The Cois effect

Little to nothing has been said about a certain Mr De Bruin.

The guy whose franchise side tops our log and who appears to have put some great back line thinking into the Bok dressing room.

Most of the Bok tries were right at home inside of Ellis Park because were it not for the green jumpers you'd easily have mistaken them for Lions tries. 

There was very little wrong with the Bok's attack yesterday and everything wrong with their defense...in the first half anyway.

When one considers that most of the back line hadnt played together before and that a renown ball killer sat between 10 and 13 it makes the amount of tries scored even more astounding.

Faf did indeed keep the forwards honest in how quickly he demanded the ball. The Boks need to build on that model leading up to the WC. It's one rare area where it doesn't matter how good the opposition is as it will always create gaps. Look to the last three seasons of SR if you need "evidence". Guscott said as much after the game. 

With better quality backs at his disposal and with Faf orchestrating proceedings we will see just how much Cois has in the tank/head. I don't think we've yet seen all he has to offer just yet.

I know it's against the grain but I've always maintained that Kolisi is a very Lions like loosie. So hopefully some of his grunt deficiency will be cancelled out by a higher focus on speed to rucks. Something he is good at.

Looking at what the Lions have been doing for years now with what they have at their disposal one could easily imagine the Boks climbing the rankings again.

And let's also not forget that in Cois we have a man who knows how to regularly beat kiwi teams. More so than anybody else in SA. A guy who knows how to help his team score tries. Remember tries? That thing that helps teams win matches. That thing Meyer forgot ever existed and Coetzee knew about like we know about the yeti.

Thinking(purely on memory) back the B&I Lions series and seeing how the red men struggled to score against Kiwi SR teams, it becomes evident just how effective whatever knowledge Cois has actually is. 

When we look at s ome of the scorelins and drubbings the Lions have imposed on teams from hobbit land it isn't such a stretch to imagine that victory over the ABs might be a bit closer. Just a bit ;)

Early doors but one has to try and glean positives.

Yes ... I agree with you, Plum.

Swys is far more comfortable behind the scenes. The added pressure of being head coach doesn't suit his style. He should be left to do his thing without any distractions. It brought Ackermann and the Lions much glory ... and Rassie has now had a taste of it.

Rassie will take all the credit for this win ... as did Ackermann in his day as Lions coach.

Mr Plum

Taking nothing away from what's been said if I can just point out that the tries were in broken play, not set play.

CC

If Rassie sees the Cois's strengths and allows him the freedom to express his ideas and impose his will on the team then he should get some credit for that.

Guys at the top so often get god complexes and hire people for a specific skill set only to ignore that skill set when the big day comes. 

I know jack about Rassie's personalty but there was a brief moment when the coverage cut to the box just after one of the tries. Rassies and Cois did a high five and what i read from the interaction was Rassie giving Cois props. 

If Rassie is the high level coach that everybody says and he combines with the excellent mind that Cois has proven he is then hopefully we can start to climb out of the mire that is Bok rugby. 

For Coetzee, he will probably, wrongly or rightly rely on the excuse that some of Saturdays' strong performers were not available to him due to the oversea's player policy. 

But then, he was the one that dropped Faf. He was the one who failed to spot RG when most of us here saw him as a talent two years ago already. He was the one who didn't give Am a shot when Kriel failed week after week and he was the one who selected Strauss as his skipper when Whitely was the obvious choice. He was the one who chucked Marx into his first test aways from home against the Abs. He was the one who continued to select the worst possible players of colour when there were much better available...remember Rhule hahahahaha? He was also the one who brought back Steyn, chopped and changed the back line from week to week and did not hesitate to throw his charges under the bus in post match interviews. 

Most importantly he was the one who failed abysmally to play with any clear type of game plan. And it's not that difficult because within the first 60 minutes of saturday's game we could see exactly how the Boks wanted to play. The backs weren't surprised when they got the ball and the forwards looked like they knew what their job was. there was balance between smash and spread. Something we have not seen since the end of Meyer's second season in charge.

The only defines Coetzee really has is that Meyer did zero contingency planning. Between Meyer, JDV and a few other senior players the Boks were left in a horrible state post the WC.

When Cotezee took over and in light of all the players that had retired i was the one who suggested that he go ball's deep with Lions selections and try to get their mentality, spirit and game plan into the Bok dressing room. Provincial allegiances would probably never allow that even though the end game may have been to slowly bring in players that are better in respective positions after the blue print had been laid out. It looks like Rassie has now done the next best thing in getting their top man on his side. 

My guess is that we might see a few more Lions players added to the Bok squad for the RC. Combrink and JSVR might get a call up and Kriel will be included as soon as he's ready. 

Hindsight is 20/20 but almost every here called out Coetzee's mistakes form day one and we were all vindicated in the end. 

Purely as a sports fan who likes to read too much into things, i'm very interested to see what happens over the next few years.  

Denny

Eng also scored from broken play. De Allende kicked a grubber which they counter attacked  from and scored. 

It wasn't the worst option but his kick should have been aimed to touch. They'd have cleared and we'd have got tent he ball back inside their half. 

Sorry, not being difficult, but what are you eluding to with the tries being from open play? Are you saying that the defence caused turnover which resulted in open play tries? Thus the defenv e needs recognition?

No. What I'm saying is that the Bok tries came from broken play.....nothing wrong with that, I'm not knocking it, why would anyone, I would just like to see a try or two from set play. Too many times we've seen our teams walk away without scoring when in the opposition red zone. I'm not pointing at any particular game, however, it would be great if they had both options in their armour like a true attacking team.

aah, i see

Agreed.