Dogma or victory? The Bok dilemma

Einstein once said the definition of lunacy is to repeat the same actions while expecting the results to change. This came to mind as I was reading opinion pieces in print media and online about how Peter de Villiers should go for outright brawn against the Kiwis in the Tri-Nations Tests, something about bullying them into defeat. Madness.

Huh? Am I missing something here? Have we not spent the past decade sending wave upon wave of our nastiest bruisers down under with the objective of pummelling the All-Black machine till it begs in submission like Bernie Ecclestone enjoying some … erm … personal time with helpful friends?

What has that gotten us exactly? Ten years of anything from near-misses (Dunedin, 2004) to absolute hammerings — 1999, aka The Gaffie du Toit Horror Picture Show. But no victories. None, nada; not even in dead rubber matches. Yet there are still those who feel the best way to gain a victory in the land of the haka is through sheer physicality.

Certainly it cannot be denied that the Boks’ traditional strength is and has always been their physical superiority over most opponents, most of the time. It is also true that in Test matches brawn is almost a prerequisite for having a chance at victory, especially in your opponents’ backyard. But what successive generations of Australian teams have proven (this is obviously in the days before Eddie Jones ditched any notion of decent tight forward play) is that if you have enough guile and skill in your backline, you need no more than a competent unit upfront. They never even tried to get in the All Blacks faces; they just kept them at bay and used their brains to get over the advantage line. You can bet your bottom rand that Robbie Deans will do exactly the same with his side.

The All Blacks themselves have always allied their physical gifts to great skill and tactical awareness. It may be that they have a bit of an unfair advantage with the Polynesians in their midst seemingly bred to be perfect rugby machines, but the fact that their back line kingpins of especially the latter years — Carter, Mauger, Mehrtens, Howlett, Gear and others — have never been the most physically intimidating. You’d have thought the days we couldn’t get through with Butch and De Wet Barry’s rushing headfirst through the line at breakneck would have taught us something. But no, let’s drop our best (fit) outside centre, ‘cos, well, he can’t bench a baby elephant; let’s ditch a thoroughbred that will get through any half-gap offered ‘cos he isn’t Super Ultra Man on steroids.

Just what is the point of that? How about you play intelligently? Minimise errors at the breakdown (you know, so Dan Carter doesn’t get chance after chance to keep nudging the All Blacks ahead and keep us retreating); let’s get their defence spread out so they have to defend man on man and not rush our players three on one ‘cos they keep on running inside and crashing the ball. Let’s see how Ma’a Nonu defends when he is turned, since it has been established that if you come head-on you will come off worse than James Bond slugging Jaws in the gut. How about that? Let’s try something different. Use strength where it’s needed (which we do well anyway) and brains where they are. How does playing a winning game go against Bok ethos? Or is the thought of a paradigm shift the same as using mayo on a wors roll in die Swartland — just not done in these them parts?

Think of the most memorable moment in recent Bok vs All Black history, Richard Bands (bless him) ignoring his forward instincts and going for the gap — utterly flattening Carlos Spencer in the process — and scoring a *gasp* try! You know, had he not scored there would have been howls of criticism about how he should have done the sensible thing, with no thought of the golden reward that would have come too.

There is no way the Boks could ever not be able to play a strength-based tight game. It’s too ingrained in our culture and our way of thinking, and as long as the platteland keeps producing mean scrumming machines raised on a diet of Klippies, Coke and good honest hard-work ethos (maybe Calvinism wasn’t such a bad thing, hey), those traditional strengths will be safe — but now we must add on to them and take the Bok game to the next level.

Otherwise we may as well start writing the match reports now. You know — superior in tight phases, owned the line-outs, kicked well for territory, penalised incessantly at the breakdown, couldn’t break down a resolute Kiwi defence, spurned chances to go wide, heroic defence at most times but defeated by moments of magic/outright gas from Nonu, Carter, Sivivatu etc.

Mnr De Villiers, take heed, sir. Do not follow that same path to blind dogmatic lunacy.