Ken Borland

One will not often find a young head coach who would not feel threatened by bringing in assistants who are more experienced or better-known than himself, but it speaks volumes for the confidence and character of Central Gauteng Lions mentor Wandile Gwavu that he has fully embraced having JP Duminy and Piet Botha as his batting and bowling coaches.

Duminy played 46 Tests, 199 ODIs and 81 T20s for South Africa, so he has a wealth of knowledge to offer the Lions batsmen, while Botha is vastly experienced in his own right as a coach and is highly-rated when it comes to helping the bowlers. Gwavu said it is not just the players who will be learning from his assistants.

“It’s a superstar coaching staff with JP, Piet and Prasanna Agoram as our analyst. It’s not only going to be great for the players but also for the growth of the head coach, I’m keen to take the learnings on and it will make me better as well. I know I lack international playing experience and the way JP speaks about cricket, I know we totally share the same philosophies.

“I’ve played under Piet Botha, we have a very strong relationship and I rate him as one of the best bowling coaches around. He’s very good with youngsters and Sisanda Magala, Lutho Sipamla and Anrich Nortje have all come through under his watch. And Prasanna is one of the best, if not the best, analysts, so we have world-class people in our camp,” the 34-year-old Gwavu said on Tuesday.

That the Lions have secured the services of Duminy, one of the Western Cape’s favourite sons, is due to the initiative of CEO Jono Leaf-Wright. The team will certainly benefit from one of the deepest thinkers in the game.

“It was an opportunity I didn’t really think of until I had a conversation with Jono during an ODI I was commentating on against Pakistan here. And then when I heard him speak at a coach’s forum I knew I was in,  you can just sense the trust and integrity. I certainly believe I can contribute. It’s mostly about having conversations about game-plans and driving certain mindsets.

“It’s about talking through their processes with the players, but it’s also about the coaches in Gauteng and telling them what happens at the top level. I don’t have all the answers, but hopefully I can ask good questions and it’s about empowering, encouraging and uplifting the batsmen. It all starts with mindset and trying to throw the first punch. It will be a learning experience for me too,” Duminy said at the Wanderers on Tuesday.

The move to Cape Town Stadium from one of the most famous homes of rugby in Newlands has come under fresh scrutiny after the turf broke up often during scrum time, not helping the Springboks according to prop Steven Kitshoff, in the first Test against the British and Irish Lions.

Cape Town Stadium was originally built for soccer and the turf did not stand up to the rigours of international scrummaging at the weekend. The Springboks, using two quality front rows, were expecting to gain some dominance in the scrums, providing them with an important attacking platform, but they struggled to get the purchase required.

The second and third Tests are both being played at the same venue, having been moved from Johannesburg due to Covid, and it seems highly unlikely that any more changes to the schedule will be made.

“The field cut up a lot and it was difficult to plant and use your feet. The grass just gives way and it becomes very slippery. There are things we can work on to prevent that – everyone having all eight studs in the ground helps a lot. The referee also called ‘Use it!’ at the scrums quite quickly, probably because he doesn’t want re-sets.

“Our scrum was rock-solid and we were starting to feel the cracks coming in the opposition, so we have to try and get our momentum a bit quicker. We have to find solutions to these problems quickly so we can take control as a group of forwards. In the second half we struggled to get our scrum going and that allowed the Lions to use their kicking game to put us under pressure,” loosehead prop Kitshoff said on Monday.

While there have been some bombastic predictions that the Springboks are now heading for a series whitewash, Kitshoff spoke of the quiet determination within the team to repeat what they did at the World Cup: Having been beaten by the All Blacks in the opening game, South Africa did not lose again as they went on to win the title.

“It’s a similar feeling to after that World Cup loss. We only lost by five points, some things just did not go our way and we struggled very badly in certain areas. But there is still a good vibe in the camp and we are very positive, although very disappointed in the result. We know how to fight back and get off the ground for the second game. We’re excited for a big game of rugby.

“The Lions did really well to take away some of our strong points, but as country we always fight back and come back stronger. We are putting a lot of work into our set-piece, we want to get that go-forward and our team on the front foot. Everybody put their bodies on the line, we all tried really hard to get over the gainline and give the team momentum. But there are some tactical and technical things for us to master,” Kitshoff said.

The last remaining players coming out of Covid isolation, including Siya Kolisi and Makazole Mapimpi, will undergo testing and get their results on Monday evening, but assistant coach Mzwandile Stick said on Monday he is not worried about any Springboks having suddenly become unfit while in quarantine because it’s not as if they’ve been sitting on the beach for the last six weeks.

“We’re in a good space, we’ve got almost everyone back and the last guys should be joining us today. So we are almost 100% back to the way we wanted things. Siya and Makazole still have to go see the specialist and will have their final tests and results today. But all the players have had two to three weeks of conditioning camp so we are in a good space, you don’t get unfit in one week.

“By tonight we will know who will be fit to play in the first Test and the team announced on Wednesday will be the final squad. But we won’t do anything stupid and rush players back, we hope it’s good news for them later today, but we have great players in the squad who we trust can do the job. If Siya is not fit then we have Rynhardt Elstadt who has been winning everything, Marco van Staden was very solid for SA A and there’s Jasper Wiese,” Stick said on Monday.

And because physically dominating the British and Irish Lions is going to be such an important part of the Test series, the Springboks need their big breakers up front to be in peak conditioning.

“We’re coming up against the very best of the best in the Northern Hemisphere, so we have to be at our best in all departments. Credit to the Bulls because they were well-prepared and they gave us a big challenge in the set-pieces, they really climbed into us physically. That match showed us what will happen if we don’t pitch up, and we expect the Lions to come hard at us at the wide breakdowns.

“So we have to make sure that we are prepared for it. We are grateful for the experience of Eben Etzebeth, Bongi Mbonambi and Steven Kitshoff up front, so we are not worried at all, we have got the players to do the job. That’s the honest truth, even if one or two players are not cleared, that’s the trust we have in the other players, I have no doubt they have what it takes to win the series,” Stick said.

As praiseworthy as Ireland’s brilliant display in the second ODI was, Proteas captain Temba Bavuma made it clear that he was not fine with the dismal performance his team produced in the field.

After South Africa won the toss and were able to bowl first, they were poor in the opening powerplay and dreadful at the death, conceding 95 runs in the last eight overs. Their fielding was also terrible, four catches that should have been taken were dropped and there were several fumbles and misfields.

“We were totally outplayed but the fielding was not the standards that we pride ourselves on and those dropped catches were always going to be costly. Bowling short and wide is never the plan, I’d like to give the bowlers the benefit of the doubt and say it was down to execution. But it’s happening all too often that we find ourselves trying to defend both sides of the field.

“In the death bowling there just hasn’t been any consistency, which makes it hard to set a plan. We’ve had enough conversations about it, we’ve exhausted those conversations now and we need to show it in action now. We trust these guys, but they must be able to bowl to a plan. We know there are guys on the sidelines who have the skills, so there is now a strong case for them getting an opportunity,” Bavuma threatened after the shock 43-run defeat in Dublin.

The batting, especially the middle-order, could also see changes beyond the expected return of Quinton de Kock.

On the bright side, Janneman Malan’s 84 off 96 balls showed that he is a young batsman who watches and learns from all that is going on around him. The 25-year-old has made a great start to his ODI career with 306 runs in five innings, including a century and now his second half-century.

“It was quite nervewracking because I haven’t had a lot of games or been able to get momentum, and it’s in different conditions. But watching Ireland bat twice before I had my first time at the crease gave me a bit of info and I was able to take all the learnings. Chasing 290, at halfway we were on a good path, Rassie van der Dussen and I had set it up well.

“But it would have been great if I could have batted through. I needed to get a big hundred, so I failed the team in that respect. We needed an in-batter at the end and to lose myself and Rassie bang-bang was not great. We needed to take it deeper and put pressure on them. They showed by scoring close to 60 runs in the last four overs what having a guy in could do at the end,” Malan said on Wednesday.