Ken Borland

You can say what you want about the Springboks’ skills and style of play, but there is no doubting they are a team of excellent character, as proven by their come-from-behind 16-12 victory over Ireland in Dublin at the weekend.

Trailing 3-12 at half-time – a scoreline which flattered them, if anything – the Springboks produced a wonderful second-half display to allow coach Heyneke Meyer to claim his first away victory.

It was a victory built on magnificent defence. To keep Ireland scoreless in the second half, allowing them just one missed shot at goal, was a superb effort and testament to enormous discipline and commitment.

That defence was at its best in the last 25 minutes, when three Ireland attacks of 14, nine and 13 phases respectively foundered on the resolute green-and gold-wall.

The first half was totally different.

The locals were undoubtedly contemplating kegs of celebratory Guinness as Ireland thoroughly dominated the first half. The Springboks were ill-disciplined and were made to pay as referee Wayne Barnes seemed to have his eye on them, penalising them 11 times in the first 40 minutes.

And apart from conceding four penalties to flyhalf Jonathan Sexton, the Springboks could get nothing going themselves, having just a solitary Pat Lambie penalty to their name at the break as their moves came to naught due to handling errors or turnovers at the breakdown, where Ireland dominated in the first half.

The Springboks’ tactical kicking was also poor and on the several occasions they did try something ambitious with ball in hand, it was often from the wrong positions and without the hard work having been done first on the inside. The result was one-off runners isolated out wide and either a penalty or a turnover to Ireland.

It was one of those days when nothing seemed to go right for the Springboks. They had even lost their talismanic and hugely popular loosehead prop, Beast Mtawarira, to heart palpitations on the morning of the Test. (He has since been released from hospital and should be fine to continue with the tour).

Even JP Pietersen was harshly yellow-carded for a tackle that was a split-second too early, the refereering team undoubtedly being swayed by the howling of the capacity crowd.

It would have been so easy for this largely inexperienced team to have lost their composure and crumbled to an embarrassing defeat, but instead they came out in the second half and produced a compelling 40 minutes of rugby that were devoid of the errors that had blighted their first half.

A fiery start to the second half saw a penalty kicked to touch – credit to captain Jean de Villiers for that – and an impressive rolling maul was launched which Ireland captain Jamie Heaslip could only bring down illegally, earning himself a yellow card.

Shortly thereafter, scrumhalf Ruan Pienaar sniped over under the poles for the only try of the match.

That cut the deficit to 10-12 and the Springboks played the percentages much better thereafter. The ball was kept in hand, but it was also kept tighter with short passes from the rucks, and eventually Ireland cracked under the barrage of ball-carriers, going offsides and allowing Lambie to grab the lead with his second penalty.

The Ireland offensive plan was based on the possibility of earning penalties within kickable distance rather than any obvious threat to the tryline, but the defence of the Springboks was nevertheless magnificent.

The skills of openside flank Francois Louw on the ground also helped tremendously, as did the introduction of loosehead prop Heinke van der Merwe in the 64^th minute, the Ireland-based prodigal son earning crucial penalties in his first two scrums.

The return of Van der Merwe to the Springbok fold after playing just one Test against Wales in 2007 could well be one of the major success stories of the Meyer tenure. The former Lions prop was rated as one of the strongest scrummagers in the country before joining Leinster in 2010 and he can also play tighthead, a position where there is a serious lack of depth in South African rugby.

The performances of all four props who played was impressive, while hooker Adriaan Strauss was an almost manic presence all over the field as he won his family battle with cousin and Irish debutant Richardt Strauss.

Lock Eben Etzebeth’s work in the lineouts was once again of the highest quality, while the physical presence he and loose forwards Willem Alberts and Duane Vermeulen brought to the contest was also instrumental in the defensive steel of the Springboks.

While De Villiers received the ball almost impossibly flat in midfield and still made yards every time, the most talked-about backline player was Lambie.

The troubles of the first half aside, the 22-year-old produced a solid if unspectacular display, although he was instrumental in the impressive change of game plan in the second half that proved the mental abilities of this Springbok outfit.

http://dailymaverick.co.za/article/2012-11-12-rugby-springboks-snatch-luck-of-the-irish

Heyneke Meyer has admitted that he tends to err on the side of the conservative, and the Springbok coach has done it again with his answer to the team’s flyhalf conundrum ahead of their Test against Ireland in Dublin on Saturday.

While Meyer has taken the plunge and rewarded Pat Lambie for his outstanding Currie Cup form with the starting number 10 jersey, he has retained Morne Steyn in the match squad, on the bench, undoubtedly as a failsafe.

While Meyer’s caution is understandable – he stands to lose his job if his teams don’t win in an environment where the margin between success and failure is very small – there is the danger that his fears could rub off on the players and leave them with the feeling that the coach doesn’t have complete faith in their abilities.

Meyer has not only suggested he believes Lambie might not be up to the task by including the out-of-form but experienced Steyn as back-up, but also by ditching his plan to make a change at fullback.

Before the tour, Meyer suggested he wanted to look at Jaco Taute at fullback, with the 21-year-old being largely anonymous in his two starts at outside centre at the end of the Rugby Championship. But the coach has ultimately gone with Zane Kirchner again, the Bulls man’s tactical kicking ability saving him and again pointing to the lack of total faith in Lambie’s abilities.

Of course, Meyer does deserve some credit for going down the Lambie route at 10 when he probably felt Steyn was the totally safe choice. But the Bulls player’s confidence is gone, and it will be seriously tested if he has to be rushed off the bench in the final quarter with the Springboks in trouble.

Elton Jantjies, who was preferred to Steyn as the injured Johan Goosen’s back-up in the last two Tests, is now gone from the match-day 22 and has paid for some average showings as the defending champion Lions were eliminated from the Currie Cup.

Apart from improving his winning record, which currently stands at just 44%, the other thing Meyer is hoping to get from the Great Britain and Ireland tour is an indication of which players can shine in those conditions, with an eye on the next World Cup in England and Wales in 2015.

And they are conditions that the Springboks have often struggled in. They have just emerged from a three-match losing streak against Ireland, scraping home 23-21 at the Aviva Stadium two years ago, and they can expect the men in emerald green to come out with intense passion and commitment.

Ireland themselves have some hard knocks to recover from, their previous Test resulting in a 60-0 whitewash at the hands of the All Blacks in Hamilton in June, while they have also been hard-hit by injuries.

Centre Brian O’Driscoll, hooker Rory Best, flank Sean O’Brien and fullback Rob Kearney are all out of action for all their November internationals, while loose forward Stephen Ferris (ankle) and lock Paul O’Connell (back) failed to recover from their niggles and were both ruled out this week.

But the Irish still boast quality players, particularly in their backline. Centres Gordon D’Arcy and Keith Earls and wing Tommy Bowe just need the slightest aperture in the defence to be a major threat, but they will need a steady diet of front-foot ball to make that happen.

It is up front where the Springboks will be hoping to really dominate the Irish. There were times against both Australia and New Zealand when the South African pack overwhelmed their opponents and they will be looking to dominate the collisions again on Saturday.

Ireland’s new captain, eighthman Jamie Heaslip, will need to lead from the front but the Springboks will have Duane Vermeulen and Willem Alberts watching him closely to ensure the powerful 28-year-old does not build up momentum for his side.

Flyhalf Jonathan Sexton and his replacement, Ronan O’Gara, have both previously kicked Ireland to victory over the Springboks and they will be looking to dominate territory and grab whatever points are on offer through penalties.

The Springboks will obviously have to meet fire with fire, but discipline will be paramount with referee Wayne Barnes sometimes verging on the pedantic. Rainy weather is also expected to hit the Irish capital on Friday, making the game even more of an arm-wrestle. There will be an especially interesting clash between hooker Adriaan Strauss and his cousin Richardt, who will make his Test debut on Saturday in the unlikely colours of Ireland.

While the Test will be won and lost up front, most eyes, however, will be on Lambie and whether he can do enough to make that number 10 jersey his own. To convince Meyer of that, the young star will need to control the game with his boot as much as anything else. He managed to do it for the Sharks during their exceptionally wet October and there is no reason Lambie can’t do it again.

 http://dailymaverick.co.za/article/2012-11-09-rugby-when-irish-flyhalves-are-smiling

The Currie Cup enters its first knockout stage this weekend and for all the sides there is a varying weight of expectation that returning Springboks will make the difference and inspire their teams into the final.

As the Lions proved last year in winning the title, bringing big-name players back into the squad this late in the season can, however, disturb the unity and fabric of a team that has presumably gelled to a greater or lesser extent over the 10 previous weekends in order to reach the semi-finals.

Western Province, like last year, will be travelling to Johannesburg to take on the Lions, but they have already lost three of their returning Springboks with centre Jean de Villiers, lock Andries Bekker and hooker Tiaan Liebenberg all injured in the last week.

It may actually help coach Allister Coetzee that the only “new” faces in the starting XV are now Bryan Habana out on the wing, Duane Vermeulen at eighthman and Eben Etzebeth at lock, while outside centre Juan de Jongh played the first half of the Currie Cup season for Western Province.

The replacement for De Villiers in the number 12 jersey, Marcel Brache, is a tall, strong player who has made a definite impact this season and it will be good to see him in the pressure situation of a semi-final.

Likewise, it is just reward for his livewire performances that Scarra Ntubeni will now play instead of Liebenberg and is within touching distance of appearing in that Currie Cup final every young player aspires to, but the absence of Bekker will be a blow because he has such a presence in the lineouts and one fancies Western Province may have attacked the Lions in that facet. His replacement, De Kock Steenkamp, is a solid player but not a potential match-winner like Bekker.

Western Province took the Cheetahs apart last weekend to earn their semi-final berth, but it was mostly one-way traffic against a troubled side.

The Lions are a totally different prospect: a settled unit and clearly a team that plays for each other, only strengthened by the players’ decision to stand together and oust former coach John Mitchell.

They would not have taken much out of their last game, when they rested several key players and were mauled 50-29 by the Bulls, but they did the same thing last year and they were near-unstoppable in the semi-final and final.

Lions stand-in coach Johan Ackermann had difficult decisions to make this week regarding four current Springboks – Jaco Taute, Elton Jantjies, Pat Cilliers and CJ van der Linde – and he has decided to start Taute and Jantjies, both of whom have played their fair share of Currie Cup this year, while either Cilliers or Van der Linde will play off the bench, alongside former internationals Butch James and hooker Bandise Maku.

The Lions lost two of their first three matches, and have lost their previous two games, but in between they have gained decent momentum and there is no particular aspect of their play that can be considered weak. If they do the basics well on Saturday, then few would bet against them beating Western Province, who have been far less settled and have a long history of underperformance in knockout games.

The other semi-final is between the Bulls and the Sharks in Durban and it has been a long and hard campaign for the men from Pretoria.

It’s bad enough for the Blue Bulls faithful that their team has not won the Currie Cup for three years; to have only escaped possible relegation on the final weekend of round-robin play is nothing short of a scandal. So there is no lack of hunger in Dewald Potgieter’s team to turn a pig’s ear of a season into an extraordinary triumph.

If anyone knows about winning knockout games it will be Bulls flyhalf Morne Steyn, who played well last weekend but whether the year’s tribulations have left him mentally fatigued will be fully examined by the Sharks and the pressure of a semi-final.

The presence of Springboks Zane Kirchner, Francois Hougaard, Jacques Potgieter, Juandre Kruger and Flip van der Merwe has added some much-needed quality to the Bulls side, but the ball-in-hand, free-flowing style of the Sharks will certainly test the defensive prowess of the visitors.

Defence has been the obvious weakness of the Bulls this year and they will face a difficult balancing act in terms of how many numbers to commit to the breakdowns, especially since the Sharks like to play a high-tempo game.

Sharks coach John Plumtree has refused to put all his eggs in one basket when it comes to the Springboks and hooker Craig Burden, prop Tendai Mtawarira and flank Willem Alberts will all be used off the bench as impact players.

At this stage last year, Plumtree brought all his World Cup Springboks back at once and it meant the Sharks produced a disjointed display when it really mattered.

Wing JP Pietersen would have been a key player for the Springboks this year were it not for injury, and he is the main threat in a backline that is well-suited to counter-attacking from wayward kicks hoisted on to them by the Bulls.

Pat Lambie will also be pulling the strings at flyhalf and, with rain forecast for the match, he has an ideal opportunity to dissuade Springbok coach Heyneke Meyer from returning the number 10 jersey to Steyn for what are expected to be wet conditions for the United Kingdom tour.

While Coetzee, Ackermann, Bulls coach Pine Pienaar and Plumtree are all gambling in different ways, spare a thought for Free State Cheetahs coach Naka Drotske.

His job is most definitely on the line as his team go into the first leg of their promotion/relegation playoff against the EP Kings. Drotske’s expansive style has not worked and his best bet would seem to be to return to more percentage rugby now that his own future depends on the result.

The Kings, the owners of an unbeaten record in the Currie Cup First Division, will obviously arrive in Bloemfontein with confidence high, but whether they can step up to the next level against a Premier Division outfit remains to be seen.

If they can keep the ball away from the dangerous Cheetahs backs then they may have a chance.

In an interesting conundrum, Drotske will be expecting utter professionalism from his inside centre Andries Strauss, who has a contract to play for the Kings next year and would obviously benefit if they were to be promoted at the expense of his current team!

http://dailymaverick.co.za/article/2012-10-20-rugby-preview-of-conundrums-and-currie-cups