Winter is coming, and the nights are dark and filled with terror. That is how I normally feel at the start of each year’s Rugby Championship in the words of Lord Stark of Game of Thrones.
The dark terror being the All Blacks and the winter the Wallabies.
For this article I will mainly focus on the men in black and whether or not the Springboks can cause an upset.
Yes, the Boks can beat them provided Heyneke Meyer does not play Morne Steyn, and to a certain extent Francois Pienaar.
Morne, from first receiver, cannot attack the advantage line with speed and guile, as was witnessed last Saturday when Handre Pollard created a try from a line out.
Immediately after the try was scored I asked myself if we would have scored if it was Morne instead of Pollard. The answer is a resounding no. Morne is too slow and stands too deep for an international first-five.
When was the last time Morne executed a diving tackle to stop the ball carrier flat in his tracks, or performed a try-saving tackle? Steyn was a good servant and even won us the Lion’s tour, but surely by now Meyer must realise Morne will never win a game against the All Blacks in a Springboks jumper, unless it’s behind a Sony Playstation.
The All Blacks are the only team that can stand on their feet after 80 minutes of gruesome play. Other teams (Springboks included) can only match them for 60 minutes, then they shift into a seventh or even eighth gear with speeds unmatched.
For the Boks to beat them changes have to be made at nine and 10 at least.
At this point any 10 will do if one looks at the limited package Morne has to offer. It’s almost too late to blood in a suitable nine before the World Cup. Cobus Reinach reminds me a lot of the Joost van der Westhuizen of old. Sure he must still develop but he has heaps of talent and by now should have been Jacque Fourie’s understudy. Why oh why did Meyer waist time with Nick Groom at last year’s end of year Tests?
The older the breeding stock you include in a team the more young stock you need to make up for the lack of sprinting metres sacrificed. It’s all about maths.
I’m sure the All Blacks, without looking at stats, cumulatively runs the most metres and are more fit. Hell, even their minds are more fit, their skill level of catching a ball in high pressure situations where other teams cannot hang onto it attest to it.
The Du Plessis brother, Bismarck and Jannie, are carrying on with their throwing-toys-out-of-cots-strategy from super level to international and it’s affecting their game.
Jannie cannot shut up when reprimanded. Take a leaf out of Duane Vermeulen’s book. When the ref penalised Vermeulen for an infringement, he looked at the ref with well-oiled remorseful eyes of an undertaker to the bereaved family and quietly jogged back into position.
I have the feeling that if it was up to Meyer and the game against the Scots didn’t fall outside the scope of the international window, he would have chosen the overseas players and not given the young guns a chance. Meyer only makes bold changes when forced by injuries and non-availability.
