What went wrong for the Boks

Fatigue

It has been a long season. And it showed. PdV and the provincial coaches need to sit down and work out a schedule per player on how the Bok 22 will be managed next year.

I agree with him that international rugby is not the arena in which you rest players. It is the very pinnacle of the game and the best players should be there representing their country. But we need to balance that against keeping our best fit, fresh and more importantly HUNGRY for 2011. This is where the provincial/Super 14 coaches come in.

Our starting XV should not be playing more than 9/10 Super Rugby round-robin matches next season. This is why by the time the Tri-Nations is halfway through, our guys are spent. It starts there. Manage them in the S14, bring them in off the bench in the incoming Tests (this will do the reserves much good in terms of getting quality game-time) and unleash them in the (harder) away leg of the Tri-Nations. Hopefully by the time the home leg comes, the coach will have the leeway to blood some of the reserves in. Guys like Matfield, Juan Smith (should be grateful he was injured and can rest) Fourie and Jaque do not need to play themselves into form. They need careful management more.

Maybe this is the trigger we need to introduce central contracting in SA.

Tactics

When PdV first came in, he tried to instil in the players a mentality of playing the situation. When the results went against us, he was roundly lambasted for “taking SA Rugby away from its strengths”. A ridiculous argument if ever there was one. PdV has never said our forwards must turn into jelly-boy nancies. Instead what he has been trying to advocate among our backline, is to make better use of the ball that our front row grunt almost always guarantees us. The Boks are almost always going to get adequate ball in a match and our players need to be taught to have the courage to make the right decision at the right time instead of sticking to Plan A. Problem is you cannot teach that at international level. The bigger problem is that our Plan A works so well at domestic level that it is hard to argue against the head-in-the-sand ostriches that shout loudest in our rugby discourse.

Last night showed exactly what happens when Plan A doesn’t work. Morne Steyn is a quality player, but when he has to improvise on the spot he is hopeless. How often did he kick away possession needlessly and aimlessly instead of taking advantage of a broken French line and moving upfield with ball in hand? A prodigious boot is not much use when the opposition gets the ball going forward and keeps you playing in your 22.

Intensity

The French did not do anything miraculous yesterday. They just did everything harder. Got the hit in first in the scrums, hit the collision points quicker and faster and they made their first-time tackles count. This afforded their backs the opportunity to stretch our defence and make telling incursions behind our lines. Maybe this had to do with our players being tired. Or maybe it was a simple matter of this being the beginning of their season, and it being yet another game for a Bok team that had achieved its major goals for the season.

The good that came out of this for me is as follows:

1. Despite our poor performance, we were still able to stay within range of the French the whole game. That says a lot for our quality and fighting spirit.

2. Andries Bekker’s physicality has come in leaps and bounds this year.

3. Brussow continues to be a revelation.

4. Adi Jacobs silenced his critics.

5. It highlighted the need for better player management. Hopefully our coaches can now work together and find the right balance between local needs and national priorities.

6. Morne Steyn had a bad game. Bad for him on the night, but ultimately it will do him (and Bok rugby) a world of good. He will learn from this and emerge a better player. Let us hope his provincial coaches allow him to work on his running game so he becomes a more complete player.