NOT REINVENTING THE WHEEL
Yet while there has been a perception of change in the air over the past few months, Brown emphasised during a media conference during the buildup to Saturday’s big game of the November tour against England at Twickenham that there has been no intention on his part to reinvent the wheel by moving the Boks too far away from their DNA.
“For me it has been a great six months from an attack point of view, with the players buying into what I am selling them and what I am trying to drive,” said Brown.
“I must emphasise that the team still has to attack the way the Boks play the game. The strengths are strong physicality and being on top of the gainline. I am not going to teach the Boks to attack like the All Blacks.
That is not my brief. I am here to develop an attacking game that suits the Boks and their strengths. “We are slowly starting to get that right, but this time next year I will expect us to have improved quite a bit more as we start the buildup to the 2027 World Cup,” he added.
Brown reiterated what he said earlier in the year about it being a great privilege and opportunity for him to work with the wealth of talent South African rugby has available to it.
“It has been a massive honour joining the Boks. They have won the last two World Cups, and they are the No 1 team in the world, so it has been a great opportunity for me as an attack coach. It is not so much that I have been given free licence but I am changing the way the players look at the game, how they use their X-factor around their physicality. “It has been six months.
Rassie asked me to see if we can make improvements on attack, to give the athletes the opportunity to be great on the rugby field. We are moving in the right direction and hopefully we will improve further on this tour and next year through to the World Cup.”
What Tony had to say on Supersport. A good indication why we don’t see actual change in structured Attack.
Mozart
Hall Of Fame
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I like Tony Brown, he has handled himself well. He isn’t in front of the cameras all the time and his comments have been restrained and generally on point. We have heard nothing about how things are done in NZ.
That’s all good. What’s happened on the field is less satisfying. The Boks have always had long strike capability off turnover ball. The World Cup 2019 final saw two such tries….both from turnover ball/unstructured play. One by Kolbe, one by Mapimpi.
With Kolbe, Arendse and Mapimpi we have some of the world’s great finishers. Mapimpi is not the flavor of the day but he was effective on the open field kick last Sunday.
Point is, we have always had this capability. Where we fall short of Australia and New Zealand and more recently Ireland and France, is in structured play.
When our forwards or backs get the ball in structured play with defenses fully in place we are still satisfied with a few toothless phases and the inevitable box kick.
There are a few bright spots. Williams is very dangerous on the snipe and Esterhozen shows signs of releasing the outside backs. But honestly it’s hardly a change. More disappointingly apart from Snyman who has been an offloading wizard for years….our forwards have no running game. Three passes among the forwards is still an absolute rarity.
In part this hinges on the players…..for example we don’t have an explosive forward runner like Savea. But our players instinctively look for contact rather than space.
So at this stage, after almost a full season, I’d have to give the Brown experiment a failing grade.