Ken Borland

Bulls coach Nollis Marais said the experience gained from a year of SuperRugby was the major positive of a campaign that ended at the weekend with his team just missing out on a playoffs spot.

The Bulls ended on a high with a 43-17 romp over the Cheetahs in Bloemfontein, their ninth win from 15 games leaving them on 42 points, in ninth place overall and just one point behind the Sharks, who took the last quarterfinal place as the third South African qualifiers.

“At the end of the day, the Sharks finished with more points than us, but we had 14 players make their SuperRugby debuts this year and 12 of them went on their first tour to Australia. They all came through and guys like Jason Jenkins, RG Snyman and Warrick Gelant are 20/21. The guys now have one Super Rugby season behind them, but we can’t use inexperience as an excuse again next year, we will have to be much better especially since we’ll be playing against the New Zealand teams,” Marais said.

The lack of bonus points picked up by the Bulls was a key factor in their failure to make the playoffs, as they collected only four, all of them from the try-scoring bonus. Home games against the Reds – where they led 27-8 but won 41-22 – and the Rebels – where they led 42-3 but conceded four tries in the final quarter, have come back to haunt the Bulls.

“It actually makes me quite emotional because I remember after the Reds game saying that I hope missing the bonus point doesn’t come back to bite us. And every time we lost a game, we couldn’t get a bonus point either, which is very disappointing, especially when you finish just two points off the playoffs.

“I still believe our best wins were against the Stormers and the Western Force away, although a lot of guys played well against the Cheetahs, the guys pitched because a lot of them are leaving,” Marais said.

It was announced on Monday that Marais will now take the reins of the Currie Cup side, which will basically be the SuperRugby outfit minus Jesse Kriel, who once again showed how good he can be at fullback without his space being cramped like it is in midfield, Rudy Paige, Lappies Labuschagne, Marcel van der Merwe, Adriaan Strauss, Werner Kruger, Grant Hattingh and Francois Brummer.

The qualifying campaign under Hendré Marnitz has been messy with seven defeats fouling their seven wins, but CEO Barend van Graan said the change was more to do with continuity seeing as though most of the SuperRugby side will be involved.

“With almost the whole Bulls squad now available for the Currie Cup competition that is starting soon, the call was made to extend the mandate of Marais, so he will now be coaching the Blue Bulls as well. It just makes sense for him to continue with the group of players that are developing so nicely under his guidance. The call to continue with Nollis in the Currie Cup was made for rugby reasons and is not a reflection on Hendré’s abilities. The progress and growth shown by the team under Nollis is something we want to expand and grow, hence the decision,” Van Graan said.

It will be a learning experience all round for South African rugby as Allister Coetzee was confirmed as the new Springbok coach on Tuesday.

Even though Coetzee is probably the most experienced coach to have been given the Springbok job, the 52-year-old said it will still be a time for growth for him, while the players will need to adapt to the many changes in the game, and South African rugby as a whole will have to undergo a mindset change in terms of transformation.

Coetzee, an outstanding scrumhalf, was the captain of the South African non-racial team before unity and played Currie Cup and SuperRugby for Eastern Province from 1992-1996, as well as representing the Junior Springboks.

He then turned his hand to coaching, first as an assistant coach for Eastern Province and then the Sharks. Coetzee coached the Emerging Springboks in 1998 and the SA U23 and SA A sides in 2000, before becoming one of the assistant coaches under Harry Viljoen.

He was Eastern Province head coach from 2001 to 2003, before joining the World Cup-winning management team of Jake White in 2004, alongside Gert Smal. From 2008 he was the head coach of Western Province and then the Stormers from 2010, winning three South African SuperRugby conference titles and two Currie Cups.

“Who is ever ready for this sort of job? I will continue to grow, as I always have, we all grow into something like this. My strength is aligning people, get them working in the same direction. Unity is a massive thing and it’s about how I instil that in the team, in the management and with Saru, as well as giving the country ownership of the team.

“Is Test rugby about entertaining? The big challenge initially will be winning Tests, getting all the boxes ticked before June, we need to get the best 23 players. The game has evolved and so have coaches and it would be really naïve to ignore that. When we embarked on our winning culture with the Stormers, we put teams under pressure through our defence and kicking game, but there’s more than one way of putting teams under pressure, you need attack too.

“It’s about the integration of a balanced game and it took time with the Stormers to not just defend a lead. But it’s great to see the awareness of all the SuperRugby coaches that we need to brush up on attack, it’s about speed of hand, ball and decision-making, and communication skills are vital as well. You can see the SuperRugby coaches are already busy with that,” Coetzee said.

“Transformation is also a reality; it’s not about numbers, it’s about how you think. It wasn’t an issue for me at the Stormers, I didn’t put asterisks down on the team-sheet when I chose the side saying this guy is a player of colour. Rugby has been played in all communities for more than a hundred years, so they all have hopes and it’s about making sure those pathways are open.”

Alongside Coetzee in the chairs at the front of the team photo will be former Springbok Sevens star Mzwandile Stick, who has been appointed as an assistant coach.

“Sticks is a rugby man, the picture of professionalism. He’s a confident guy, he was head coach of the champion Eastern Province U19 team, he’s coached at Currie Cup level and now at Super Rugby as well. He’s got great potential and it’s part of my duty to bring him through,” Coetzee said.

Although the new Springbok coach said he is looking at around 60 players at the moment, he said he would be including about 40 in his planning closer to the three Tests against Ireland in June.

Springbok rugby coach Heyneke Meyer announced a World Cup squad heavy with experience and his trusted lieutenants, admitting that he was “hoping” many of the walking wounded would be fit for their opening game against Japan in Brighton on September 19.

Meyer has chosen nine members of the victorious 2007 World Cup squad in Schalk Burger, 2015 captain Jean de Villiers, Bismarck and Jannie du Plessis, Fourie du Preez, Bryan Habana, Victor Matfield, Ruan Pienaar and JP Pietersen, while players such as Willem Alberts, Zane Kirchner, Tendai Mtawariria and Morne Steyn have been stalwarts of his four-year term.

But a massive injury cloud hangs over the Springboks with De Villiers, key eighthman Duane Vermeulen, Jannie du Plessis, Du Preez, Willie le Roux, Francois Louw and Coenie Oosthuizen all having their build-up to the World Cup disrupted by injuries.

“The medical advice is that they are 100% confident that all 31 players will be fit for the first game and I’m hoping that will be the case. It is a worry to be honest, but certain players are warriors and they’re like charcoal that becomes diamonds under pressure.

“I know what a guy like Fourie du Preez can do, we’ve been training against Namibia, we’ve been having semi-opposed contact and I can see how ready they are in training. We’ll have four pool games at the World Cup to blend guys in and players like Flo and Duane are in the best form I’ve ever seen them in. Guys like that just need 30 minutes on the field and they’re back in the game,” Meyer said at the squad announcement at the team’s Umhlanga Rocks hotel on Friday night.

Meyer admitted that the last week had been a highly emotional one with players like flank Marcel Coetzee, who is 50/50 to be fit in time for the first game, and scrumhalf Cobus Reinach the unluckiest players to miss out on the squad.

“I started coaching because I wanted to make a difference in people’s lives, to make dreams come true. But these have been some of my most emotional days, it has felt like life and death. All the guys have put their bodies on the line and every single guy is good enough to play in a World Cup final.

“But I saw every player in a one-on-one and many of them burst into tears when I told them they had been selected and the same for those guys who I had to tell that they had not been selected,” Meyer said.

Scrumhalf Rudi Paige is the only uncapped member of the squad, although he was selected for the 2014 end-of-year tour before getting injured.

The average age of the squad is just over 26.

It’s always been a very South African thing, especially in rugby and cricket, for us to look over the Indian Ocean at our archrivals New Zealand and Australia, and try and copy what they are doing.

Notwithstanding the fact that Australian cricket teams and New Zealand rugby sides have generally been the best in the world during the last two decades, it is a habit that is not always beneficial for our national teams. Mostly because we have different strengths and therefore what works best for them won’t necessarily be the best approach for us.

But there is one current debate in Springbok rugby which I believe can be neatly resolved by taking a leaf out of the All Blacks’ book.

Amongst the many unfair criticisms that are being hurled at Springbok coach Heyneke Meyer, one of the least intelligent ones is that he is going to take a geriatric team to the World Cup. In this regard, I have to say, like our venerable Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu did recently in supporting HelpAge International, that “I am for people of all ages”.

Looking back at the previous seven World Cups, it is clear that nobody is going to win the Webb Ellis Cup without experience. Meyer is certainly not alone in wanting to include some cool older heads in his side – we need only look at the team New Zealand coach Steve Hansen put on the field yesterday to open their Rugby Championship campaign.

With only a handful of matches left before they begin the defence of their 2011 title, Hansen is not going to be messing around with players that aren’t going to be in contention for the World Cup.

The All Blacks team that belted Argentina in Christchurch yesterday contained half-a-dozen players who are over 30 – Ma’a Nonu, Dan Carter, Richie McCaw, Jerome Kaino, Keven Mealamu and Tony Woodcock. Add in 29-year-olds Kieran Read and Luke Romano, and the average age of yesterday’s starting XV was 29.13 years.

The likes of Ben Smith (29) and Conrad Smith (33) are almost certainly going to be World Cup starters and other players who should return and will push up the average age are Julian Savea (24 compared to Charles Piutau 23), Aaron Smith (26, while TJ Perenara is 23) and Liam Messam (31).

The likely All Blacks team for a World Cup final would have an average age of 29.60 years.

Meyer’s probable first-choice team – Le Roux, Pietersen, De Villiers, De Allende, Habana, Pollard, Du Preez, Vermeulen, Alberts, Louw, Matfield, Etzebeth, Du Plessis x2 and Mtawarira – is actually younger than that – 29.33 years.

There are nine players over 30, but there are also three key players who are 23 or younger – 23-year-old centre Damian de Allende (Jan Serfontein is 22), 21-year-old flyhalf Handre Pollard and 23-year-old lock Eben Etzebeth. That seems to me to be a good balance between experience and youthful energy.

And there’s even a chance that the Springboks will have some outrageous young talent like Marcell Coetzee (24), Pieter-Steph du Toit (22), Frans Malherbe (24) and Steven Kitshoff (23) dancing around the UK fields, which would make South Africa’s team even younger.

So the next time an ill-informed someone moans about the geriatric Springbok team at the World Cup, those are the facts to dispel that argument; New Zealand, the outright favourites and world number ones, have an even older side!

In the pressure-cooker environment of a do-or-die knockout game at the World Cup, you need players who have been there and done it, who have proven their mettle when the stakes are highest.