lionel Mapoe can’t just be called up now, there’d have to be an injury
I’m pretty sure that if Mitchell or Jones were coaching the Boks the situation would not have arisen, and if one of them had been coaching the Boks in 2011, John Smit probably wouldn’t have gone to the last World Cup either.
His reliance on the senior players led to a too strong emphasis on player empowerment during the Peter de Villiers(A coach in name only) era, and Meyer may be paying for it now. I sense he may be realising it, but it might be a bit too late.
Those who are scared of a possible change of culture in the Cape under Jones are perhaps fearing something that could be to the good of rugby in that region. The same may need to happen at national level.
This has been written many times before, but there really is no room for sentiment at the highest level of the game. What is needed, when it comes to both selection and to the game plan employed, was best encapsulated by something Stormers captain Duane Vermuelen said on the eve of his team’s visit to Pretoria to play the Bulls at the start of the last Super Rugby season.
Down in the Cape they love aesthetic appeal. The fans and media are continually crying out for a running game. The pragmatist that is Vermeulen though cut through all the nonsense when asked what was needed at Loftus. “We’ll do whatever it takes to win the game,” he said.
That’s the attitude the Boks need right now.
Its now case oaks of win ing any which way. Otherwise chances of going home rocket.
