Ken Borland

It was extremely encouraging to see a really transformed Springbok team play some superb rugby in beating England in the first Test at Ellis Park at the weekend, and you have to give the head coach, Rassie Erasmus, a lot of credit for how his team were able to come through in the end.

England were superfired-up and it’s never easy to win a Test against them, and one can see how the amazing comeback win has uplifted everyone in the country.

At the start, there were some setting issues for the Springbok defence, they were too tight. The wings generally set the width of the defensive line and you’re looking for field coverage from them to the ruck. Depending on the speed of the ball out of the breakdown, you can get 70 to 85% coverage or even 90-95% of the field covered if it’s very slow ball.

They also were trying to come in on England’s second-last player, but the tourists were very clever and they used skip passes, which enabled them to easily get through, as they did when they engineered a two-on-one on Willie le Roux for Owen Farrell’s try. The Springboks also had a disconnected defensive line for the late outside runner from 10 which the English were able to exploit.

So the home side found themselves in a heck of a position – 24-3 down after 17 minutes. The biggest change after that was that England did not see the ball in the middle of the game. For the Springboks to turn ahead of England at halftime echoed so many of the Lions’ games at altitude at Ellis Park – the opposition would go ahead early, but the Lions would always come back in that death-zone period at altitude 15 minutes before halftime.

You could see England were struggling to fold and the key issue was the number of turnovers that Duane Vermeulen got at the breakdown. They were all around halfway and the Springboks were able to kick the penalties for great field position and get their lineout drive going.

South Africa’s third try was a perfect example of that: the maul with poor defence from England in the 22 and an easy walk-in for the open wing, and you have to give Sbu Nkosi credit for working his way all the way around off his wing and getting the inside ball from Aphiwe Dyantyi, the other wing.They both showed a willingness to support off their wings.

At altitude, the game is always so fast and it was perfect conditions for rugby, which is why 56 points could be scored in the first half. There was some calmness though at the start of the second half and it was almost like a huge sigh for the crowd of more than 55 000 as both teams hit each other hard on the gain-line.

I do believe England missed a trick though by taking lock Nick Isiekwe off after just 36 minutes. Sure, Brad Shields, normally a loose forward, made an impact and gave them more mobility, but I felt the England scrum had been quite dominant until that point. You could see the energy South Africa got from the set-pieces after that and rugby is obviously still confrontational at set-piece at Test level. It also left England with only one real jumper in Maro Itoje and that key lineout at the end of the game was lost.

In the first quarter, England cut the Boks’ line so much, and exerted set-piece pressure, but once they made the change at lock it changed. They obviously wanted to play a ball-in-hand type of game, to not have lots of set-pieces. They wanted to keep the ball alive and have a broken-play type of game.

These were the tactical errors made by Eddie Jones, only having loose forwards on the bench instead of another lock. You still need a set-piece or else you will concede penalties.

After the first 20 minutes, the Springboks rarely allowed England into their own half by forcing turnovers and dominating territory. They were totally dominant and rampant in the middle period and it’s been a long time since we’ve seen that – the last time was probably against France last June, so the Ellis Park factor carried on.

When England tried to exit with box-kicks, Vermeulen was there to field them and take the pressure off the debutant wings.

But there were only three points between the sides at the end, which makes one think back to the Elliot Daly howler when he just needed to dot the ball down to prevent Nkosi scoring.

South Africa also didn’t finish all their chances and it’s fair to say England controlled the first 15 minutes and the last 15 minutes, and the Springboks were in charge for the middle 50. If England had won that last lineout, who knows what would have happened with the way the game ebbed and flowed.

The match was a fantastic spectacle and hopefully the next two Tests are sold out because we can definitely see the fact that the crowds are enjoying watching the Springboks win again. It will be a great Test on the weekend in Bloemfontein and I remember all the way back to 2000 when Jonny Wilkinson kicked eight penalties and a drop goal there to give England a 27-22 victory.

It was the penalty count that destroyed England too at Ellis Park last weekend and they came mostly from the scrum or breakdown. England need to carry the ball better and get their cleaners there quicker and more effectively and pick another lock!

The Springboks’ set-piece became stronger and can be a real weapon, it was really encouraging to see RG Snyman really come through. He clearly has a lot of athleticism and is so good in space.

The Boks need the same attitude and attacking mindset this weekend.

Maybe the most important positive so far for the Springboks though is that they have taken a lot of players out of overseas eligibility with 16 new caps in the first two weeks of Rassie Erasmus’s reign!

John McFarland won three SuperRugby titles (2007, 09, 10) with the Bulls and five Currie Cup crowns with the Blue Bulls as their defence coach. In all, he won 28 trophies during his 12 years at Loftus Versfeld.

He is currently the assistant coach of the Kubota Spears in Japan and was the Springbok defence coach from 2012 through to the 2015 World Cup, where they conceded the least line-breaks in the tournament and an average of just one try per game.

I must confess to a certain sense of relief today as our rugby season (the 15-man game anyway) comes to an end this weekend with the misfiring Springboks facing a daunting assignment in Cardiff. Sad to say, but I find myself more and more irritated by rugby these days.

The uninspiring fare dished up by the Springboks, made worse by the tantalising glimpse they gave of what they are capable of in the Newlands Test against the All Blacks, brings little joy and the two domestic sides I cover, the Bulls and Sharks, have had more heartache than cheer this year. Even the Lions’ loss in the Super Rugby final still hurts.

Nevertheless, just to get two last parting shots in before Christmas, rugby made me angry twice more this week.

It’s annoying that Springbok coach Allister Coetzee is not expediting the smooth introduction of the tremendously talented Warrick Gelant into international rugby. Instead of playing him in his natural position of fullback, where change is surely required because the solid Andries Coetzee has done little to suggest star-quality, coach Coetzee has plonked Gelant on the wing for his first start.

The selection of players out of position has become something of a Springbok curse in recent years, but the disappointing treatment of Gelant might also be due to the lack of options Coetzee has on the wing. As at fullback, we can all see change is necessary, but the only other specialist wing in the squad is Raymond Rhule, and would he really improve things?

A rugby sage once told me that Springbok coaches stand or fall by selection and, judging by the number of times Coetzee has replaced an injured player with someone who plays in a different position, the current national coach is obviously failing in this regard. Just on this tour, we’ve had an eighthman, Duane Vermeulen, replacing a prop, Coenie Oosthuizen, and lock Ruan Botha came in for flank Jean-Luc du Preez, which clearly shows he got the initial selections wrong.

But the failure of WorldRugby to honour their own processes and award the 2023 World Cup to South Africa was the low point of the year; at least South Africa’s 57-0 thrashing in Albany came with plenty of wonderful rugby from the All Blacks to admire.

The duplicity and lack of integrity shown by their council members makes the blood boil, and the reputation of rugby took a major hit in London a fortnight ago.

So it was with utter shock that I observed the sheer nerve of WorldRugby this week trying to clamp down on players writing messages on their strapping. The rationale was that WorldRugby had no control over what messaging was displayed and with the pettiness typical of the jobsworths who have more regard for their own positions and privilege than the good of the game, the decision was made to clamp down.

Perhaps WorldRugby should worry more about the game being brought into disrepute by their own administrators; the message sent by the 2023 World Cup decision was far worse than anything a player could fit on to his strapping.

Sport did bring me some happiness this week though. It was wonderful to see a cricketing legend of yesteryear, Mike Procter, team up with one of the country’s most talented young writers, Lungani Zama, to launch an updated autobiography.

Procter, of course, played in an era when someone like Zama, who is a good enough cricketer to have played for the KZN Inland side before they gained first-class status, was not allowed to fully express their talents.

Procter, one of the all-time greats of South African cricket and a former national coach and selector, understands these issues and it is wonderful to see him so actively involved in cricket development through his coaching work at the Ottawa Primary School outside Durban, introducing the game to nearly a thousand underprivileged children.

A cricketer capable of taking the new ball and bowling at 145km/h, with prodigious swing, and a good enough batsman to score 254 against Western Province in a Currie Cup game, Procter was obviously a rare talent and one that the current lovers of the game really need to know more about.

He is certainly one of the contenders for the title of greatest all-rounder the game has known and the story of his playing days is augmented with fascinating accounts of his stint as an ICC match referee, having to deal with the major controversies of Darrell Hair abandoning an England v Pakistan Test match, the Harbhajan Singh and Andrew Symonds ‘Monkeygate’ saga, and the bomb blast that ended international cricket in Pakistan.

As Caught in the Middle details, Procter is one of the heroes of the game still adding value in the present day.

Springbok lock Pieter-Steph du Toit looks set to become a Stormers player after announcing his decision on Tuesday to leave the Sharks at the end of October.

Du Toit was scouted by the Sharks while still at school at Swartland High School in Malmesbury, but the highly-promising 22-year-old has proven injury-prone with two serious knee injuries in the last two years.

Having earlier said he owed loyalty to the Sharks for looking after him during these tough times, it now seems he is going to Cape Town. The Stormers have not officially confirmed his signing but did reveal two weeks ago that they were negotiating with him.

“Our medical team has invested immense time and effort into Pieter-Steph’s rehabilitation and recovery process and we are saddened to lose him, but I guess we cannot hold the player back if he has made up his mind,” Sharks CEO John Smit said.

Du Toit is believed to be in a relationship with a physiotherapist that works with the Stormers.

On the plus side for the Sharks, they have confirmed powerhouse flank Marcell Coetzee has signed for another two years.

The Bulls will earn deserved credit for their improvement, but the end result was still the same as they went down 28-12 to the Chiefs in a bonus point defeat in their SuperRugby match in Hamilton on Saturday.

A superb first-half display by the Bulls in which intensity crackled through everything they did – in attack they were direct and handled superbly, while their defence was physical and uncompromising – saw them claim a deserved 9-3 lead at the break.

But the Chiefs showed their class as they stayed composed and were able to pull away from the 50-minute mark, scoring three tries in an ultimately impressive victory.

The Chiefs had a terrible time in the first half trying to contain superb Bulls inside centre Burger Odendaal, who led the visitors’ resurgence with some powerful ball-carries and excellent midfield defence. It led to the home side having missed an awful 15 tackles by halftime.

But the Bulls just lacked the attacking incisiveness to convert their gains into points on the scoreboard.

When centre Jan Serfontein went inside instead of pinning his ears back on the outside following some storming runs by Odendaal in the fourth minute, it was one of many moments when the Bulls were left wondering what might have been.

The Chiefs had been caught offsides in the build-up, however, and flyhalf Handre Pollard was at least able to kick a penalty for an early 3-0 lead.

More superb carries and direct running by the Bulls, and a determined rumble forward by prop Trevor Nyakane, led to another Pollard penalty in the 10th minute, but the Chiefs dominated the first scrum four minutes later, earning a penalty kicked by flyhalf Aaron Cruden (3-6).

But the Bulls had the final say in the first half as the Chiefs tried to run the ball out of their own 22 after conceding a free kick, but were turned over, allowing the Bulls to string several phases together and earn another Pollard penalty for not releasing at the ruck.

But the tide began to turn in the 51^st minute as wing Jamba Ulengo suffered another horrible moment in defence, wing Shaun Stevenson leaving him flatfooted as the Chiefs attacked off a lineout, and then grubbering through and regathering the ball for the first try of the match. Cruden converted to give the Chiefs a 10-9 lead.

That was quickly stretched to 13-9 with another Cruden penalty after Bulls captain Adriaan Strauss stupidly went off his feet at a ruck in front of his own poles, but the visitors had a stroke of luck in the 62nd minute when a dominant Chiefs scrum was penalised for illegal wheeling, Pollard’s long-range penalty closing the gap to one point (12-13).

But it was all the Chiefs in the final 15 minutes as the Bulls suffered another late-game fade.

The Bulls lost a four-man lineout in their own 22 but a superb tackle by lock RG Snyman prevented fullback Damian McKenzie from knifing through to score. But an earlier infringement allowed Cruden to kick a penalty and stretch the lead back to 16-12.

A lovely 71st-minute move from a scrum saw scrumhalf Tawera Kerr-Barlow running at the line before putting a grubber through that McKenzie raced on to and dotted down.

Another slick backline move with two minutes remaining saw different angles of running and McKenzie bursting through, before replacement prop Atunaisa Moli charged through and reached over the line for the bonus point try.

The scrums were hard-fought transactions, but they did allow the Chiefs to release some of the pressure on them as they had the edge in that set-piece. Nyakane’s move to tighthead was again a talking point.

Lock Lood de Jager was a hardworking – if not always accurate – member of the pack, with partner Snyman also shining, while Jannes Kirsten came off the bench after 20 minutes to replace eighthman Arno Botha and made his presence felt. He should be in the starting line-up next week.

Jesse Kriel was impressive at fullback and halfbacks Rudy Paige and Pollard were on the same page.

But while the Bulls were much-improved, being gutsy losers is not a tag they or their supporters will take kindly to.

Scorers

Chiefs – Tries: Shaun Stevenson, Damian McKenzie, Atunaisa Moli. Conversions: Aaron Cruden (2). Penalties: Cruden (3).

Bulls – Penalties: Handre Pollard (4).