The Lions for South Africa

From the point of view of a South African fan, the Lions offer a tiny glimmer of hope for an otherwise negative rugby public. They are the only side from within both South Africa and Australia that has consistently been able to challenge the NZ Super Rugby franchises in this years competition. Their convincing win over the Crusaders on Saturday was more evidence of that fact. Do they have what it takes to go all the way? Well, we'll have to wait and see, but at this point it is a 3 vs 1 situation, so the odds probably still aren't heavily in their favour. However, that is not the point of the post.  
For me the Lions relative success so far this season means more than just a place in the semis, it shows what a difference a progressive coaching philosophy can actually make. I think I speak for most South Africans when I point out that we harbour a certain negative outlook when it comes to the current talent pool in the country. However, The Lions have shown, with their team of relative unknowns, that maybe our talent pool is not that poor after all. Maybe our perceived lack of talent, has more to do with an out of date rugby philosophy forcing the flair out of players, than it does to do with poor talent pool. Players are able to shine when given the right structures, strategies and coaches. If we had another four Johan Ackerman's, is it possible we might be seeing four competitive South African teams in Super Rugby? I exclude the Kings because they should not be in the competition in the first place. My point, what would other seemingly average players at our other unions be doing given the sort of mentorship that the Lions players currently enjoy? Well that answer is uncertain, but I think such a situation would leave us scratching our heads with the quandary of who to leave out of the Bok team, and not the situation we now have, of who do we settle for!   

The problem is not the talent pool. It's the moronic jock culture that prevails among the meatheads. "ooga booga we run over not around". To date nobody has been brave enough to challenge it. So the Lions have been forced to slap the other SA Unions accross the face with their performances to wake them up out of their retarded daydream. I'm glad the Stormers and Sharks lost so badly. And I'm glad the Bulls got raped by the Lions. This chest out nonsense that too many of our guys walk around with has to stop.

I have said on many occasions that our coaches are for the most part useless. They may even not be choosing the most skilled players- instead of recruiting donkeys that follow their instructions. 

 Talent is definitely not the issue. 
We have an abundance of talent in every position ... and then some.
The Lions are the only team playing with passion. They are the only side that brings an attitude to the pitch. It's because of the coach that we have this.  
The Kiwis keep speaking of an attitude and how without it the team is less in so many ways. 
On top of that we see hasbeens like Willie and Schalk still featuring ... made out by so many to be playing his best rugby ever (laughable) ... or quotas like Kolisi and Paige selected to the match 23 ... and players like Jesse Kriel continuously selected out of position ... for seasons on end. 
Throw in ignorant, incompetent coaches like Fleck and Gold into the mix and the end result is inevitable.
The Lions are being haled as special ... but in truth, we're just staying in touch with the required standard of rugby. 
All the New Zealand sides could have challenged for the quarters and semis ... and it's not because they're that good ... the rest of us no longer have our finger on the pulse ... we've gone backwards ... we don't care anymore.
You will see it reflected in this years RC ... especially with yet another ignorant, clueless quota at the helm in Coetzee.  

 Quotas and politics aside, because there is jack we can do about that.

We can however fix attitudes, game plans, coaching, "some" selections and other things.

Firstly i think that coaches, at least some of them, are afraid of not taking the advice of senior players and are afraid to reprimand them or bench them when they under perform.

Akkers does not fall into this category. I read an article last night where he literally said "If the forwards don't through the work that they should then they have to deal with on Monday morning." That one sentence speaks volumes.

Can you imagine Robbie Fleck having this kind of sway over his players? I can't. Coetzee probably has even less. And somehow the enormous entourage at the Bulls seems to be the most ineffective of them all.

As an example, Schalk seems to take a lot of the responsibility at the Stormers. He can often be seen dolling out advice and speaking when the coach should be speaking. Their performance this year has shown that this had a negative impact. He will always be a Bok great but why do we seem to want to elevate guys beyond that and give them responsibilities that are not due to them? Maybe the coach/s is/are insecure.

Gold just seems to be completely clueless. He has been so for two years running now. But if his career path is anything to go by, he will probably get promoted on the back of these horrid performances and become president of the IRB.

SA rugby is currently in the crapper. But maybe there is a positive to glean.

My thinking was that after the RWC it was clear to everyone involved in Rugby in SA that game plans needed to change and that kicking the ball away was not the way to win. At the start of the season, it appeared as though most SA teams had taken this to heart.

Unfortunately they stumbled at the next hurdle though, which was securing the fundamentals so as to make this different type of rugby viable. That first hurdle being, creating the platform via quick ball.

Just my opinion but it appears to me as though our teams, on some level and at times did try to play a more attractive game, but unlike the Lions, most were curtailed by lackluster performances from the guys up front who still played the slow barging kind of game of old. Like fitting 18inch off-road tires to a 911, never gonna work.

So, maybe lesson 101 one was learn't and accepted post the WC, and this season's S18 has served as 102.

The question for me is this. Will the coaches actually go home and open their books to get 102 into their skulls. Even if they do, will they be able to do this with the kinds of forwards who spent their school, varsity and club rugby days preparing to be a barging players that run straight at defenders? Players who don't mind taking their time to get to the ruck because their mindset is 1 meter at a time and regardless of the defense being ready, they will hit the defender and gain that 1m, while the back line pose for the cheerleaders.

Either way, i think the problem is pretty clear. Despite the poor performances, i do think we have moved in the right direction. We are just caught between two worlds at the moment. And maybe these are the teething problems that we all spoke about when we discussed changing the way we play. Were we a tad smarter as a rugby nation maybe we'd have foreseen these issues. But hopefully, it will be sorted out for next year...before we ask the Du Preez brothers to put on another 10kgs each.

 The main problem in SA is not player availability - but absolute crap coaching.  We had White as a Springbok coach.  He had no idea about backline coaching and neither had his backline coach (Coetzee), so he brought in Edde Jones.   He was succeeded  by De Villiers and Meyer - the least said about those two, the better.   Both were not coaches backsides - or perhaps they were.  Now we have Coetzee.   On Super rugby level we have duds like Gold, Fleck and to a lesser extent Muller and Franco Smith.  As long as we have that situation - SA Rugby will suck the hind tit.    

 Mike did you read what I posted? The idea of us being caught between two worlds.

Most of you make some sense...esp. CC and Plum...the truth is that sides need coaching...good coaching...even mediocre players can be groomed into an effective side...coaches that really understand that it takes a lot of time, experiment and hard yards to turn a very ordinary side to become effective...however the Lions players are far from ordinary...Ackers knows what he wants and is a builder with intelligent plans...he appeared to me as a man with a direction and vision but has since proved indeed he is. I've said before, he must be given the main job in SA rugby...of that there is absolutely no question. There is a huge pool of talented but misdirected players and that's the problem...no positive intelligent direction. The NZ'ers lead the way because they keep their positive do or die rugby finely turned and take no prisoners and are fighters and positive...second best will never do for them...where we are now we'll be lucky to come in the first 4...maybe even worse.

 Watch Franco Smith grow in stature. He is in a building phase and had to do what a very small union can offer. So far he has deliver Lood plus a new Cheetah front row that is again standing up against some of the better unions and has also made improvements to the Cheetah backline. Two years ago he delivered a Shimla varsity team that won the Varsity cup.
I'm not saying he will become a cup contender, but given his budget, he can deliver which hopefully will no longer be regular wooden spoon contenders.Luckily he got rid of the 2 biggest blood (budget) suckers, Coenie and Willie.