Ken Borland

The effectiveness with which the Bulls were able to kill the Sharks’ momentum in last weekend’s SuperFan Saturday match at Loftus Versfeld will weigh heavily on coach Sean Everitt’s mind as he prepares for the tough SuperRugby Unlocked challenges that lie ahead.

While the Sharks set the tone in SuperRugby earlier this year with the brisk tempo of their play and the efficient finishing of their backline, the Bulls showed that both those factors can be taken out of the equation if the KwaZulu-Natalians are beaten at source and don’t get enough quick ball, with the home side romping to a 49-28 win in Pretoria.

The loss of Andre Esterhuizen, Tyler Paul, Juan Schoeman and Le Roux Roets has robbed the Sharks of much go-forward grunt and they will have some other big packs to contend with when Super Rugby Unlocked starts on October 9 when they host the Lions in Durban.

“I thought the Bulls’ breakdown work was outstanding and we battled to get quick ball. Momentum comes from what type of ball you get at the breakdown and it was difficult for us to get any momentum, difficult to get on the front foot. In terms of physicality, the Bulls handled us well. It’s always difficult when you’re under the pump and don’t get over the gain-line.

“You end up making mistakes under pressure and turnovers, which means you’re always on the back foot. So it was obviously not the scoreline we wanted. We wanted to play off turnovers but they negated that and then three missed balls in the air cost us three tries. We will have to reorganise in that area, although we were also a bit unfortunate on attack,” Everitt said.

Given that the Sharks play a high-risk, high-reward type of rugby and that they now have a young side, it was understandable that there were costly moments when sound judgement was not always apparent.

“We certainly took a lot of learnings from the game. We came in with an enlarged squad and a lot of really good youngsters, and in the second half they did exceptionally well, playing the style of rugby we wanted. When you play risky rugby, sometimes things are not going to go well and missing some balls in the air cost us, the Bulls did well in the set-pieces and their breakdown work was outstanding.

“When we were deep inside their 22, maybe we didn’t always take the right options and we’ll now have to refocus. Injuries will happen, that’s part of the game, and we were fortunate not to have many in SuperRugby. But now a perfect scenario would be being able to rotate the squad, but we are still getting contact fit. The good news is James Venter, Henco Venter and Madosh Tambwe should all be available for the Lions game,” Everitt said.

Cricket South Africa’s Members Council, having studied a summary of the Fundudzi Forensic Report over the weekend, have decided that whatever the governance failings of the Board of Directors were, they are not terrible enough to warrant them stepping aside ahead of the AGM, which has to be held by November 5.

The 14-strong Members Council includes seven members of the Board, an awful structural defect which perhaps made stronger action impossible. Nevertheless, there does seem to be a strong desire for change in CSA’s governance structures and how the Board is constituted. The weekend bosberaad decided that CSA’s Memorandum of Incorporation is to be revised with special attention given to the composition and roles of the Members Council, the Board of Directors and executive management.

But it is the current Board who will be responsible for the implementation of these changes before the AGM.

“The summary of the forensic report was quite comprehensive and covered all the burning issues. Just the litigation-sensitive stuff was kept from us on the advice of legal counsel from Bowmans Gilfillan so as to protect the case they are building against the relevant people. But there was not much in there that should affect the appointment of directors. Not many of the responsible people remain on the Board.

“There are things that could have been done better and some decisions made by the Board were not great. But often they rely on senior management to feed them the information, you trust that information to be correct and then six months later when you discover that it is not, then it’s too late. But I can’t really see why it was kept from the public,” a Members Council delegate told The Citizen on Sunday night.

The Members Council will now have their meeting with Sascoc, who have called for the Board and executive management to stand aside and allow the independent task team they are appointing to conduct an investigation into the affairs of CSA, on Monday evening.

But the practicalities of who would actually be in charge of the operations side of CSA, as well as what is seen as “quite an aggressive overstep by Sascoc”, makes it unlikely that CSA will agree to the Sascoc demand for directors to step aside.

A date for the AGM, originally scheduled for September 5, has not been finalised, but the controversy over the nominations process for new directors was discussed. The process will now be overseen by an interim selection panel comprised of people from both within and outside the game.

The proposed changes to the MOI will all need to be ratified at the AGM.

Coach Heyneke Meyer likes to talk about the Springbok team as being a family, and there was sadness in camp on Monday when two players left the squad ahead of the Rugby Championship finale against the All Blacks at Soccer City on Saturday.

While Jacques Potgieter, who has an abdominal strain, was a fringe player, Francois Steyn is a key figure in the team, having played 53 Tests despite being just 25 years old, and a senior player.

But his departure from the squad to have ankle surgery is undoubtedly in the long-term interests of both the team and the player.

“Frans has quite a few loose pieces of bone in his ankle and every now and then one of them gets lodged in the joint, causing him excruciating pain. As a long-term solution, we’re sending him for surgery to have it cleaned out on Wednesday. Unfortunately that means he will be out for three months and he will miss the end-of-year tour,” team doctor Craig Roberts said.

Steyn might be missing out now, but the positive side is that he will be able to have a proper rest and pre-season conditioning before starting next year’s SuperRugby competition with the Sharks, hopefully in prime physical and mental state.

Sometimes an enforced break like this one can end up adding years to a player’s career and, as Roberts pointed out, the Springboks are looking for another 60 Tests from the utility back and he will be a vital figure in the 2015 World Cup in England.

A third player could well leave the squad on Tuesday, with prop Coenie Oosthuizen going to see a specialist in Durban about his neck injury. Meyer rushed the versatile Oosthuizen back into the team, naming him on the bench for the Test against Australia despite the 23-year-old having played just 35 minutes for the Free State Cheetahs since injuring his neck during his Springbok debut against England in June.

Sometimes players are rushed back into action too soon and it is a credit to Roberts that he managed to convince Meyer to pull Oosthuizen from last weekend’s game; the team doctor clearly has doubts that the prop has fully recovered.

“Again, we want to ensure we make the right long-term decision and I’m not happy with his neck; he still has some quite significant symptoms, especially stiffness,” Roberts said.

Both the Springboks and All Blacks are coming off impressive weekend victories, setting up another titanic clash between the two great rivals at the iconic stadium in Soweto. New Zealand may have already clinched the inaugural Rugby Championship title, but there is no doubt they will be up for the game against the old enemy.

Apart from notching another victory on South African soil, they would also love to complete the year unbeaten and stretch their winning run to 16 matches dating back to the start of their triumphant World Cup campaign.

“We’ve won the Rugby Championship, but we’ve parked that and we’re now focused on winning in South Africa. If you talk to the older guys, they’ll tell you it’s more rewarding winning here than beating the Springboks at home. The guys that have been around a while really love testing themselves against the best here; it’s one of the toughest places to win,” loose forward Sam Cane said on Monday.

Lock Sam Whitelock also stressed the importance of Saturday’s game.

“It’s really nice that we’ve put the trophy away, but this weekend will be a massive challenge. It would be great to start off a new competition with a clean sweep.

“Last year didn’t go so well for us in Port Elizabeth and South Africa is always hard to beat at home. But that’s the beauty of international rugby; you have to perform week in and week out. All you need is one game to not go well and everything can unravel very quickly,” Whitelock said.

The great rivalry between the two sides will be exemplified in the tremendous physicality of Saturday’s Test, with the Dunedin match two weekends ago being widely proclaimed as a coming-of-age performance by the youthful Springbok pack.

“The Dunedin game was a typical All Blacks/Springboks Test, with massive body collisions. It was quite tight and it took a while for either side to win any dominance. I’m sure it will be the case again this week and the body will take a bit of a hammering,” Whitelock said.

The Springboks are obviously not going to make the same mistake that Argentina did in trying to match the expansive, fast-paced game of the All Blacks.

“Playing at home, there’s always more pressure to run the ball, but that’s what New Zealand likes because it gives them turnovers and they punish you. You will never beat New Zealand at their own game, you’ll never out-run them. You have to put pressure on them, especially at the breakdown, in defence and with your kicking game,” Meyer said.

The Springboks are well positioned to do this if they can produce a repeat performance of their Loftus Versfeld heroics against the Wallabies.

For all the elation of the five tries scored, it was a top-class defensive effort in the trenches that set up a morale-boosting win.

“It was a good performance, definitely the most satisfying of the year, and our defence was also the best it’s been the whole year. We made 178 tackles compared to their 109, and we had a 96% completion rate, we only missed seven tackles. Plus we only had 45% possession,” Meyer said.

A win over the in-form world champions would ensure Meyer gets a positive review after his first year in charge.

https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2012-10-02-rugby-tough-calls-for-the-springboks/#.WmHcfK6WbIU

Malibongwe Maketa is spending the winter as the head coach of the national academy at the CSA Centre of Excellence at the University of Pretoria, but the Warriors mentor is already thinking ahead to how he will handle the greater expectation that their excellent performances at franchise level have created for the Eastern Cape side.

In his second full season in charge, Maketa led the Warriors to both limited-overs finals and they were strongly in contention through the first five rounds of the Sunfoil Series as well, before losing their last three matches to finish last.

“It’s a great honour to be entrusted with such great talent at the academy, and as a group we’re going to commit to world-class standards. As a coach, I’m going to learn and grow as we try and keep South Africa as the number one cricketing nation. It should be the most memorable three months.

“I am happy with the progress the Warriors made last season, their hard work was rewarded. But the true test comes now because the supporters will expect us to box in that weight division from now on. As much as people say we don’t have any big names, we have a lot of very intelligent players and that is a big part of our success,” Maketa told Saturday Citizen at the CSA Centre of Excellence.

Many South African sports treat their up-and-coming coaches with almost criminal neglect, but it seems CSA certainly have a plan for Maketa, and his stint in charge of the academy is indicative of that. How does the 36-year-old see his own career pathway?

“I believe I’ve really grown as a coach. The players are also looking to grow and I’ve set barriers for them to get over, in a way I have to keep up with their growth. I enjoy all aspects of coaching, you have to give the players a lot of reassurance. If you don’t want to get better as a coach then you must not do this, because it’s about personal development, you want to see your players going up to the representative teams.

“I also want to go to higher levels as a coach, which means internationally, but the main thing is building relationships with the players. They must have enough trust that they know I am doing what is best for them,” Maketa said.

https://www.pressreader.com/south-africa/the-citizen-kzn/20170610/282385514491146