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John McFarland Column: Proving the old adage that rugby games are won up front 0

Posted on May 09, 2018 by Ken

 

Last weekend’s South African Conference SuperRugby matches just showed that the old adage of your tight five forwards winning you games remains as true as ever. For all the work we want them to do around the field these days, the set-pieces remain what teams build on.

It seems a player in the tight five’s mindset just goes if they are going backwards and are under pressure in the set-pieces and the difference between the Stormers and the Bulls in Cape Town was basically the scrums, and it was that same scrum that won Western Province the Currie Cup final last year.

Wilco Louw played his rugby as a junior at the Bulls – how and why did they let him go?! – and he is a monster who just does not get shifted at tighthead. He is certainly number one in that position in South Africa at the moment.

To have 30 000 people in at Newlands for the derby was a real positive and the Stormers were supercharged. You could just see the emotion of Robbie Fleck in the coaches’ box, he obviously knew the importance of the game, and the way a team plays is a reflection of their coaching and the Stormers were protecting a very proud recent record against the Bulls at Newlands, having won every game between them there for the last seven years.

The pressure won’t go away for the Stormers with that impressive win, but they have given themselves a chance of qualifying for the playoffs. It will now be about replicating that performance for the rest of the competition.

You have to give credit to the Stormers for the way they played, but they need a performance like that every week now. They will be a bit disappointed not to get the bonus point, they needed that because there’s not much difference between the teams on the log. Bonus points will more than likely settle matters, they are always so vital in the middle of the table, they make all the difference.

The Bulls did really well to stick in the contest, but the game hinged when the Stormers got the kickoff back straight after the Bulls went ahead 17-12 early in the second half, and scored a try to go back into the lead.

The Bulls will take away from the game that they managed to get back into contention having really been through the mincer in the first 15 minutes.

We also need to celebrate the Sharks doing so well against the New Zealand teams and they have scored an amazing number of tries against them – six against the Blues, four versus the Hurricanes and now five against the Highlanders – so they are clearly playing really good rugby. Maybe they have discovered the secret of how to play against the Kiwis, and they are certainly outscoring them, so credit to the Sharks.

Their approach has brought them reward and now they just need to look for consistency.

Some of the Sharks tries have been absolutely superb in terms of passing and clever box-kicks and to see a lock in Ruan Botha claiming the ball as the first chaser, leading to their first try against the Highlanders in the opening minute was amazing. They also scored a great try with the bridge pass over the top and another through a sublime grubber from Robert du Preez, which are all the ways to expose the wing.

The three Du Preez brothers certainly make a massive difference to the Sharks team, with the two loose forwards monstering the gain-line and Robert really controlling the game at flyhalf. It’s great to see in terms of the Springboks with Handre Pollard also playing well too, both Handre and Robert are big flyhalves who really defend their channels.

The Lions are almost indestructible on the Highveld and in South Africa in general, they’re bulletproof playing in South Africa having not lost to another local franchise in three years, but they really need to get something out of their game against the Highlanders in Dunedin this weekend. If they do then maybe they can still get a home semi-final because the Australian teams are so far behind. The Lions will be confident they can beat anyone on the Highveld and nobody will want to travel to altitude to play them, then a final away from home can always be 50/50.

The Jaguares have really improved and are in quarterfinal contention, they have a lot of home games coming up after their amazing run of winning four games on the bounce away from home. They seem to have returned to the traditional Argentinian values of a good scrum and maul.

For the Lions, Ruan Combrinck did not have the greatest game in defence, he went way too high twice and was too easily brushed off, which really cost them, and the Lions’ defence was too narrow and the Hurricanes were able to score a try by going around them inside the 22. They need better spacing there.

The Lions have kept themselves in the race to win the Conference though and they could well be in Johannesburg for the playoffs. If they are to be at home in the knockout rounds then they have to ensure that they are more accurate in the set-pieces; they lost a lineout which led directly to the Hurricanes getting seven points.

For the Wellingtonians, Ben Lam is certainly on fire … and New Zealand have just uncovered another top-class winger!

The Springbok pack is showing great potential too.

If Steven Kitshoff, Beast Mtawarira, Wilco Louw and Trevor Nyakane can replicate their performances in SuperRugby, along with the hookers we have in Adriaan Strauss, who had a huge weight on his shoulders in 2016 and is now playing with freedom, Malcolm Marx and Bismarck du Plessis, then South Africa will have a heck of a front row.

When you add in locks Lood de Jager, RG Snyman, Pieter-Steph du Toit and Franco Mostert, and Eben Etzebeth when he is fit, then we have the makings of a really good Springbok tight five. They tick all the set-piece boxes and that is still the basis of all rugby, never mind Test rugby, for all the skills people are dazzled by.

Plus I’m sure Rassie Erasmus will want to get Vincent Koch in the mix, but will he play in June at the end of a long season in England? Maybe it would be better to give him some time off before the Rugby Championship. Heyneke Meyer had a theory that it was better to play the SuperRugby guys in June and the overseas players at the end of the year, because playing all-year-round rugby is very tough.

In terms of the back row, a combination of Duane Vermeulen, Francois Louw and Jean-Luc du Preez looks really good, and then you put Siya Kolisi in the mix as well. He was superb last June – forcing turnovers, being busy around the field, chasing down kicks and making strong carries.Congratulations to him on captaining the Stormers so well in his 100th game at his beloved Newlands.

 

John McFarland is the assistant coach of the Kubota Spears in Japan and 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. Before that, McFarland won three SuperRugby titles (2007, 09, 10) with the Bulls and five Currie Cup crowns with the Blue Bulls. In all, he won 28 trophies during his 12 years at Loftus Versfeld.

 

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Held together by bandages & gauze, but Jannie still relishes the challenge 0

Posted on November 16, 2016 by Ken

 

The tight five is characteristically the place where the players are held together by bandages and gauze, such is the high-impact workload they have to shoulder in rugby seasons that are just getting longer and harder. But there’s one man in the Springbok pack who has been particularly burdened with a massive workload, and that is tighthead prop Jannie du Plessis.

The 30-year-old played in every SuperRugby match last year and in all 16 games for the Sharks this year, as well as every Test in 2012 and all three in 2013 thus far. But Du Plessis, a qualified medical doctor, says he’s relishing the challenge.

“I hope I become like leather: you know, the more you use it, the tougher and better it becomes. I don’t want to tempt fate and say I’m playing so much that I’m going to break down. I want to play 40 games a year for the next five years,” Du Plessis said after the Springboks’ training session in Fourways on Wednesday.

While the scrummaging skills and experience of the Bethlehem-born Du Plessis are invaluable in the crucial tighthead position – many ex-forwards say it’s the first position that should be chosen in a team – the other reason for why the Grey College-product is hogging the number three jersey is the lack of depth in his position in the country.

The current Springbok squad has five props in it and Du Plessis is the only one who can be regarded as a specialist tighthead, the foundation of a solid scrum.

The Springbok brains trust have identified Coenie Oosthuizen, the Cheetahs loosehead, as the next best tighthead in the land and coach Heyneke Meyer said the lack of depth has left him little choice but to develop the 24-year-old as the next choice number three for the 2015 World Cup.

“I truly believe we are in trouble with tightheads in South Africa,” Meyer said. “If you look at it, most of the guys are injured and at one stage we had the best tightheads in the world, but now there are a lot of inexperienced guys playing there.

“We feel Coenie is the second tighthead in the squad and we need to give him some game time. A tighthead is like great wine, it only gets better with time. Coenie is only 24 and we need someone who is the next tighthead who has time to develop and will be there for a long time.

“If Coenie doesn’t play there in Test match rugby, he won’t be right for the next World Cup. With Gurthro Steenkamp and Trevor Nyakane, they are great impact players, and we have a lot of looseheads with Beast as well. But we’re under pressure on the tighthead side,” Meyer said.

But there is also a lot of anti-Coenie-at-tighthead feeling around rugby circles, with many wondering why Cheetahs number three Lourens Adriaanse, an unused member of the Springbok squad in June, or impressive Sharks youngster Wiehahn Herbst aren’t given a chance.

Tighthead prop is a specialist position, like hooker or scrumhalf, and what Meyer is doing is a bit like trying to convert your second-choice outside centre into a scrumhalf just because he’s a great player. Coaches have to make tough decisions and, however brilliant Oosthuizen is and however much depth there is at loosehead, you can only have two in a match-day squad. Trying to turn a loosehead into a tighthead is fraught with danger, as we saw with previous coach Peter de Villiers’ unsuccessful attempts with John Smit.

Although Oosthuizen is an ox of a man – weighing 125kg and standing 1.83m – tighthead is a highly technical position where size and strength are not enough on their own.

Ask Jannie du Plessis himself.

“It is really flipping difficult to change from loosehead to tighthead, ask the looseheads who’ve tried. It’s a completely different position with a different set of skills. But I hope Coenie does well in the position, he’s done well enough when he has come on at tighthead, so then everyone won’t make such a big thing about it and me playing every game,” Du Plessis said.

The other problem with Oosthuizen playing tighthead is that he will be stuck in the scrum for longer and the Springboks stand to dilute two of his major weapons – his exceptional ability in carrying the ball and the pressure he brings to the breakdown.

And Oosthuizen’s switch is happening at a time of great uncertainty amongst front-rankers with the new scrum rules coming into effect for the Rugby Championship.

After protests over the number of collapsed scrums, the International Rugby Board [IRB] have introduced new calls governing the engagement. The new sequence is “crouch, bind, set”, requiring the props to bind before the scrum sets.

But the IRB, in their wisdom, have introduced the new protocol at Test level as well, without trialling it first in SuperRugby. So the top players in the Southern Hemisphere are all going into a crucial part of the game, for which match-swinging penalties are often given, blind, without any competitive experience of the changes.

“The scrums are an uncertainty for us. You have to play the cards that are dealt you, but the situation is that this is the first time in a Test series where we play the new rules. This year we are going straight into the new rules and we don’t know what to expect,” Meyer admitted.

Du Plessis, who has seen most things in the dark and dingy world of scrums, thinks even these new rules might not last.

“Normally you have a few games to get used to new laws, like they did with the ELVs. But the challenge now is to adapt right away. It might be a shambles and then they change it again.

“Since I started playing, this will be the sixth or seventh change to the scrum laws, so they are definitely chopping and changing and maybe they are scratching a place where it’s not itching… ” Du Plessis said.

The major difference that front-rankers will experience, with the “hit” taken out of the equation, is that scrums are going to last much longer now, according to Du Plessis.

“It’s going to be a big change. In the past you relied on speed because the gap between the front rows was big. Now because you’re binding first, you are much closer together and you can’t rely on speed.

“Scrums are going to be about generating more power and they will last much longer, so we’ll have to work harder. It won’t be so much about power and speed and more about endurance.

“They’ve said the scrum has to be steady now and they’re going to force scrumhalves to put the ball in straight, but it sounds like election promises to me: we hear that every year,” Du Plessis said.

http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2013-08-08-rugby-tightheads-at-a-loose-end/#.WCxJxvl97IU

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Despite talk, Sharks put faith in tight five 0

Posted on July 28, 2015 by Ken

 

Despite all the talk about scoring tries, the Cell C Sharks will be putting their faith in the expertise of their tight five, judging by the team announced yesterday for their opening Vodacom SuperRugby match against the Toyota Cheetahs in Durban on Saturday.

Jannie and Bismarck du Plessis, Tendai Mtawarira, Mouritz Botha and Pieter-Steph du Toit will all be bringing international experience to the field and coach Gary Gold will be hoping they will be laying the most solid of foundations.

Marcell Coetzee is the senior loose forward, with Pumas import Renaldo Bothma getting a SuperRugby debut and Tera Mtembu slotting in at eighthman. Willem Alberts and lock Stephan Lewies are still out with injury.

Pat Lambie and Cobus Reinach form an outstanding halfback pairing, but Gold has a less settled combination at centre. Waylon Murray was born in Durban and schooled at Westville, but has played most of his recent rugby outside the province and he returns to the outside centre berth, with young Heimar Williams alongside him, preferred to exciting young powerhouse Andre Esterhuizen.

SP Marais will be at fullback, but perhaps the Sharks’ greatest attacking threat will be from wings Lwazi Mvovo and S’bura Sithole.

Jean Deysel is on the bench and is the only one of the Japanese-based players to make the match-day squad, with the return of Frans Steyn and JP Pietersen keenly awaited as they will give the backline the experience that is currently lacking in comparison to the tight five.

Matt Stevens, the former British Lions prop, is also on the bench, as is the veteran wing Odwa Ndungane.

The match will be refereed by the Australian, Andrew Lees, and the kick-off is at 5.05pm.

 

 

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