Ken Borland

The minutes of the University of Pretoria cricket club AGM after the 2015/16 season will show that they lost their inspirational coach Pierre de Bruyn after six trophy-filled years, but the former Titans and Dolphins all-rounder’s departure for Leicestershire is a blow for South African cricket as a whole.

De Bruyn confirmed on Wednesday that he will be taking up a post as skills coach and second XI head coach with English county Leicestershire in the new year, therefore ending an association with the Tuks cricket team that saw them win five successive Northerns Premier League titles, three National Club Championships, three University Sports South Africa crowns, the inaugural Varsity Cup for cricket and, just last weekend, they defended their title in the Red Bull Campus Cricket Finals, the world cup of student cricket.

“I cannot thank the University of Pretoria more for the foundation they have given me, they’ve played a massive role in my life in terms of my growth end education. They gave me all the tools I needed for a very successful six years, and they have moulded the person I am.

“But as a young coach, I want to go to the next level, my long-term aim is to be an international coach, and a great opportunity has come my way at Leicestershire. It’s a full-time, permanent position, so I’m moving the whole family. It’s a chance to get into the very powerful structure of county cricket and try and help Leicestershire get back on track. There’s been a lot of change there and I hope I have a massive role to play,” De Bruyn told The Citizen on Wednesday.

One of South Africa’s most promising coaches and a father of two daughters, De Bruyn will work under elite performance director Andrew McDonald, the former Australia, Delhi Daredevils, Bangalore Royal Challengers and Leicestershire all-rounder, and another South African expat, Nic Pothas, is the new academy director.

“It’s a new page for me and if you look at the IPL, or the likes of Graham Ford at Surrey, Dave Nosworthy at Somerset and all the Aussies, having coaches from all over the world is where cricket has gone. I think I’ve shown I can produce and develop players, and I hope to bring discipline and structure to my work at Leicestershire. After six years of great memories, I just want to make sure I continue changing young people’s lives because that’s what I’m passionate about,” De Bruyn said.

Some of the most talented young South African cricketers – Theunis de Bruyn, Aiden Markram and Graeme van Buuren – have passed through his hands at Tuks.

South Africa’s Rugby World Cup victory over Samoa brought relief but soon there was a tear in the eye as the news filtered through that they had lost their captain, Jean de Villiers, one of the great Springboks, for the rest of the tournament. The man with 109 Test caps, 37 of them as skipper, announced his retirement the next day.

De Villiers had, of course, been the centre (pardon the pun) of intense speculation over whether he deserved his place in the team after a run of injuries and a distinct lack of sharpness in the awful loss to Japan. The 34-year-old was shifted to outside centre for the match against Samoa, with Damian de Allende making a massive impact with his hard, direct running over the gain-line and into space in the number 12 jersey.

While De Allende was the man who made the most difference to the Springbok backline, it was heartening that De Villiers was at least able to go out on a high, leading the Springboks to an impressive win and playing well himself.

The Springboks also gained a considerable amount by having Willie le Roux at fullback – he was able to be a second “general” at first-receiver, taking some of the load off young Handre Pollard, while his ability to read space made his intrusions into the backline in wider positions a consistent threat.

Fourie du Preez also provided a top-class service from scrumhalf – one can scarcely recall a single pass going astray – and the veteran 2007 World Cup winner is not only a brilliant reader of the game but also a fantastic enabler in terms of allowing the team to change their tempo.

But where the turnaround for the Springboks came was up front. I said before the match that grunt and physicality up front would be needed against the big, mean and physical Samoans, who carry the ball with an intent not matched by many, and the Springboks really needed all hands on deck at the gain-line, rather than forwards standing out in the backline.

My wife is no connoisseur of the dark arts of forward play and the tight exchanges, but even she noticed how the Springbok pack “really seemed to be playing” against Samoa.

It was most heartening that the first Springbok to step up and lead the way was Victor Matfield, who was a standout figure in the opening exchanges, leading from the front with the sort of talismanic performance coach Heyneke Meyer was no doubt hoping for.

The Springboks showed that they can use the ball on attack as well as anybody, providing their forwards have laid the platform first; they need to earn the right to throw the ball around and there is no shame (and an awful lot of good sense) in playing to your own strengths instead of trying to copy the All Blacks.

The good news for South Africa is that the damage of the Japan loss has almost been undone with the Springboks sitting on seven log-points, thanks to bonus points, only one shy of where they would have wanted to have been heading into this weekend’s game against Scotland.

The campaign is back on an even keel and the relief and joy in the Springbok camp after the Samoa game was obvious. But the level of performance now needs to be raised another notch against Scotland; the consistency of this Springbok team has been a concern throughout the four years of Meyer’s tenure and hopefully, with the pressure now having eased, they don’t slump back into bad habits.

“They say they want to make the country proud but at the moment they just make us the moer in!” was Springbok legend Frik du Preez’s reaction to South Africa’s shock World Cup defeat at the hands of Japan over the weekend.

Japan beat the Springboks 34-32 in Brighton to register arguably the biggest upset in rugby history and cast into serious doubt the two-time champions’ ability to even make the knockout stages.

“We are all shocked and bleeding. Never mind the biggest shock in World Cup history, this is the biggest shock in rugby history, in my personal opinion. You have to look at the players – they were selected to represent South Africa but they were up to kak. When your senior players are getting 3/10 rankings then you’re in serious trouble. But you also have to blame the people who select them,” Du Preez, who was named as the Springboks’ player of the 21^st century, told The Citizen from BelaBela on Sunday.

“Japan played wonderful rugby, but our Golden Lions team would beat them. Rugby is a simple game and there’s a simple truth in all sport and that’s that you have to qualify to play in a World Cup or the Olympics. You can’t just send anybody to a World Cup. We should have identified players from Super Rugby and sent them instead of a whole lot of injured players. They were brilliant in their day, but you can’t select on past form, you must select on current form,” Du Preez added.

Mark Andrews, another great Springbok lock and a 1995 World Cup winner, said he feared that every international rugby team now knows how to beat the Springboks.

“Teams have worked out how to beat us and that’s by stopping our momentum. They dominate our forwards, make sure we get slow ball and get quick ball for themselves. It’s because we don’t have players like Bakkies Botha or Os du Randt making the big hits. There were no significant big-hitters in the team against Japan and so we couldn’t get momentum.

“The pack is meant to be focusing on the breakdown, but every time they’re all standing in the backline, there’s nobody smashing guys on the gain-line anymore. We didn’t dominate the shortest team in the world either up front or in the aerial game. There are certain fundamentals of the game and the guys need to climb in up front,” Andrews said.

The performance of the senior players was also slammed by Andrews.

“Heyneke Meyer mentions all the experience in the side every time, but if you look at the senior players against Japan, they looked shellshocked! In 1995, we played Australia with about 40 caps between us compared to them having over 600 and we won; the number of caps really doesn’t matter unless those players are on form,” Andrews said.

http://citizen.co.za/780886/boks-make-us-mad-frik-du-preez/