Ken Borland

Ripped apart by Benetton Treviso on one of the most frustrating days in Bulls history, coach Jake White decried the “arrogance” of South African rugby that saw most pundits and fans expecting the local champions to just rock up in Europe and win the Rainbow Cup final.

The Bulls were meant to be triumphant forerunners of a wave of South African teams entering and dominating European competition via the new United Rugby Championship, but instead there will now be many questions overseas as to what our teams are going to add to the proud Celtic league.

Ponderous, one-dimensional and error-prone in comparison with an impressive Benetton side that produced some dazzling rugby, the Bulls were hammered 35-8.

“It would be a bit arrogant to think that we could just arrive in Italy and beat a club side and then fly home. Sometimes as a coach you just have to take it, tactically Benetton were very smart and there was no one area where we stamped our mark, we were a bit short in everything. But I’m a realist and that’s the first time many of this team felt pressure like that.

“Benetton have a lot of experienced Test players, they’ve played against England at Twickenham and France in Paris, and when you get them here at home, they can play. We looked inexperienced and we can blame that, the heat or the crowd, but at the end of the day we got it wrong. It was up to us to find a way, to do things differently,” White said.

While the Bulls have basically physically-dominated everyone back at home, it is clear that they play a more highbrow form of rugby in Europe and the South African teams are going to have to adapt very quickly. South Africa’s dominant team have just been handed a whipping by a team, impressive as they were on the day, no-one in Europe seriously thinks is better than big guns Leinster, Munster and Ulster, never mind the Champions Cup teams.

“It’s a completely different game up North and Benetton are a well-coached team who played really well. We did not enjoy it today being convincingly beaten, but we have got to find our feet. Hopefully this loss makes us so much better and I’m glad for the opportunity to grow as a team. Our youngsters have now seen that it’s a completely different game up here.

“To the other South African teams I would say ‘Don’t come here thinking it’s the same as what you’re used to’. It’s a totally different sort of defence and attack that you play against, homework and analysis is going to be so important. Back home we know the teams and players and we thought we have been clinical there, but we have never been punished for not kicking the ball out like we were here,” White admitted.

Proteas stars Rassie van der Dussen and Temba Bavuma have always had one of the more calming relationships at the crease and their partnership did the bulk of the work as the Imperial Lions beat the Warriors by four wickets in their opening T20 Challenge match at Kingsmead on Saturday.

Coming together on a troubled 19 for two, Van der Dussen belted four sixes as he scored 64 off 41 balls, while Bavuma cruised to 40 off 35 deliveries as they added 64 for the third wicket to put the Lions well on course for their target of 158.

Seamer Aya Gqamane split the pair but Van der Dussen then added another 58 runs with Delano Potgieter (17).

Gqamane (3-0-20-3) dismissed both of them in the 17^th over  as the Lions eventually wobbled to victory with four balls remaining.

The dominant Lions attack bowled the Warriors out for 157 with Kagiso Rabada simply at another level as he took three for 23 in his four superb overs.

Fellow Proteas Bjorn Fortuin (4-0-18-1) and Dwaine Pretorius (4-0-23-1) were also outstanding, but the Warriors, led by captain Sinethemba Qeshile’s 33 off 28 balls, fought manfully to post a competitive total.

Sisanda Magala ripped through the tail to claim four for 37 and ensure that the Lions would not need to chase more than 8 an over.

One of the more pleasing aspects of the Proteas’ previous season was how well head coach Mark Boucher and his assistant Enoch Nkwe dovetailed together, which is probably not too surprising given the similarities between them in coaching philosophy.

It could have been a lot more awkward than it was when Boucher took over as head coach in December, Nkwe effectively being demoted to assistant coach because he had been the interim team director when the Proteas toured India in September/October.

But Nkwe is the sort of coach who always puts the team first and Boucher has always been known to be a great team man. As a player and coach, the record-breaking wicketkeeper’s attributes of honest communication, competitiveness, toughness, courage and discipline are well-known.

They are shared qualities that bind them together.

That the 37-year-old Nkwe has a similar coaching philosophy to the 43-year-old Boucher became clear when I was fortunate enough to sit in on the virtual coaches conference he held with the Lions recently. Apart from the many coaches within the Lions system, including his successor as franchise head coach Wandile Gwavu, there were coaches from as far afield as the Eastern Cape, Uganda and New Zealand logged in to hear Nkwe share his thoughts, and the Soweto-born former all-rounder certainly left them with many great insights to ponder.

Nkwe sees the coach’s role as being to create an environment that enables the team to reach success.

“It’s important that you are all speaking the same language, you need the environment to be freed up and authentic. There needs to be clear role-definition which is one of the most powerful coaching tools and it can determine the brand of cricket played. And if the whole process is done properly then the coach is in a much stronger position to have tough conversations.

“You’ve got to be totally honest, one can feel sorry for the player but you can’t sugarcoat things or beat around the bush. It may be uncomfortable at the moment, but going forward the player will have respect for you because of your honesty. Don’t be scared or shy to have those honest conversations; the players know the moment you are bullshitting,” Nkwe said.

In order to discover his own coaching philosophy, Nkwe, who began his coaching career as player-coach for Dutch club HCC Rood en Wit in 2005, said he looked at his own character and what he consistently did as both a player and coach.

He came up with the word ‘competitive’, a word closely associated with Boucher himself.

“You need to master the little things, you’re not going to get everything right but you strive for a level of excellence. And you have to find a way to make it work. Things are not ever going to go all smoothly, and when things are not great, that’s when you have to overcome the challenge. You have to keep finding ways to be successful. There’s always a way and you can’t feel sorry for yourself,” Nkwe said.

You can imagine the exact same words coming out of Mark Boucher’s mouth. To be courageous also seemed to be second-nature for the gritty Eastern Cape product.

“You need courage and consistency to promote your vision and the confidence to go into a new environment and not compromise your beliefs because then you will lose the team. If you want to be liked, then coaching is not the industry for you,” Nkwe said frankly.

Boucher himself has spoken positively of their burgeoning relationship.

“Enoch and I have had some great conversations and I think we understand each other. We certainly have the same ideas and agree on how to do it. We know we’ll have hard calls to make but we’re not scared to make them.

“He has a good relationship with the youngsters I don’t know properly yet and he takes a load off my hands. I appreciate it and we will just keep working hard together and drive our vision together,” Boucher said recently.

Nkwe has also been a great respecter of new Director of Cricket Graeme Smith, ever since their paths crossed as schoolkids. Nkwe played for St Stithians and Smith was at King Edward VII. The future national captain would skipper Nkwe in the Gauteng Schools side of 1999, Smith’s second year of Khaya Majola Week cricket and the first of three years in which Nkwe played. Interestingly, both Smith and Nkwe scored centuries on their first-class debuts.

“Graeme was always a great example to me, he worked out at 15 years old that he needed to make peace with his technique. He knew he was not the best-looking batsman but he had a clear vision of what his strengths were and he made sure he thrived on that and his mental strength. I remember at Khaya Majola Week in 1999 just trying to understand how he could score so many hundreds at such a young age.

“Graeme found a way to make it work, he didn’t fight his technique. It was pure mental strength and he was lucky to have a coach that encouraged that,” Nkwe said.

I would dare to predict that South African cricket will realise in future just how lucky they were to have Smith, Boucher and Nkwe working together to steer the Proteas out of their current turmoil.

Speculating on Springbok squads is always one of the more enjoyable aspects of being a rugby writer and I was pleased to read Allister Coetzee said choosing it had been one of the highlights of his career. One of a scribe’s other jobs is to then evaluate the selection, and I’m pleased to say the new coach’s squad makes me largely very happy.

It would be remiss of me, however, not to point out what I believe are a couple of oversights in Coetzee’s first task in his new project.

I will explain the first by asking you, dear reader, to imagine you have been transported forward in time by a week and you are perusing this column on the morning of the opening Test against Ireland. And the shock news has just broken that Pat Lambie injured himself in yesterday’s captain’s run.

This will be a major problem for Coetzee and the Springboks because of the flyhalves he has chosen in his squad. Elton Jantjies has only just resumed training after having surgery on a fractured finger, so he has not had much time to heal or acquaint himself with what the new coach is hoping to do on the field. Garth April is a bright talent, no doubt, but has only made three starts in top-flight rugby and it would be a massive gamble for him to play in a Test match.

So who is going to be the general as South Africa enter a new era against a tough Irish side?

We can look at the other side of the halfback equation, the scrumhalves, but the picture is just as bleak there, with Faf de Klerk and Rudy Paige no doubt players of the future, but vastly inexperienced at the moment when it comes to Test rugby. I have some sympathy for Coetzee when it comes to the dearth of scrumhalves though because he did apparently approach Ruan Pienaar, who turned him down, possibly because of all the abuse he takes from fickle Springbok fans.

Nic Groom also does not inspire much confidence. Against the Bulls at Loftus Versfeld recently, the Stormers enjoyed a surfeit of possession, but he was unable to stamp his mark or take control of proceedings against a team that was hammered by the Lions the following week.

With Lambie out, the Springboks could be forced into playing Willie le Roux, who has had no serious rugby with a number 10 on his back, in the pivot position. All this could have been avoided by just naming Morne Steyn as the third flyhalf. It’s too late now because you can’t fly him out from France on the eve of a Test.

The other error, I believe, is in the composition of the loose forwards. They are all fine players with varying skills, but there seems to be, apart from Duane Vermeulen, a lack of a mean and nasty ball-carrier, someone with mongrel who can crash through the advantage line and bounce away anyone trying to get through the Springbok defences.

With Jaco Kriel and Francois Louw surely fighting over the openside flank position, Siya Kolisi is likely to wear the number seven jersey and is a super player, with a tremendous work-rate and great skills, but for me he is more of a hybrid loose forward, good at plenty of things and master of none. As a ball-carrier, he is only ranked 58^th in Super Rugby this year, according to the Vodacom stats.

And Coetzee could open himself up to accusations of Stormers bias with his selection of Sikhumbuzo Notshe, another hybrid flank, as well as the likes of Steven Kitshoff, Groom and Scarra Ntubeni, ahead of players like Jean-Luc du Preez and Malcolm Marx.

But overall, it is a pleasing squad with the experience of players like Beast Mtawarira, Eben Etzebeth, JP Pietersen, Vermeulen, Lambie, Le Roux and Louw being combined with some of the exciting talent sweeping through our rugby, and a fine choice of captain in Adriaan Strauss.

And there is the thrilling prospect, looking at some of the selections, of the Springboks playing a more high-tempo, ball-in-hand style of rugby.