Ken Borland

They’re going to be spluttering into their gin and tonics at the Marylebone Cricket Club after England’s humiliating start to the World Cup, but it’s no more than they deserve after all the boardroom shenanigans that have been going on in the so-called home of the game.

It’s amazing how English cricket has managed to marry such smugness and superiority with such abysmal performances on the field of play, but it makes every hiding they receive in the World Cup even more pleasurable.

I generally don’t enjoy seeing sportsmen humiliated on the field of play, but I’ll make an exception in this case because of the thoroughly distasteful manner in which the England and Wales Cricket Board went to the dodgy lair of Narayanaswami Srinivasan and ingratiated themselves into the so-called “Big Three” that have hijacked the game.

My biggest bone of contention with the Big Three is that they seek to monopolise the game for their own benefit and are actively trying to halt the progress of the up-and-coming Associate nations by removing them from future World Cups. As veteran Ireland opener Ed Joyce pointed out, cricket is the only sport which is trying to contract its World Cup, while every other sport on the planet (yes, even American Football) is trying to expand its reach.

As the ANC, and the National Party before them, are showing so clearly, concentrating all the riches in the hands of an elite minority can only put a country or a sport on the road to destruction.

England will be the venue for the next World Cup, in 2019, and it is set to be a 10-team tournament. There’s little doubt that English cricket, having plundered talent from this country for so long, stand to benefit if the likes of Ireland and Scotland are barred from the highest echelon of the game; their top players will surely be tempted to play for England, just like their current captain, Eoin Morgan. England clearly need some reinforcements.

That the Associates and minnow nations like Zimbabwe and Bangladesh are adding value to the game’s global showpiece cannot be doubted. Zimbabwe did themselves proud against South Africa, Ireland have already beaten the West Indies and Scotland did substantially better against New Zealand than England.

The plucky United Arab Emirates have some elegant batsmen and a genuine quick bowler in Mohammad Naveed, Bangladesh’s Shakib al-Hasan is a world-class all-rounder, while Afghanistan’s mere presence is a tremendous story of sportsmen rising above incredible challenges.

Sadly, there is a South African man at the centre of these efforts to push back the Associates – former wicketkeeper/batsman Dave Richardson, although he is probably just taking orders from those who pay his salary as ICC chief executive.

I say this because Richardson has been quoted as saying having Associate teams in the World Cup leads to too many one-sided matches and has also been quoted as praising the unpredictability and charm that these same teams bring to the tournament!

There are, of course, places nine and ten open for qualifiers at the next World Cup, but Zimbabwe and Bangladesh, who vote in favour of the Big Three and receive financial rewards and more exposure for their teams as a result, will be heavily favoured to take those spots as the system is in their favour.

Apart from England’s dreadful performances, the other key features of the first week of the Cricket World Cup have been New Zealand’s invincibility at home, a new benchmark of 300 runs per innings being set by the powerful batting sides and the importance of taking wickets in the middle overs otherwise set batsmen in the death overs will run amok.

Former Springbok greats Frik du Preez and Carel du Plessis admit they have concerns after the current team lost to Argentina for the first time ever, but both say one result does not mean that South Africa suddenly have no chance at the World Cup.

The Springboks went down 37-25 to Argentina last weekend in Durban and tonight’s re-match in Buenos Aires is not only a chance to redeem themselves after one of the lowest points in the team’s history but also their last official Test before the World Cup starts on September 18.

“We’re all disappointed by the game against Argentina but let’s be honest, against Australia they played very well and they improved by 60% the next weekend against New Zealand but just lost again. It’s been the first time a Springbok rugby team has been allowed to run the ball from everywhere and they need to get used to this new pattern of play, they’ve never played this type of rugby before. Of course there are going to be mistakes because it is high-risk,” Du Preez, South Africa’s Rugby Player of the 20^th Century, told The Citizen on Friday.

Du Plessis, whose 12 Tests in the 1980s were enough to earn him the nickname ‘Prince of Wings’ and who also coached the Springboks in 1997, agreed with Du Preez.

“I don’t think you can go on just one bad performance, they played well against New Zealand and Australia, but there are obviously some concerns around systemic things like selection and playing guys in different positions. I’m also concerned that we might be overly leaning towards experience, because their performance might not be up to the required intensity,” Du Plessis said.

But Du Plessis’ captain in 1997, Gary Teichmann, said he now worried that the Springboks had lost their way just before the World Cup.

“I thought we were on the right track after we were in position to win the matches against the Wallabies and All Blacks but for a couple of lapses in concentration, but it’s pretty obvious after last Saturday that we’re not. The loss to Argentina threw a big spanner in the works, we just didn’t arrive for the game. That has definitely set us back and I’m worried that we’ll go back to the kick-chase game which won’t win us the World Cup,” Teichmann said.

Du Preez said the Springboks still have the players to win the World Cup for the third time.

“Argentina have done us a great favour because now we’re not one of the favourites for the World Cup, but I still believe we have an outside chance. We have got the guys to surprise everyone, but we have brilliant players who are injured. They’ve been out for months and we don’t know if they can all of a sudden perform. The problems are up front because we have a beautiful backline,” Du Preez said.

Teichmann agreed that the personnel is there, but coach Heyneke Meyer has to keep his nerve.

“We’ve certainly got the players but Heyneke tends to go back to what he knows. We had previously played a good brand of rugby, but then when we didn’t win, Meyer went across to the UK and changed it. When the pressure mounts, he tends to go back to the different style of more kick-chase and less ball-in-hand, which is a concern,” Teichmann said.

Du Plessis said Meyer had really managed the players well up till now and he needed to ensure there were settled combinations at the World Cup.

“He needs to try and settle the team and bed the combinations down as quickly as possible, which is going to be a challenge. His decisions may be unpopular, but he needs to make them earlier rather than later to allow the team to settle down. The leadership also still needs to be determined … ” Du Plessis said.

“People may look at things differently, but now is not the time to make changes. Heyneke’s obviously going to stick to what he believes in and the style of play that has been successful before, trusting his players to deliver is going to give them their best shot.”

Du Plessis said that, in terms of transformation, Meyer had to have given potential black players enough time by now in the team environment for them to be settled and confident at international level.

“There are some good players who should have had a run, but Heyneke has to believe that they will improve his team and it’s a bit late now!”

There is an old saying in sport that “the closer you get, the harder it is”, so we probably shouldn’t be surprised that the Springboks have had a serious wobble shortly before the World Cup and that coach Heyneke Meyer seems to be feeling the pressure more than ever.

So we might be going into the World Cup on the back of five successive losses for the first time since 2006, or the Springboks might win today in Buenos Aires and end that streak; either way it won’t really matter much come the World Cup because the concerns will still be there.

There have been encouraging performances against Australia and New Zealand, but we still haven’t won, and then last weekend was one of the lowest points in Springbok history, so we actually don’t know whether Meyer has the team on the right track or not.

Which brings me to one of the topics making big news this week, the allegation that Meyer has already signed a renewal to his contract. My understanding is that the report is false; the South African Rugby Union have been in talks with the coach about a possible extension of his term, nothing more. It would beggar belief if they have actually given Meyer the job for the next four years already, given that we have no idea how the Springboks are going to perform in the World Cup; a quarterfinal exit now suddenly looks possible based on the ugly showing in Durban last weekend.

Continuity is an attractive prospect and many people point to how Graham Henry was kept in the role of All Blacks coach despite failing at the 2007 World Cup, and of course ended up winning the title in 2011.

But Henry had won the Tri-Nations for three years in a row prior to the 2007 World Cup, so he was clearly on the right track but just lost a single game in the knockout stage. While Henry had plenty of silverware to show for his CV, sadly Meyer does not.

While I firmly believe Meyer has achieved a lot, keeping us in touch with the All Blacks as they raised their dominance of world rugby to new levels and inculcating a more high-tempo, fluid style of play in the Springboks, he has to be judged on the end goal, which is the World Cup, simply because it is his last chance to actually win something. Even the rankings aren’t on his side, with our drop from second to fifth duplicating what Peter de Villiers (how unsavoury his bitter comments have been) managed to do.

I’m also a firm believer in coaches having a shelf-life with a particular team and South African rugby has always been set up around the four-year cycle of World Cups, no coach has been in the job longer than that.

I think it’s unfair on a lot of players if there is one Springbok coach for eight years, unless he’s won the World Cup, because that’s basically the career-span of the average player these days and a really good talent could be wasted by never getting a chance at international rugby simply because he’s not the type of player the coach wants. There are several stars in the Western Cape who fit that bill and Jaco Kriel of the Lions is also a prime example.

At the moment, it looks as if the old guard of Fourie du Preez, Willem Alberts, Duane Vermeulen, Victor Matfield and Jean de Villiers are going to have to rescue the Springboks’ World Cup campaign and Meyer’s hopes of continuing in the job, but we have no idea whether their superman capes still fit them.

Last weekend’s thrilling Test against the All Blacks showed that the Springboks are genuine contenders for the World Cup, but they have to be able to produce their best play for 80+ minutes and they also have to be clinical in taking points from whatever opportunities are presented to them.

A team has seldom dominated the All Blacks in almost every facet of play as much as the Springboks did at Ellis Park last weekend, but the Kiwis showed why they are the undisputed number one side and the favourites for the World Cup by somehow still engineering a victory. They did this by being ruthlessly clinical – the few chances they had to score, they took.

You know a coach is feeling the pressure when he makes 25 excuses in a dozen minutes at his post-match press conference, but there’s no doubt the last fortnight has been hugely frustrating for Heyneke Meyer as his Springbok team have shown such potential before faltering at the final hurdle in successive Tests against Australia and New Zealand.

The Springboks are injury-hit and they are not getting the crucial 50/50 decisions at the moment, but the bottom line is that they have shown a disappointing lack of composure when matches reach the critical final quarter.

In fact, the abiding feature of the Heyneke Meyer era has been the infuriating tendency of his team to play both sublime and mediocre rugby in the same match.

Solving this problem before the World Cup is obviously critical and I hope Meyer will be looking at a very interesting book which was launched this week – Creative Rugby by Dr Kobus Neethling and former Springbok captain Naas Botha.

Neethling is very well qualified in the field of brain skills and creativity and he says the book may answer the question why South Africa does not win the Rugby Championship way more often than three times in 20 years given that we have more players than New Zealand and Australia put together and wonderful talent to choose from.

As Botha pointed out at the launch, it’s very clear in this professional age that what makes the All Blacks better than the rest is what they have between their ears given that the science is there to make all international players as strong and as fast as each other.

The great flyhalf’s main gripe about South African rugby in general is that we go very overboard on game plans. He told horror stories of players who have come to him and said their coach, even at franchise level, came and told them that if they don’t put the ball under their arm and drive at the first channel then they will find someone else who will. Botha blamed the devolution of Morne Steyn from a creative, all-round flyhalf into someone considered now to just be a kicker on the strictures of game plans.

The authors added that teams need to have game plans, but that these are just a springboard because matches are fluid and sides that are stuck in their plan and can’t think on their feet don’t win.

Neethling said the work he did with Paul Treu when he was the Springboks Sevens coach proved very quickly how effective using creative thinking and knowing the brain profiles of your players can be.

The fear of losing is a very strong force in South African rugby, mostly caused by impatient fans and administrators, and it causes coaches to stick to what they know best.

When the Springboks were very close to the All Blacks’ line last weekend, against 14 men, why did they keep trying to bash through with the forwards and not try Damian de Allende, who had been bumping off defenders all game, charging through on an angled run?

The difference between the New Zealand and South African mindsets becomes very clear when you consider the local reaction to Richie McCaw’s match-winning try: instead of applauding the creativity and skill behind a clever piece of rugby, excuses were quickly sought in the law-book, trying to label the move as illegal.

I am happy, however, that Meyer is trying to innovate and is desperately trying to get his players to play what is in front of them. He drums in the importance of decision-making at every opportunity, but at times he must wonder if he has inherited from the pipeline the rugby equivalent of the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman from the Wizard of Oz …