Hey Biltongbek

That article of yours re coming into possession re secret tapes from the Bok training session is very funny. Can it be posted here?

Biltongbek and I came into possession of a digital file that may or may not be a taped conversation of the Springbok training camp, leading into the Rugby Championship.

[Incomplete not-certified transcript].

Using a sophisticated proprietary forensic tool, Biltongbek has ascertained that Heyneke Meyer was sitting behind his desk with three laptops, a cascading colour-coded chart of player statistics, while he squeezed his play book with a death-grip, and we have calculated his neck veins as being 125% the size of the average control freak coach.

Jean de Villiers: Coach, can we talk a bit? Willie and Damian have some ideas. It looks really promising, you have some time for us?

Willie le Roux (chewing on some chewing gum): Yeah coach, some new ideas for our playbook, some cool ones, like my beard that never becomes a real beard.

Heyneke Meyer (visibly disturbed by the interruption; neck veins swell to 176% normal volume and density): OK boys, you have five minutes, I still have a lot to do and only a week to do it; if your bloody Super Rugby coaches did their job in managing you lot better I wouldn’t have to play musical chairs with selections.

JDV: Why, what’s wrong coach?

HM: What’s wrong? Jannie is paste, Eben has had no game time, Vicki is injured and has to be managed, Fourie du Preez is injured, so there goes my line out and control from nine, Morne is in poor form, can’t even get game time at Stade Francais, Duane has been playing with seven broken bones but won’t tell anyone, Willem’s engine is gone, Jaque Fourie is injured, and on top of that Fransie has thrown his toys out of the cot.

So, my territory game is in trouble as well, I now have no back up for Ruan, other than Francois Hougaard who can’t kick a habit and Reinach who just wants to run with his bum on fire.

JDV: Then maybe Willie’s ideas might just come in handy. We have some ideas for our counter and our first phase. Can we offer you some hypotheticals?

HM: Why not?

WLR: You know how JJ Engelbrecht used to run laterally and eventually leave no space for anyone on the outside?

HM: Yes. Yes! Yes! (pounding on desk, picks up walkie-talkie and squeezes it).

WLR: Well Damian thought we can do the same, usually I had to come on the inside and hope JJ would pass the ball back inside before he goes into touch, well Damian can actually step, so we thought what he would do is run the line laterally, but then when everyone thinks he is going to go into touch, he steps, inside, then I take the line outside , then Jean can come inside and I draw the defender, then pass inside.

HM: What if they mark Jean on the inside, does Jean pass back to you on the outside? Think! Answer! Tell me!

JDV: Depends which side of the field we are, I can’t pass left, so I will always pass right, so it could be inside or outside, depending. But I have this new move, I can call it the Jean de Pirouhette where I swivel my hips, the Paarl Shuffle, and pass right, but it goes left.

WLR: Haha! Yes, like this (demonstrates the Paarl Shuffle, while he juggles Meyer’s pencils, with his eyes closed).

HM: (standing up, clearing his throat, which has constricted as his veins have grown to the size of a python): What else?

WLR: Well, I have been working on how to negate the “Folau effect”.

HM: What do you mean?

WLR: Well the bloke is tall, and he jumps really high, now at school I did long jump, wasn’t really much of a high jumper, so I came up with the idea of the Izzynutgrubber

HM: What’s that?

WLR: Instead of trying to kick over him, I kick the nutgrubber, straight between his legs, it will either take him out for the count, or go between his legs, you see he will be ready to jump up, not down, and with his long legs it should be a nice gap to kick through.

HM: What else? (Meyer throws his walkie talkie in the rubbish bin, picks up new one from his desk).

WLR: I want to join the line more often.

HM: What?

WLR: When we are on attack I want to come in (almost like an intercept at ten) with Ruan and Morne there we are going to have really slow ball, and if we don’t create something other than the channel one drive we are going to have trouble. But I don’t think we should tell Ruan or Morne.

HM: Why?

Damian de Allende: Well coach, I just came back from a ligament injury, Jean is getting old, we can’t take those knocks for 80 minutes, and we want Willie to create some space for us to run into. But if we tell Ruan beforehand, he’ll miss Willie. It’s better if Willie just actually steals it, hey?

HM: (veins swelling to the size of Will Skelton’s thighs): OK boys, now you listen to me, the game is about set-phase, territorial control, lineouts, execution and fitness.

Morne has been kicking us to victory long before you two youngsters were around. He kicked us to victory against the Lions, he kicked us to victory against the All Blacks in 2009 and he will do so again. We will kick and we will kick and we will blow their house down.

JDV: Um. In the Cake Tin? 2011? 80 per cent ball? Didn’t work coach. Morne was our plan. We lost.

HM: Don’t you blame Morne, you were the one that threw a pass so flat that Bryce Lawrence called it forward, so you are as much to blame for the loss.

JDV (sounding like he is blushing): I told you. I have passing issues. That was the last time I tried a flat pass. Now I go clearly forward or back. Or just put the ball under my jersey and look for Nonu. Anyway, Willie has more ideas. Tell him.

HM: (gripping his walkie-talkie so hard it explodes). Spit them out.

WLR: A fake banana kick drop goal but really it’s a cross kick to Bryan or Cornal. I’ve been practicing it; it comes off about ten per cent of the time, but even when it doesn’t, it is seriously surprising.

HM: No.

JDV: Keep them coming, Willie.

WLR: Opposite day. We maul, using the backs. Ruan is good at slow movements like a maul.

HM: (slumps to his desk, his head is down).

WLR: OK. Listen to this one. It’s a maul on steroids. It’s a piggyback maul. Bismarck and Beast on the bottom; Eben climbs on top of them, and Flo on top of him. We can maul, and then when we get close to the try line Flo jumps from the very top.

HM: (Is in a sort of coma).

JDV: Also, we don’t have anything to match the Haka. And the Wallabies have, um, well I don’t know what they do, maybe Tweet and twerk – but we need a thing. A cultural dance. So I think a braai. We bring a table on the field, some red meat, preferably rump, fillet or sirloin. I like rump.

Also, some pineapple juice and vinegar. Pepper, coriander. Brown sugar and olive oil. Mmmm. My mouth is watering. Bakkies makes a fire with his hands, clapping them together. Jannie doctors the meat. Flip flips the meat. Damian is the rookie so he must open the virgin olive oil. Then we drop the rump on the hot fire, really hot, hey, and if it’s all done right, it’s shorter than the haka, really.

HM: Gentlemen, we have a game plan here, we don’t alter it, we execute, execute, execute, we trust in our structures and we trust in Morne. He will come good. And never, ever, put pineapple juice on rump steak. Now go practice chasing kicks.

JDV: OK coach, thanks for your time.

DDA: (As they leave the room): Soooo, what are we going to do.

JDV: I will talk to Ruan, he can skip pass Morne, Willie you come in at 12, I move to 13, Damian you move to 14. Then we make our own plays.

WLR: What if it doesn’t work Cappie?

JDV: Well nothing else has worked since 2009, we might as well go for gold.