There is a reason why I frequent overseas rugby websites and forums, and it is rather straight forward, it provides fresh and objective analysis and opinion on South African rugby.
Admittedly, it may not always seem to be objective, but rather critical and biased.
But it does serve the purpose of reading opinions outside the comfort zone of the conservative sporting mind-set that plagues South African sport.
It is not often I agree with Spiro Zavos, he has a natural tendency to come across as a South African rugby hater, rather than an objective-minded soul. However, every once in a while, Spiro will produce an article that comes across diplomatically scribed and objectively thought out.
On Monday Spiro produced such an article, which I believe most South African rugby supporters would wholeheartedly agree with.
“Mind you, the Springboks are their own worst enemies,” he wrote.
“How their supporters tolerate the obsession with kicking away possession is beyond me. It is boring. And it allows a team like the Wallabies, beaten comprehensively in the set pieces, to defeat them.
“If the Springboks used even half of the ball they kicked away there is no way the Wallabies could have come out as winners.”
Spiro, the kicking game is boring, I agree. But it has most importantly been ineffective since 2010. The All Blacks kick a lot as well, but nobody is going to suggest their kicking is boring, as they kick with purpose, execution and the results favour them.
I wrote a piece prior to the Test against Australia in Perth suggesting that the Springbok pack must dominate in order for Heyneke Meyer’s crash-ball tactics to be effective. Sadly I negated to note that he might not use it, but rather kick the hard-earned possession away.
Watching the one creative player in the Springbok team Willie le Roux kick away every ounce of possession he received for territory was an indictment on the coaching mantra of Heyneke Meyer. If this was the middle ages he would have been drawn and quartered.
What sacrilege it is to negate the natural tendencies of a player and turn him into another automated robot for the sake of an antiquated game plan? There aren’t enough four letter words in my vocabulary to express my utter disgust.
Spiro suggests he doesn’t know how South African supporters tolerate the incessant kicking away of hard-earned possession. Well mate, we don’t tolerate it, we cannot tolerate it and are quite frankly completely and utterly fed up with it.
It is also very true that kicking away possession allows the outcome of the match to be dictated by the opposition, but it also speaks volumes of the mind set of South African coaches in general that they have no clue how to use the pill.
Would South African coaches insist on kicking ball away if they had any suggestions on how to use the ball? I doubt that. When you kick the ball away you put your defensive structures under pressure.
Spiro also suggested that the success of the kicking game relies upon the opposition making mistakes. But in order for you to force those mistakes your kicking game must be accurate, and you need chasers applying pressure on the receivers.
Otherwise what are you hoping for? Unforced errors?
Finally, Spiro suggested that without the ball you can force penalties, but you can’t score tries. The mere fact that this logic has escaped South African coaches for the past 100 years is an absolute mystery.
It is as much astounding and frustrating that the powers that be in South African rugby are yet to come to the conclusion that rugby has moved on and that defences are better organised than ever before. Players are more physical and better conditioned, and that it implies the game is now more technical, more advanced and therefore the requirement to outthink opposition coaches is an absolute necessity and not a luxury.
In recent times many South Africans have said that we don’t need to play like New Zealand or Australia. Sorry, but that’s a cop out and is laughable.
Rugby requires that you run the ball, and if running the ball is seen as playing like New Zealand or Australia, then we have completely missed the script and we should turn our rugby stadia across the country into AFL ovals.
Varying the point of attack, being less predictable and holding on to the ball is not a New Zealand or Australian invention, it is merely a requirement for a modern day rugby team to be successful.
