Ken Borland

Wing Julian Savea, who scored two tries last weekend against Argentina, has been replaced by Hosea Gear in the New Zealand team to play South Africa in their Rugby Championship match at Soweto on Saturday, it was announced on Thursday.

Coach Steve Hansen has seemingly dropped Savea because of fears over his ability under the high ball and the likelihood that the Springboks will use plenty of kicking in the highveld Test.

The All Blacks are also expecting a fierce physical onslaught from the home team and Hansen has made one change to the starting pack, with Brodie Retallick replacing Luke Romano at lock.

Romano suffered facial cuts last weekend against Argentina and has been unable to train fully this week.

“Luke got beaten up a bit and has a lot of cuts, meaning he hasn’t played a full part in training, while we thought we’d give Julian a wee breather. We have a lot of confidence in Hosea Gear,” Hansen said at a news conference in Johannesburg on Thursday.

Romano will swap places with Retallick and start off the bench on Saturday and there are three other changes amongst the reserves with prop Ben Franks, flank Adam Thomson and utility back Tamati Ellison replacing Charlie Faumuina, Sam Cane and Ben Smith.

The absence of Cane robs the All Blacks of an out-and-out fetcher, but Hansen said the bigger Thomson would boost their lineout.

“Adam definitely gives us another lineout option. He’s been part of the set-up for a long time and we’ve just been waiting for his injury to clear up so we can give him a crack. He had a busy SuperRugby season, but the extra lineout option is the reason for the change,” Hansen said.

With Johan Goosen now playing at flyhalf, Hansen expects the Springboks to probe for gaps with ball in hand more than they did in their previous meeting in Dunedin three weeks ago when Morne Steyn was at 10 and the All Blacks won 21-11.

“Inside their own half they’ll kick, but in our half they’ll run more and play more of a continuity game. I expect we’ll see a lot more movement of the ball than in Dunedin, Goosen is a pretty classy player. He takes the ball to the line, he can break himself or put others in space. He’s quite special,” Hansen said.

The successor to World Cup-winning coach Sir Graham Henry said it was important for the All Blacks not to focus on the venue, the 94 700-capacity Soccer City, the same field on which the 2010 football world cup final was played.

“We have a lot of experience through the spine of the team and those guys have played all over the world and seen most places. So when they get on the field, it’s all the same for them, it’s a bit of grass with lines painted on. That’s the mindset you want.

“Sure, 90 000 people will make a lot of noise, but if you do things right on the field then you quieten them down and it becomes your place,” Hansen said.

Team – 15-Israel Dagg, 14-Cory Jane, 13-Conrad Smith, 12-Ma’a Nonu, 11-Hosea Gear, 10-Dan Carter, 9-Aaron Smith, 8-Kieran Read, 7-Richie McCaw, 6-Liam Messam, 5-Sam Whitelock, 4-Brodie Retallick, 3-Owen Franks, 2-Andrew Hore, 1-Tony Woodcock. Reserves: 16-Keven Mealamu, 17-Ben Franks, 18-Luke Romano, 19-Adam Thomson, 20-Piri Weepu, 21-Aaron Cruden, 22-Tamati Ellison.

South Africa coach Heyneke Meyer believes the current Springbok team will become stars of the future despite a lean recent run that has seen them lose to New Zealand and Australia and be held to a draw by Argentina.

“I have a special feeling about this team going forward. We’re on the right track and the results will come,” Meyer told journalists at the O.R. Tambo International Airport on Monday after the team’s return from New Zealand, where they were beaten 21-11 by the All Blacks in Dunedin.

“I thought we scrummed well and I’m very happy with our front row. The combination we used in the loose forwards was superb against the best loose trio in the world and we have four great locks going forward.

“There were lots of positives from Dunedin, especially from the forwards, and I believe we did enough to win that game. I think it instilled that self-belief in the team that they can beat anyone anywhere,” Meyer said.

South Africa dominated the first 50 minutes of the Rugby Championship test, but missed kicks at goal cost them 20 points.

Flyhalf Morne Steyn, the hero of their 2009 and 2010 campaigns, was responsible for 11 of those missed points and the waning influence of the Springbok backline has also been blamed on the 28-year-old pivot. But Meyer believes Steyn, who has started all seven matches this year under the new coach, still has a future at international level, pointing to the resurgence in form shown by wing Bryan Habana, South Africa’s all-time leading try-scorer who struggled with his form last year and played just six of the Springboks’ nine tests.

“I don’t want to knock individuals but the missed kicks were crucial. Morne is mentally tough though and if you look at what happened to Bryan Habana, with the right guidance he is now playing phenomenal rugby again. I don’t want to boost myself, but I’ve always been great at getting the best out of players and the mental break will do Morne well. We’ll look at the situation after this weekend’s Currie Cup matches and then decide who will play,” Meyer said.

Meyer said the way the Springboks dominated the All Blacks in Dunedin showed that the controversial game plan they were using was the right one.

“The guys were very unhappy not to win, but sometimes we’ve played worse rugby in New Zealand and won, it was just the goalkicking that let us down. Otherwise we did enough to win, it was the right game plan and we kept them under pressure, we just couldn’t convert that into points.

“It was 3-5 at half-time, but it could have been 15-5 if we’d made our kicks, that would have built pressure and they would have had to chase the game. There’s always criticism about the game plan, but I believe we got it 100% right, we just didn’t put the kicks over. We had them under pressure,” Meyer said.

The Springbok squad for their last two Rugby Championship matches, both at home against Australia in Pretoria on September 29 and New Zealand in Soweto on October 6, will be named on Saturday night after the Currie Cup games have been completed.

South Africa have an outside chance of still claiming the title if they register bonus-point wins in both those home fixtures and the All Blacks lose in Argentina without getting a bonus point.

The Rugby Championship, featuring the top three teams in the world and rising powers Argentina, should be all about the best the game can offer, a showpiece for the talents of most of the best players on the planet.

But unfortunately, for governing body Sanzar, it’s all about quantity rather than quality.

For Sanzar, the aim seems to be to fill every weekend of the year with rugby – SuperRugby stretched from February 24 to August 4, followed by the Rugby Championship from August  18 to October 7 – rather than ensuring that their product is the best it can be.

Before anyone accuses me of just being bitter because the Springboks are in the doldrums, let’s look at New Zealand, unbeaten in this year’s Rugby Championship and occupants of top spot on the log.

By their own admission, the All Blacks have struggled to hit their stride thus far and many experienced observers have been wondering how a team as poor as Australia’s managed to stay in the games against them for so long.

It can be argued that South Africa’s game plan is keeping their opposition in the game as well, but despite the new blood in the side, their displays have also been lacklustre.

The one side that has played with passion and intensity has been Argentina, who have performed with the typical enthusiasm of the new boys. With the vast majority of their players based in Europe, they also don’t have to deal with the draining effects of SuperRugby. The European clubs generally have bigger squads, so the workload is shared around more.

Leading South African sports scientist Professor Tim Noakes says it is impossible for the players to play with their usual intensity and accuracy after more than 14 weeks of high-intensity rugby, never mind the 22 weeks they endured at the start of the season.

“The players will pace themselves and make more mistakes, there won’t be the same intensity, they’ll cut out sprinting on the field, for instance.

“It’s because they’re exhausted. The brain tells the body to go easy and the players aren’t even aware of it. They’ll know they’re tired, but it won’t be a deliberate attempt to hold back. It’s just that their bodies can’t give them anything more,” Noakes said.

The ridiculous demands on the players are also shown in the catastrophic injury rate. The Springboks are without Bismarck du Plessis, Coenie Oosthuizen, Schalk Burger, Siya Kolisi, Pierre Spies, Bjorn Basson, JP Pietersen and probably Jannie du Plessis this weekend, while the likes of Heinrich Brussow, Duane Vermuelen and Johan Goosen have just returned to action after SuperRugby.

Australia have been similarly ravaged by injury, with the captains being particularly unfortunate. James Horwill, David Pocock and Will Genia are all out, joining James O’Connor, Stephen Moore, Wycliff Palu, Sekope Kepu and Sitaleki Timani on the sidelines.

The injury situation has become so bad that one of the team doctors has actually sent a letter of complaint to the governing body!

The product has to suffer with so many stars not featuring and the great god of TV has to see the warning lights flashing after some of the mediocre fare dished up this year.

It’s important to note that it’s not just matches every weekend that fatigue the players. It’s all the training and travelling (which is particularly onerous in the southern hemisphere) as well.

Thanks to sports science, the days when coaches would proudly say that the players died out on the training field are gone. The most successful coaches are those who taper and construct their training sessions the most efficiently, rather than just wearing the players out with over-training.

“Expanded competitions are widely being held accountable for increased demand on the top players and the rise in long-term injuries. But the management of player welfare isn’t as black and white as measuring the number of playing minutes each player receives in the game,” Queensland Reds coach Ewen McKenzie said this week.

“It is paramount that we protect our key assets, our players, and mitigate the risks of injury where possible. Probably the most effective way we manage our players’ workload is to determine the amount of minutes they spend in training versus the amount of minutes spent playing actual games. This is an area where teams have the biggest opportunity to manage an individual’s player welfare.
“We obviously want our top-performing and therefore highest-paid players on the field and fit to play every match in the season, so that’s where we start and work backwards from there. Typically, players can undertake up to three times more minutes in training each week than the important 80 minutes at the end of the week – playing in front of the supporters, viewers and sponsors.

“We need to ensure our players are receiving adequate rest to ensure they can perform at an optimal level during peak playing periods,” McKenzie said.

The bigger squads the SuperRugby coaches are asking for will help alleviate the situation a bit, but again the product suffers because second-string talent is on show. The only long-term solution is for Sanzar to cut back on the schedule.

The old adage that less is more is the pertinent one in the case of top-level rugby.