Ken Borland

The pressures of being the Springbok coach are well-documented and the fact Heyneke Meyer has gone very grey on top attests to them, but the time has surely come for the man behind the wheel of our Rugby World Cup campaign to (if you’ll excuse the mixed metaphor and dig at his past employment) grab the bull by the horns.

The match against Argentina today is the penultimate one the Springboks will play before the World Cup and, while all the other contenders are auditing the stocks at their disposal and mixing and matching their teams, Meyer is sticking to the tried and tested.

The fear of losing is a terrible affliction in South African rugby, as mentioned in this column before, but the Springbok coach is doing the confidence of his back-up players and the chances of his team being able to ride the inevitable injuries that will happen between now and the end of October no good at all.

The most disappointing selection for me this weekend is that of Pat Lambie on the bench. The fact that Handre Pollard is the first-choice flyhalf for the World Cup is all good and well, but what if the 21-year-old again struggles in the heavier conditions of the northern hemisphere or is ruled out by injury? He is already struggling with concussion, making his selection for a fourth weekend in a row even more unnecessary.

Having previously said the matches against Argentina will be used to get back-up players on the park, Meyer has now consigned that idea to the rubbish bin, the fear of losing being the reason.

“Pat hasn’t played a lot but I just felt… you still have to go and win the Test match. If it wasn’t South Africa you probably could have played a lot of players, but in South Africa you have to win. That’s most important.

“I probably wanted to give Pat a run at 15 but I thought that we have to have some kind of continuity in this game. He’ll probably come from the bench and play there,” was Meyer’s thoroughly unconvincing answer when he was asked why Lambie was not getting a starting place in Durban. So Pollard is the Springboks’ only flyhalf at this stage.

It really does not matter much in the bigger picture, although it would be a highly disturbing result, if the Springboks had to lose to Argentina these next two weeks, so Meyer should really be showing a bit more faith in the back-up players. Especially Lambie, who won him Tests against Australia and New Zealand last year and was an assured performer on the end-of-year tour, and has done more than most to delay any thoughts of Meyer getting the axe until it is now too late.

By delaying the introduction of fringe players, Meyer has made it clear that his favoured starting team for the World Cup has already been chosen and any changes will only be by accident, with Jesse Kriel and Lood de Jager the two bolters who have played their way into the picture.

Meyer has also shown a lack of sensitivity towards transformation by not giving Lwazi Mvovo a starting berth on the wing and Black fringe players like him, Siya Kolisi, Scarra Ntubeni and Oupa Mohoje can certainly blame a lack of opportunity if they don’t make the World Cup squad. Bryan Habana, Willie le Roux and Kriel must all be assured of their World Cup places so why play them again?

Kolisi could also surely have started ahead of another World Cup certainty in Marcell Coetzee, while De Jager and Etzebeth are similarly assured of their places.

Obviously it’s been a giant mistake to think of these pre-World Cup matches as some sort of World Cup trial; Meyer’s mind is pretty much made up and his focus is on winning these games, as fleeting as that success may be. The irony is that by not beating New Zealand and Australia, he has only dug himself deeper into a hole.

Whoever runs out for the Springboks against Argentina, the way to beat them as convincingly as the Wallabies and All Blacks have managed is by moving the ball away from the contact zones. Quick hands and fewer collisions means less rucks and less chances for the Pumas to slow the game down. In all previous Rugby Championship matches they have managed to drag the Springboks down to their level, but the fear of losing also makes it hard to play with any freedom.

The DHL Stormers had their fans at Loftus Versfeld screaming with delight on Saturday night as they upset the Vodacom Bulls 29-17 for their first SuperRugby win in Pretoria since 2012.

While the small but noticeable group of Stormers supporters left Loftus thrilled by their underdogs pulling off a surprisingly convincing victory over the highly-rated Bulls, the home fans were left contemplating how, for all the talk of a new era, their team played much as they did last year. The Bulls were flat, did not make enough use of their possession, wasting a lot of it through basic errors, and their scrum was always under pressure.

In fact, it was even worse than last year because the Bulls were undefeated at home in the 2014 SuperRugby competition.

And it had all started so promisingly for the Bulls as wing Bjorn Basson came bursting through on a lovely switch, earning a fourth-minute penalty for offsides. The Bulls bravely kicked it to touch and their rolling maul steamrolled over the line, with flank Deon Stegmann getting the opening try.

And then fullback Jurgen Visser dropped a regulation kick ahead by Dillyn Leyds, which the Stormers wing picked up as he followed through, racing over the line for the visitors’ first try. From then on, the Bulls’ wheels began falling off.

Flyhalf Demetri Catrakilis kicked a penalty and then eighthman Duane Vermeulen came storming through on an angled run to score the second try, with centre Damian de Allende shaking off several defenders to make the try-scoring pass.

By now the Stormers were winning the scrum battle hands down and were defending with tremendous ferocity, while also carrying the ball with greater intensity than the home side.

Going into the break with a 5-17 deficit, the Bulls desperately needed to lift themselves in the second half and they played with greater accuracy and urgency in the third quarter.

Flyhalf Handre Pollard, having missed his first three kicks at goal in the first half, succeeded with a 42^nd-minute penalty after strong runs by eighthman Pierre Spies and lock Jacques du Plessis.

Pollard registered further penalties in the 48^th (after Basson claimed a fine take in the air), 54^thand 60^th minutes, while Catrakilis kept his perfect record intact with a 51^st-minute penalty.

But the shaky foundation at the scrum and the tremendous Stormers defence meant that the Bulls were often running up blind alleys and the visitors finished the match strongly.

De Allende, a shining light in the Stormers backline, almost scored but was forced out on the corner flag by Jan Serfontein and Pollard, but it still led to another penalty for Catrakilis (23-17).

His replacement, Kurt Coleman, slotted a penalty in the 73^rd minute as another Bulls scrum came crashing down, and then a drop goal two minutes from time, widened the wound for the Bulls into a gaping gash.

For all their talk about raising the tempo of their play, there still seemed to be too many Bulls carthorses in comparison to the livewire, all-action Stormers.

The decision to sign tighthead prop Vincent Koch on a loan deal from the Pumas looks a masterstroke as he gave the Stormers scrum a tremendous foundation, as well as being a force in the loose.

Locks Ruan Botha and Jean Kleyn also looked full of promise and there are plenty of promising signs for the Stormers for the season ahead.

Scorers

Bulls: Try – Deon Stegmann. Penalties – Handre Pollard (4).

Stormers: Tries – Dillyn Leyds, Duane Vermeulen. Conversions – Demetri Catrakilis (2). Penalties – Catrakilis (3), Kurt Coleman. Drop goal – Coleman

http://citizen.co.za/327043/bulls-vs-stormers-low/

Last weekend’s thrilling Test against the All Blacks showed that the Springboks are genuine contenders for the World Cup, but they have to be able to produce their best play for 80+ minutes and they also have to be clinical in taking points from whatever opportunities are presented to them.

A team has seldom dominated the All Blacks in almost every facet of play as much as the Springboks did at Ellis Park last weekend, but the Kiwis showed why they are the undisputed number one side and the favourites for the World Cup by somehow still engineering a victory. They did this by being ruthlessly clinical – the few chances they had to score, they took.

You know a coach is feeling the pressure when he makes 25 excuses in a dozen minutes at his post-match press conference, but there’s no doubt the last fortnight has been hugely frustrating for Heyneke Meyer as his Springbok team have shown such potential before faltering at the final hurdle in successive Tests against Australia and New Zealand.

The Springboks are injury-hit and they are not getting the crucial 50/50 decisions at the moment, but the bottom line is that they have shown a disappointing lack of composure when matches reach the critical final quarter.

In fact, the abiding feature of the Heyneke Meyer era has been the infuriating tendency of his team to play both sublime and mediocre rugby in the same match.

Solving this problem before the World Cup is obviously critical and I hope Meyer will be looking at a very interesting book which was launched this week – Creative Rugby by Dr Kobus Neethling and former Springbok captain Naas Botha.

Neethling is very well qualified in the field of brain skills and creativity and he says the book may answer the question why South Africa does not win the Rugby Championship way more often than three times in 20 years given that we have more players than New Zealand and Australia put together and wonderful talent to choose from.

As Botha pointed out at the launch, it’s very clear in this professional age that what makes the All Blacks better than the rest is what they have between their ears given that the science is there to make all international players as strong and as fast as each other.

The great flyhalf’s main gripe about South African rugby in general is that we go very overboard on game plans. He told horror stories of players who have come to him and said their coach, even at franchise level, came and told them that if they don’t put the ball under their arm and drive at the first channel then they will find someone else who will. Botha blamed the devolution of Morne Steyn from a creative, all-round flyhalf into someone considered now to just be a kicker on the strictures of game plans.

The authors added that teams need to have game plans, but that these are just a springboard because matches are fluid and sides that are stuck in their plan and can’t think on their feet don’t win.

Neethling said the work he did with Paul Treu when he was the Springboks Sevens coach proved very quickly how effective using creative thinking and knowing the brain profiles of your players can be.

The fear of losing is a very strong force in South African rugby, mostly caused by impatient fans and administrators, and it causes coaches to stick to what they know best.

When the Springboks were very close to the All Blacks’ line last weekend, against 14 men, why did they keep trying to bash through with the forwards and not try Damian de Allende, who had been bumping off defenders all game, charging through on an angled run?

The difference between the New Zealand and South African mindsets becomes very clear when you consider the local reaction to Richie McCaw’s match-winning try: instead of applauding the creativity and skill behind a clever piece of rugby, excuses were quickly sought in the law-book, trying to label the move as illegal.

I am happy, however, that Meyer is trying to innovate and is desperately trying to get his players to play what is in front of them. He drums in the importance of decision-making at every opportunity, but at times he must wonder if he has inherited from the pipeline the rugby equivalent of the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman from the Wizard of Oz …

A dangerous Toyota Cheetahs side are standing in the way of the Cell C Sharks starting their new era on a winning note when the two neighbouring franchises start their Vodacom SuperRugby campaigns at Kings Park on Saturday.

New Sharks coach Gary Gold has been preaching pragmatism ahead of the match, particularly since the Cheetahs are highly adept at punishing mistakes and he doesn’t want his players getting ahead of themselves in their efforts to play more entertaining rugby.

“The danger comes with those expectations and I don’t want the players believing that it will be easy, especially since the Cheetahs have been a bit of a nemesis for the Sharks. The way they play – they’re not conservative – means they are hard to manage.

“If we’re not on top of our game then we’ll get beaten. We need to give them respect and play properly. They’re a good team, with mobile forwards, experienced halfbacks and plenty of danger at the back. They are very capable of punishing mistakes so we need to play with some pragmatism, it’s going to be a really tough game,” Gold warned.

It seems all the talk of playing running rugby and scoring tries will have to be put aside for the time being, the intense humidity at this time of year in Durban making the ball difficult to handle, with the Sharks looking to use their obvious strength in the tight five to lay the platform.

“We need the tight five to step up and get us ascendancy in the set-pieces. That’s critical for us when conditions are going to make it hard to move the ball around,” Gold confirmed to The Citizen on Friday.

The draining effects of the sapping humidity also counts against a free-flowing game, but the Cheetahs are the sort of side that will be waiting to pounce on the slightest of chances to counter-attack.

There is the ball-stealing threat of Coenie Oosthuizen, the sniping runs of Sarel Pretorius and the trickery of Willie le Roux for the Sharks to worry about, while the Cheetahs have made up for the loss of Johan Goosen at flyhalf by selecting the experienced former Stormers fullback Joe Pietersen.

Teams

Sharks: 15-SP Marais, 14-S’bura Sithole, 13-Waylon Murray, 12-Heimar Williams, 11-Lwazi Mvovo, 10-Pat Lambie, 9-Cobus Reinach, 8-Tera Mtembu, 7-Renaldo Bothma, 6-Marcell Coetzee, 5-Pieter-Steph du Toit, 4-Mouritz Botha, 3-Jannie du Plessis, 2-Bismarck du Plessis, 1-Tendai Mtawarira. Replacements – 16-Kyle Cooper, 17-Dale Chadwick, 18-Matt Stevens, 19-Marco Wentzel, 20-Jean Deysel, 21-Conrad Hoffmann, 22-Fred Zeilinga, 23-Odwa Ndungane.

Cheetahs: 15-Willie le Roux, 14-Clayton Blommetjies, 13-Francois Venter, 12-Michael van der Spuy, 11-Raymond Rhule, 10-Joe Pietersen, 9-Sarel Pretorius, 8-Willie Britz, 7-Teboho Mohoje, 6-Jean Cook, 5-Francois Uys, 4-Lood de Jager, 3-Coenie Oosthuizen, 2-Torsten van Jaarsveld, 1-Danie Minnie. Replacements – 16-Stephan Coetzee, 17- BG Uys, 18-Maks van Dyk, 19-Carl Wegner, 20-Boom Prinsloo, 21-Tian Meyer, 22-Willie du Plessis, 23-Cornal Hendricks.