Ken Borland

Everyone can see that the Springboks are not getting the results for the amount of effort they are putting in, but there is real pressure on them against France at the Stade de France. If they lose this weekend then that will be three defeats on the bounce which is not a good return.

Coach Rassie Erasmus will only have a 41% winning record if the Springboks lose to France, but we can see progress in their performances this year.

Last weekend against England was another Test that got away from Rassie and the Springboks though, who simply made too many mistakes.

In terms of Owen Farrell’s controversial last tackle, it was definitely, according to the laws, a clear penalty and yellow card. It was certainly a big shot, with the defender just trying to get his body in the way of the carrier, he made good shoulder contact but there were no arms involved. In fact, it is very hard to get the arms around when you are making that sort of tackle. The height as well was definitely penalisable.

The Springboks’ error-rate was particularly costly at lineout time and there were two main functions responsible for that – their alignment and the timing between the jumper and Malcolm Marx, who was having a technical issue with his throwing.

Having worked with Malcolm on his throwing between the ages of 18 and 21, plus being head-on with hookers throwing to the lollipop for 20 years, I can see exactly what went wrong. It’s like a golf swing and I can see if the shoulders, fingers or hips are wrong when he throws.

The Springboks used the middle pod a lot in their phase play, they play a 1-3-2-2, but after playing across the field you always eventually end up on the edge. Both teams tried to put the middle pod under pressure, but England did it better, making good reads with their defensive rush getting on top. The Springboks needed to play out the back more, while England did look to use their second line on attack and enjoyed a lot of success with that in the second half.

The Springboks were able to get tremendous field position in the first half through their scrum and maul, but the problem was, when you maul a lot, it means you get slow ball afterwards with forwards behind forwards latchers.

South Africa’s kicking game was good and with a few better bounces they would have had England under real pressure. They played two phases and kicked as they have done in their last six Tests, and found good space behind the England wingers. Scrumhalf Ivan van Zyl’s box-kicking was good, and it was a real war of the boot between him and Ben Youngs.

England regained the ball well though in the second half and they had the Springboks under pressure. In a gainline battle like last weekend’s Test, those aerial duels are crucial.

Damian de Allende found areas in which he was able to get outside the rush defence from behind the middle pod, he was able to find space, getting over the advantage line with good footwork, and he really gave the Springboks go-forward. Damian is now a regular in the team and he should consistently be putting in performances like that.

The Springboks used Warren Whiteley more in the wide channels, on the edge of the attack a lot, and Duane Vermeulen was under a lot of high balls, so they were a good loose-forward combination.

It was a very tactical game at Twickenham, with a lot of mauls, but England just had a bit more fluidity. The one real positive for the Springboks was the scrummaging, they absolutely destroyed England and got two tightheads, which is quite something at that level. The one crucial scrum penalty against them at the end was a 50/50 call though.

I’m really looking forward to this weekend’s game, I’ve gained a great respect for French rugby over the last four months. It’s going to be a big midfield battle against the two powerhouse French centres, Gael Fickou and Mathieu Basteraud. Flyhalf Camille Lopez is a great tactician and has a good kicking game, and plays flat on the gainline.

And the French forward pack is never poor.

Sbu Nkosi and Aphiwe Dyantyi were very good for the Springboks against England, but I’m looking forward to Willie le Roux and Faf de Klerk adding a bit more spark.

Stade Francais assistant coach John McFarland 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. From 2001 to 2012 he won three SuperRugby titles (2007, 09, 10) with the Bulls and five Currie Cup crowns with the Blue Bulls. McFarland enjoyed three years with the Kubota Spears in Tokyo from 2016-18.

I had great expectations for the new-look Springboks last weekend against Wales and I thought a young and energetic team under a fresh coaching staff would play with real vigour and physicality. So it was a surprise to see them play so ponderously and under pressure they seemed scared to take the initiative and impose themselves on the Welsh.

It was strange to see a guy like Ivan van Zyl, who at the Bulls is always keen to move the ball, to keep the flow going, suddenly slow the whole game down. He normally plays an up-tempo passing game, so why did he become a box-kicking player in one week?

To offer some perspective though, it was a difficult away Test and it was obviously just a money-making venture to send them all the way to Washington. It was the  Springboks’ choice  to have only one training session in Washington, and a captain’s run and then play. An international coach has a lot of time for planning and preparation, with Rassie Erasmus resigning from Munster in November,  they had those alignment camps, but they chose not to have training camps which possibly came back to bite them in hindsight.

The conditions were the same for both sides, the Springboks really needed to play a lot more adventurously. Obviously Wales also did a lot of kicking, but whenever the Springboks fielded the ball they tended to slow things down, a whole line of forwards involved in the ruck very slowly setting up the box-kick, and it meant there was no width to the chase. That whole set-up tactic also gives time for the opposition to drop men back to deal with the kick they know is coming because there is no attacking shape, and it’s made easier for them because the chase is so narrow, the Springboks exposing themselves out wide. The big problem for the Springboks was that Wales were able to deal with their kicks and showed more adventure; they were able to put in attacking kicks on the open wing, regain possession and put more pressure on the Boks.

On the positive side, the Springbok set-pieces were good, they scrummed well and were able to get their own lineout ball well, forming the driving maul easily and quickly. Marvin Orie also had the measure of the Wales lineout at the end of the game and was able to steal some crucial balls.

The defence was not up to scratch according to Erasmus, but I didn’t think it was too bad, they had good line-speed when they were set and generally kept the attack from getting gainline and momentum. There are things that they need to put in place better, but they’ve got time now ahead of the first Test against England.

The first try conceded was because of the ball just squirting out at a ruck, while the scrumhalf try after that came after a very poor kick-chase and there was a blocker in the line who took out our props. I don’t understand why they are front-line on a chase, you don’t want to expose them to wings or fullbacks. The Springboks then did not get set in the pillar area, they were moving outwards at pillar two when Tomos Williams broke, which is a basic error.

Obviously they regrouped at halftime and the Springboks’ line-speed forced an error and Travis Ismaiel’s intercept try brought them back in the game. Having been 14-3 down, they did well to get back into it.

But then came the last try conceded by the unfortunate Robert du Preez. One had to ask where the blockers/screen were around the ruck? There was massive space left which enabled Wales to come through easily and put pressure on the replacement flyhalf. Two chargedowns in a passage of play will definitely lead to a try at this level.

While Du Preez had his problems at the end, I also didn’t feel Elton Jantjies controlled the game that well. Van Zyl also did most of the kicking and I think it was probably an instruction for them to kick from scrumhalf because that’s what worked for Rassie at Munster, but then he did have Conor Murray, the best scrumhalf in the world!

Apart from the Springbok scrum being good, they were also very flat and direct on attack from the scrum and they went hard over the gain-line. Jantjies did a lot of this too, but then that means the flyhalf is on the floor for the next two rucks and by the time he is back up on his feet he has static ball, which is why Elton used the outlet of a kick-pass so often. No flyhalf enjoys not having quick ball because that’s when the defence dictates and rushes, and a static flyhalf easily has his wide runners picked off.

The Springboks now need to get back to their best quickly for the England series, which everyone is really looking forward to. It certainly is interesting, as it always is with Eddie Jones and his words off the field. He’s under pressure and deflecting from the fact that England have lost their last four games, which is quite a run and includes their worst ever loss at Twickenham, against the Barbarians in their last outing. They are coming in with no confidence and they rarely win in South Africa – three wins in 13 Tests – so Eddie could be staring down the barrel of seven successive defeats if the Boks hit their straps.

The Springboks are also under pressure though because a world ranking of seven is certainly not where a side with the strength and rugby culture of South Africa wants to be. But it will be a completely different game to Erasmus’s first one in charge, playing at altitude at Ellis Park, which is a super-quick, big field with quick ball.

It’s a bit strange that England have gone to Durban to prepare and have not come straight to altitude. Maybe they wanted to escape winter on the Highveld, but they are definitely going to feel it at the back end of the game and they will need a strong bench to cope. At altitude you have to use 23 players.

I am looking forward to seeing Willie le Roux back at fullback, and with Handre Pollard at flyhalf it means the Springboks have left and right-footed kickers. Willie is tremendous at seeing things on the field, he has great vision in terms of spotting space, and chips and other little kicks -plus he’s lightning quick -to exploit it. He’s also very safe under the high ball.

John McFarland 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. He 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.

Listening to Western Province coach John Dobson talking about the Blue Bulls having all the pressure as favourites in this weekend’s Currie Cup semi-final, it reminds one of the same stage of the competition last year when the Capetonians came to Pretoria and upset the home side.

Bulls lock RG Snyman is well aware of the history and is eager to avoid the same painful result this time around.

“We were in the same situation last year playing against Western Province at Loftus Versfeld and we’d like to change what happened in that game. The way we do that is by not changing what we’ve been doing this season, we have to stick to what we’ve been doing. But the good thing is that this semi-final feels like nothing new, it’s quite a difference playing it now when we’ve all been through another whole Currie Cup season and a season of Super Rugby,” Snyman told The Citizen on Tuesday.

The Bulls have focused on an exciting brand of rugby, but they went down 23-18 to Western Province in last year’s semi-final thanks to the visitors not allowing them any platform or space to play the type of rugby they wanted to produce.

This year they come to Pretoria with a much-less hardened pack and the Bulls youngsters are all a year older and coming into their prime, most notably Snyman, who turned 21 only this year.

“Western Province have a good pack and it will definitely be a physical battle, especially in the set-pieces. But if we can dominate at forward then we should do really well. With the break we’ve had a bit more time to prepare and the team has clicked a bit better through the competition. Hopefully we’ll see that greater experience and better cohesion come through now at the end of the tournament,” Snyman said.

Springbok reserve hooker Bongi Mbonambi will be coming to Loftus, as should prop Oli Kebble and lock JD Schickerling, and the Bulls are going to have to show some real grunt up front to ensure they make the final.

To make a star one needs enough heat and pressure to start nuclear fusion in a cloud of gas, but in a cricketing sense it’s all about CSA’s pipeline and KFC Mini-Cricket provides the masses of raw material that are necessary to find the ones that will glow brightly on fields around the country in the future.

KFC Marketing Director Thabisa Mkhwanazi says it is the biggest grassroots development program in the country, which is a big call, but the numbers back her up. More than 114 000 kids from 5584 schools were involved in the program last season, thanks to the dedication of nearly 9000 volunteer coaches and the excellent custodianship of CSA’s mass-participation manager, David Mokopanele.

Corrie van Zyl, CSA’s general manager of cricket, makes an even bigger call and says it is the best development program in the world. The fact that countries like Australia, India and England have been in contact wanting to know more about KFC Mini-Cricket, especially their marvellous Kids v Proteas Tour, suggests he may be correct.

I was privileged to attend the KFC Mini-Cricket National Seminar held in Kruger Park this week, which is an incentive for the top coaches of the previous season, a celebration of what has been achieved and a focused look at their future targets.

It may surprise some to know that I don’t recall hearing the word “transformation” once over the two days and that’s simply because, at that level, both coaches and players are already predominantly Black. Colour is one thing, but fixing the socio-economic conditions that make it so hard for any talented boy or girl to make it from the vast rural areas of our country is another matter altogether and KFC Mini-Cricket is probably the best weapon we have when it comes to taking the game to greater portions of our population.

Van Zyl was one of the speakers who addressed the delegates drawn from all 16 affiliates of Cricket South Africa and he pointed out in no uncertain terms that excellence at the highest level was non-negotiable, but that it was also dependent on grassroots development and vice-versa.

The former international fast bowler and national coach used the example of The Oaks Cricket Club from a small village near Hoedspruit where Cavaan Moyakamela, a coach with an extraordinary love for the game, mentors 70 children on a concrete slab.

“Imagine if a guy from The Oaks is chosen for the Limpopo U13 side, he will bring great passion and we can use and enhance that. Our dream is that a kid from that area can become a Protea, but there will be performance gaps – socio-economic factors that affect his health, physical and psychological development and his lifestyle – that we need to close for him.

“We cannot change the benchmark of international cricket, we have to take the players to that standard, and the responsibility of our coaches is to get the player there. If we don’t maintain excellence at international level then the grassroots suffers because we need money to develop that. They both depend on each other because the grassroots is the base of our game.

“KFC Mini-Cricket is the biggest part of that base, it is strong and built on the passion and dedication of the coaches. If we are to maintain excellence then we need quality coaching, so we need to grow coaches so the kids can grow under them. The growth of the program has been so good that with that base, the cream will rise to the top,” Van Zyl said.

Temba Bavuma spoke movingly about how he was first introduced to cricket via the program, getting to run around on the same Newlands ground where he scored his historic maiden Test century last summer; AB de Villiers is also a product, while the program is going strong in the remote regions of the former Transkei and Limpopo. It’s reach will only increase thanks to the wonderful news that KFC have extended their sponsorship of the program for another 10 years.

When the Kids v Proteas Tour came to Umtata, it was like the world’s greatest bazaar had hit town, such was the reaction.

“It brought Umtata to a standstill! Their little school was playing against the Proteas and it was magical. Many of the communities we have stores in hunger for this sort of development and our dream is for young people to look back and remember ‘the day KFC came to my small town with cricket’,” Mkhwanazi says.