Ken Borland

Tendai Mtawarira is no doubt today savouring the fact that he became South Africa’s most-capped SuperRugby player last night at Ellis Park, and his mind will probably wander back to the past, starting with when he was summoned to then Sharks head coach Dick Muir’s office back in 2006.

The Beast had arrived at Kings Park the year before, a talented Zimbabwe U19 star given an opportunity at the Sharks Academy. While playing for the provincial U21 side, Mtawarira had already impressed with his work ethic and drive. Having arrived in Durban with basically a suitcase, he initially used to walk to training until he had saved up enough money to buy a bicycle.

But he was a loose forward, occasionally even playing at lock. But Muir, in consultation with Swys de Bruin, now head coach of the Lions team against whom Mtawarira played his record 157^th SuperRugby game last night, and Grant Bashford, his U21 coaches, made a tough call made even harder by how popular Beast was.

Muir felt that Mtawarira was not quick enough to really make it as a loose forward and not tall enough at 1.83 metres to excel at lock. But he recognised the immense power and raw strength of the young man.

“It’s quite funny to think about it now, but it wasn’t very pleasant at the time. I was called into his office in the U21 season in 2006 and I’d been enjoying my rugby in the loose trio. But then Dick presented his case and said he saw me as only becoming a provincial player as a loose forward, if I wanted to become a Springbok then I had to change to prop.

“It was really hard to accept and I was quite upset. I couldn’t believe that so early in my career, my dream to be a professional rugby player was going to end. I was really shook. But some of my mentors said I must go for it, they said I must not be negative about it because it means the head coach is looking at you and has a plan for you,” Mtawarira recalled when talking to Saturday Citizen this week about how his long journey to the top all began.

But as we now know, Mtawarira always meets his challenges head-on and in 2007 he was already proficient enough at loosehead prop to play SuperRugby for the Sharks.

“I was under Balie Swart’s wing and he taught me everything about scrummaging, I decided to take it all on board and make it work. Balie is right at the top in terms of mentors for me, as well as John Plumtree. And then there were fellow Sharks players like Deon Carstens, BJ Botha, Bismarck du Plessis and John Smit who had big input in my career, they guided me into this world of scrummaging.

“There were some tough lessons at the beginning and sometimes I couldn’t feel my neck for a few days! But it changed my life and the Sharks have been a great organisation since I came here as a young boy with a dream and got my first contract. I was underprivileged and came to Durban with nothing, but now I am something, Durban has become who I am, it is home,” Mtawarira said.

Loyalty is another characteristic of Mtawarira that stands out, both to the Sharks and his family. Not many players stay at one union these days, especially when they are amongst the world’s best in their position, but all 157 of those SuperRugby games have been for the Sharks.

“For me it’s about playing the game and focusing on the next job, it’s never been about counting games, just about using every opportunity. I try to stay humble and hungry, take on good criticism and I’ve had good mentors and team-mates at the Sharks. I’m very privileged to be part of this set-up, which I think of as home.

“Durban is a beautiful city, with the beach, and the people are very warm and welcoming. Although my roots are in Zimbabwe, this is home for us – my family, my wife [Kuziva] and kids [daughter Talumba and son Wangu], they go to school here,” Mtawarira said.

Even once he became a Springbok in 2008, putting one of the biggest dents in a legendary prop’s career when he dismantled veteran Phil Vickery at Kings Park in the first Test against the British and Irish Lions in 2009, there were still hard times ahead.

In 2010, he missed the June Tests due to a controversy over his citizenship, and in 2012 he was admitted to hospital with heart palpitations on the eve of a Test in Ireland, which required surgery.

“I’ve had a lot of challenges, the heart scare back in the day and the citizenship issue, but the prayers of my family and my faith have got me through. I’m very outspoken about my faith, it’s my foundation and I give praise to God and try and use rugby as a platform to honour him. Angels are looking after me, but I’m not perfect,” Mtawarira said.

We might not see Beast on a rugby field again after this year and, apart from winning the World Cup with the Springboks, he also has some unfinished business with the Sharks.

“I’d like to pursue the SuperRugby title, I’m disappointed to have not won one yet, I’ve been in three finals but zero titles. That’s been my motivation to stay here and I will give everything to win SuperRugby because this season might be my last one,” Mtawarira said.

It was an enthralling final Test between the All Blacks and the British & Irish Lions, and a tremendous achievement for the visitors to draw a series in New Zealand. Every international coach will have looked at the three Tests and will take something from them – it has shown it is possible to beat the All Blacks.

So how did the Lions achieve this?

Firstly, their defence over the three Tests was superb, so hats off to the Farrell family.

It’s no coincidence that most of New Zealand’s losses over the last few years have been caused by a rush defence and a high line speed, so Lions, England and Ireland defence coach Andy Farrell should really take a bow – he has now enjoyed three wins and a draw against the All Blacks since 2013.

And then there was his son Owen’s kicking. None of his kicks at goal in the last Test were gimmes and it was very interesting to see that even with Jonny Sexton, who has such a high success rate in his kicking record, at flyhalf, the Lions went with Farrell for goalkicking and that’s what made the difference in the end.

The All Blacks were disciplined in their own 22, but were prepared to give away penalties further away from their line, and Farrell kept the Lions in the game.

It was the defence that was able to disrupt the New Zealand attacking structure, they weren’t really able to go forward or get the ball wide, because the Lions totally dominated the gain-line and the rush-defence took time and space away from Beauden Barrett. But it didn’t operate from a tight base, the wings were on the second-last runners and would not always engage, sometimes they would back off on to the last runner, therefore there was no kicking space behind them.

The Lions also chose two openside flanks who were a real nuisance at the breakdown.

The biggest thing about the rush-defence is that it means you are so square in the tackle, you line up your man and come forward, there’s no shifting. The Lions tackling was very confrontational, they didn’t really hit the legs but tended to be just under the ball. This forced more errors and led to dominance in the tackle; a softer defence relies on leg-tackles and a confrontational rush-defence on chest tackles. You can see it unnerved the All Blacks and with the quality of defenders the Lions had – players like Jonathan Davies, Maro Itoje, Sam Warburton and Sean O’Brien – the system totally suited them.

The shift put in by the Lions forwards at the coalface was also amazing and New Zealand could not get any offloads or tip-passes going at all. The Lions cleverly took out the support players, so the ball was wide open at the breakdowns. The quality of the tackles and the athletes involved meant that on the tip-ons, they frequently took the passer out of play, which exposed the ball-carrier and then the turnover could happen.

What was especially interesting to me was that New Zealand just could not get the ball to the outside channels in space, and even if they tried, Barrett was frequently standing still and then it was easy for the Lions to pick off the carriers.

The way to break down the rush-defence is through the kick-pass and offloading from contact and it’s no coincidence that the All Blacks scored from this.

The Lions also relied tremendously on Conor Murray’s box-kicking. There was no messing around here – they would maul or box-kick immediately from the restart and that put pressure on the New Zealand wings, thanks to the quality of Murray’s kicking and exits.

For me, Murray was the real star of the series, his tactical control was superb; him kicking contestables meant the All Blacks never had a chance to counter-attack or get the ball back from the Lions back three with running bombs.

The New Zealand attack was very static. They wanted a two-sided attack against the rush-defence, but they played a lot of one-pass rugby, which made it quite easy to defend.

One of the key moments of the final Test was the chase back of Davies on Ngani Laumape after Barrett’s intercept, it was just superb. It was a series-turning moment and the other players get really excited when they see that sort of attitude and commitment from a team-mate.

It was an enthralling finish to the series, but it’s a pity to see such a great Test end with all the focus on Mr Roman Poite.

His eccentricities have been exposed even before Eden Park last weekend: there was the red card he gave Bismarck du Plessis at Eden Park in 2013, his performance in the World Cup and against Argentina in 2014 when there were seven water-carriers on the field during a stoppage and he allowed the Pumas to take a quick tap, which resulted in a try just before halftime. The last defender in the Springbok backline was our physio, Rene Naylor!

It was good, though, that Poite reviewed the incident at the end of last weekend’s game and I think Craig Joubert will be wishing he had done the same in 2015 in the Scotland v Australia game at the World Cup. That’s what the TMO is there for and at least Poite used it. But rugby has to eliminate these grey areas because referees have to make hard decisions in a very short time.

I thought Poite was also really poor in the lineouts, there was taking out of jumpers left, right and centre, it was like a free-for-all. New Zealand also seemed to have some dominance in that final scrum and there could have been a penalty to them, but again he opted out.

The All Blacks ended up playing a lot of guys with just a handful of caps, which is not what you want in high-pressured Tests. Injuries and Sonny Bill Williams’ self-inflicted absence obviously affected them and you want more caps for the big games like last weekend. They ended with Laumape at 12 and Anton Lienert-Brown at 13 and they are actually both inside centres, both confrontational and direct. The Lions started with a similar sort of player in Ben Te’o, but then switched to Sexton and Farrell and had far more ball-playing ability to stretch the All Blacks.

One has to credit coach Warren Gatland for wearing his red nose with pride. He might just hang around and is probably very excited about a third tour with the Lions, against the Springboks in 2021.

It will be interesting to see whether the Springboks pick Cheetahs or Kings players for that tour because it will be the end of their season in Europe!

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.

Director of Rugby Gary Gold said on Thursday that the Sharks will honour the agreement they entered into with the South African Rugby Union (Saru) over the resting of Springboks, despite naming Marcell Coetzee, Pat Lambie and Cobus Reinach in the starting line-up for the sixth week in a row for their crunch match against the Chiefs in Durban on Saturday.

Saru confirmed this week that the agreement with the franchises that key Springboks would not play for more than five consecutive weeks and that they would have rest weeks during the tournament was “the ideal” and was not legally binding.

With the Sharks having endured a difficult start to the season, Saturday’s match against the powerful Chiefs is a key one as they look to close the five-point gap between them and the Stormers in the South African Conference, and Gold said the selection should be seen in the light of this.

“Our view is that we’re 100% behind the Boks in resting players, I think it’s the right thing to do and we’ve agreed to a plan. But we have a different challenge on our hands that other Unions don’t have. We have the most number of Springboks and our first bye is only in Week 11. So when other teams get that bye, they have the break within the five weeks.

“Where it becomes problematic is not being able to meet that five-week period this week. We haven’t been given the benefit of a bye which three of the five South African franchises have already. But as of last week, we’re the only team to have rested Springboks.

“It’s a challenge, but it’s something we’re committed to. It’s the right thing to do, I think the Springboks do need to get some rest time, and I want to make it very clear that we’re committed to that agreement. No-one wants the Springboks to win this Rugby World Cup more than me after going through the disaster of 2011,” Gold, who was the assistant coach when South Africa were eliminated at the quarterfinal stage of the last World Cup, said.

The selection of the current national players means there is just one change to the Sharks team that won so convincingly last weekend in Bloemfontein, with Marco Wentzel, capped as a Springbok in 2002, named as the replacement for the injured lock Pieter-Steph du Toit.

The in-form Du Toit’s knee injury is not as serious as first feared, with the 22-year-old now being ruled out for three months.

After such a good performance as the one in Bloemfontein, Gold said it would be silly to now make changes.

“The guys took a lot of confidence out of a tough game, the Cheetahs are not a roll-over. We played in tough conditions and we’re able to keep continuity going for the same guys in the same positions. From next week we’re going to have to look at jiggling things,” Gold said.