Boks badly exposed
South Africa played like world chumps in Europe, writes Keo in his weekly Business Day column.
Let’s skip all the emotional claptrap, the political correctness and new found South African way of justifying that our teams don’t lose, the other teams just score more points. Let’s get real and call Saturday’s Springbok Test defeat and the five-match tour of Europe exactly what it was: an absolute disaster and a disgrace.
I love John Robbie on talkback radio. He is the best because he calls it like it is, but when he is explaining losses to France and Ireland as nothing more than fatigue I get worried about those ultra positive contracts one has to sign to be allowed onto SuperSport.
The Boks lost to a half decent French team, a Leicester team missing 12 of their regulars, a Saracens SA XV that would not end in the top six of the Currie Cup, made Italy look like Six Nations contenders and should have been put away by 20 points by Ireland, who in the last year have been the most consistent international team of the year. That the Boks were named IRB Team of the Year after taking a beating from the Irish was as close as it comes to an Irish joke, and it wasn’t a particularly funny one.
Australia losing to Scotland put some perspective to the Tri-Nations campaign. New Zealand’s changing of coaching roles and reversal to a more conservative approach orchestrated by the world’s best flyhalf Dan Carter, who incidentally did not play in the two defeats against the Boks in South Africa, adds more reality to the quality of the Tri-Nations win and the All Blacks fitness in Marseilles ended any arguments that the Boks lost because they were simply too tired. The All Blacks, in club and provincial games, played just as much rugby as the Boks and the Test side have played even more matches this year than the Springboks.
The Boks lost because a French team physically roughed them up and exposed the fragile Bok front row with John Smit as a tighthead. The Bok scrum only resembled a quality unit when BJ Botha was at tighthead against Ireland and Smit was at hooker. The moment Smit moved to tighthead the only area of dominance that belonged to the Boks disappeared.
The lineout, the strength of the Boks since the 2007 World Cup, was a shambles and the fact that the man who coached the lineout between 2004 and 2007 was not even mentioned in the post-match TV analysis was as diabolical as the justification for the defeats.
Gert Smal’s true value to the Boks was illustrated in Dublin on Saturday. The Bok lineout did not struggle because Smit’s lineout throwing was poor. Smit is the best lineout thrower in world rugby. The Bok lineout was reduced to rubble because the new coaching staff have not changed anything since 2007. The calls are still the same and this was a case of the master (Smal, now with Ireland) upstaging the student (Victor Matfield). I have never seen a Test where Matfield has been so innocuous and lacked such presence. Smal, more than anything else, beat the Boks and it showed how little this team has actually advanced.
The senior players have run the team since Peter de Villiers took over, but there comes a point when a team needs a coach who coaches and not a coach who takes them to the ground in the comfort also known as a team bus.
Should De Villiers get fired? No. But he needs help and the most qualified person to help him, in the role of national director of coaching, is the man who masterminded South Africa’s 2007 World Cup win. Jake White is the soundboard that could turn De Villiers into a coach and not the players’ mate who allows them to do as they please.
The fatigued South African players are hanging around for a match against the All Blacks. Could someone at the South African Rugby Union explain that one to me? No because there isn’t anyone there with the rugby acumen to give me that answer.
Think of this tour and the chaos and lies. Let’s start with the lie about transformation. Black players selected in the squad were sent home and white players not in the original squad ended up playing in the Tests when De Villiers hit the first of many panic buttons.
De Villiers said Smit’s future was at tighthead, so why did he draft in BJ Botha? Why was Bandise Maku not put on the bench against Italy instead of Adriaan Strausss, who was not even in the original tour squad? Window dressing at its most crass. The same applies to the selection of Davon Raubenheimer and Ashley Johnson when Jean Deysel also went straight from the beach to the Test squad. I believe the selections of Deysel and Strauss should have been made originally, but the squad chosen was a transformation con that insulted any decent black rugby player in this country.
If Smit is going to the World Cup at tighthead then they had to persist with him through all the struggles. If Morne Steyn is going to kick South Africa that World Cup-winning penalty then you play him through the shocker he had in Dublin and write it off to an experience that will make him stronger. When Juan de Jongh is the find of the midweek side and Adi Jacobs gets injured you don’t draft a 50-Test cap Springbok based in Munster into the Test squad and get him to sit on the bench for 63 minutes. You either start with Jean de Villiers, who is the best inside centre in the game, or you say to the newcomer De Jongh this is your chance to take that step up. If South Africa had lost with the next generation of player there would be no issue, but to have got beaten so convincingly with the best team available, outside of Bakkies Botha and Frans Steyn, then the selectors need to ask themselves why they haven’t resigned.
The tour objective was to develop players and win. Neither objective was achieved. More careers were broken than made and the denial within the team simply intensified.
The rugby the Boks played was poor. The substitutions were not tactical they were terrible, and they have been all year. The All Blacks played stupid rugby against South Africa in South Africa and paid the price. The Boks fed off their mistakes and never had to play risk rugby.
In Hamilton, the Boks were a cross kick from defeat, in Pretoria they were saved by a last minute 53m penalty and in Johannesburg they were pulverized by the British & Irish Lions. In Toulouse, Leicester, Wembley and Croke Park they looked like world chumps and not world champs.
Whoever let Smal go should be fired, yet that won’t happen because no one will remember him ever asking to make a further contribution to the Springboks. There is no explanation why a guy who won South Africa the World Cup won’t be used to improve the chances of them retaining the Cup.
Excellence is punished; mediocrity gets the equivalent of a knighthood.
This tour did not ask questions, it provided every answer and someone at South African rugby has to have he balls to bring together the best rugby brains, facilitate the uber egos and clean the wound instead of adding an elastoplasts by claiming the Boks are the IRB Team of the Year.
Now is the time for honesty because the best team in the world does not get smashed in Brisbane, Leicester, Wembley, Toulouse, Dublin, Johannesburg and sneak two three-point wins in Pretoria and Hamilton.
The Boks are not as tired as we think and they are not as good as we think. But they could be the best if every agenda was put to one side and decisions were made that benefit the Springboks and confront issues instead of blaming referees, fatigue and glorifying five-point losses.
November 30th, 2009 at 6:34 pm
@Papoose: yes i am glad that he has no official involvement in sa rugby.is that your gripe wih me?you are entitled to your opinion and i respect that so let others have theirs please.
November 30th, 2009 at 6:42 pm
Good article but still not touching all the nerves.
The last sport where SA is/was doing well is sinking. Look what happened to tennis, athletics, Netball, soccer and the list goes on. Come to think of it, fatigue must have played a role as well or was it apartheid?
The Proteas might not be that tired, but they sure are looking like a team that plays in the hands of the bookies.
South Africa has all the talent, irrespective of race, ***, religious believes and whatever….
The politicised, corrupt untouchable sport administrators true to the Africa history fact book, is the root cause of the state that our sport is in.
Some sponsors also need to be looked at. The benefits coming there way might be very interesting.
You can blame apartheid, fatigue, politics, colonialism, ignorance but South Africa is just becoming what it really is, just another Africa country…
November 30th, 2009 at 6:56 pm
@crowbar: well,when i last looked on the map of africa south africa was just another african country together with the other 50 odd countries.if i can recall we used to be the pariah of the world so ‘just another african country’ is actually an improvement,don’t you think.
November 30th, 2009 at 7:22 pm
Didnt that useless JW team beat England 36-0 in WC and then again in the final? Win the War not the battle dont worry about the slip ups along the war, we are world champions and I love reminding everyone in England we cant lose it till 2011
November 30th, 2009 at 7:25 pm
am sure keo has it wrong on the number of games played by the all blacks.
according to re-union, all black top players did not play for 6 weeks before the eoyt.
the way they played against france on saturday reminded me of vintage all black play from the pre-elv’s days.
add to that, france went out to play attacking rugby.
result was a terrific game and a great advert for union.
November 30th, 2009 at 7:30 pm
Eish it sounds like KEO is having a period…
what a load of Hypocritical drivel
November 30th, 2009 at 7:51 pm
@Valkyrie: No. Just to be another Africa country is not an improvement, we can be the best, yes, we used to be the pariah of the world, then things changed and we were admired by all, everything now is fine, losing is fine, bad administrators are fine?
Just to be part of something is not enough….
November 30th, 2009 at 8:14 pm
@Valkyrie: we used to be the pariah because the western world likes to deflect its guilt somewhere and what better place than on white and coloured south africans.
November 30th, 2009 at 8:30 pm
we used to be the pariah cos we were racist and deservedly made the pariah.
November 30th, 2009 at 8:32 pm
@cab: what about all the other African governments who rape and pillage their poor people e.g the genocide in burundi, the genocide in DRC?
November 30th, 2009 at 8:33 pm
@byoboy:
are they also not criticised when doing such things?
many of those countries got no govt, our lot ingrained racism in its laws.
November 30th, 2009 at 8:34 pm
@cab: @byoboy: wat about the british governments imperialistic suppression of the worlds poor nations and their raping of Ireland , then they try judge South African people , how dare they.
November 30th, 2009 at 8:35 pm
@cab: oh its not like the zim government is not racist is it??
November 30th, 2009 at 8:36 pm
Keo, always so negative and such a critic. To hint that we beat new zealand bacause of their play is pathetic. We played our game plan to perfection and thats why we won. I personally hope all teams stop interviews with this site. Although by the looks of supersport and rugby365 they already have started avoiding you critics
November 30th, 2009 at 8:40 pm
@byoboy:
british imperialism was nearly a century before apartheid and is widely criticised. the western world also criticises zim.
November 30th, 2009 at 8:52 pm
well I reckon it comes down to a very simple choice, thats if people round these parts believe they have any choice at all.
Realize once and for all that all those of European ancestry are simply not native to this continent so either accept that you here as non indigenous visitors who came here largely as a result of your own home country not being overly maternal towards your aspirations or else you came here for more opportunistic and rapacious intent.
Realize that this is indeed Africa and not a far flung colony of some tentacle of European civilization or control. All those honestly believing that they are indeed South African in birth and upbringing they better discard any remote notion of European superior ideological attachment because to all accounts such superior attributed ill breeding is about to get washed right out the repugnant racially charged door.
If you still see yourself as seperate or superior I make one sincere suggestion in your direction, get the hell outa here, you ain’t ever going to fit, Africa and colonialism is now passe, its klaar, its over, so if you aint able to mingle get the f’ak outa here before you get swallowed and spat out whole.
November 30th, 2009 at 8:56 pm
Is this a rugby website or what? WTC is all this political talk for
November 30th, 2009 at 9:03 pm
@cab:ja what about the current xenapohobic behavior of british folk towards foreigners such as the Polish and their racism towards people from Pakistan – people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. why is the zim govt not treated like the previous South African government, it seems like there are a lot of double standards does the fact that a majority elected govt murders its own people not as bad?
November 30th, 2009 at 9:07 pm
the british imperialists are quick to judge others yet they must learn to look at the log in their own eye before they look to the speck in their brothers eye. I have said my bit, outta here.
November 30th, 2009 at 9:14 pm
is basically because rugby and politics in this country come hand in glove, peas in a pod, you simply don’t get one without the other. Unless you really are totally and absolutely essentially and impeccably colour blind in absolute terms. Then you don’t get affected by any of it any which way in the slightest. Then you truly are purely a rugby fundi and sport lover and don’t give two half hoot’s what damn shade of grey any body’s chromatic scale of dermetological hue happens to be.
November 30th, 2009 at 9:19 pm
Ja not sure what all this political **** is about but hey…
The Boks have some serious shortcomings that need to be addressed. To win 3N as well as a rare NZ victory and then get pomped by two club teams is highly embarrasing.
What’s even more embarrasing is that this seems to be a continuing trend in the Springbok camp. It started with the 53-3 thumping by England, then moved onto 49-0 by Australia, then 19-0 by New Zealand (at home!) and now… beaten by club teams?
I would not even contemplate entertaining the excuse that they were a “B team”. That is utter **** – there are simply no excuses for the No 2 team in the world to be losing to club teams, none at all.
As much as it pains me to say it, New Zealand are simply the best team in the world and have never ever let their standards slip. New Zealand never loses by xx-0 margin and they certainly never lose to club teams. They win consistently – look at how long they have been the number 1 ranked team. Anyone who tries to claim that another team is better than them is only bullsh!tting themselves.
I do not know what the future holds for the Springboks but I can’t say that I’m optimistic. Winning a 3N once every 5 years and then getting hammered in the years between is not what I expect from them.
November 30th, 2009 at 9:26 pm
@byoboy:
the zim govt is treated as exactly the same pariah.
look it really boils down to whether you are willing to accept that South Africa has a history of racism and that that is a bad thing.
if on the other hand you want to rationalise it or look at other countries, sure we can review their atrociticies as well.
guess it really depends on what you feel is fair or not, but the older i get teh more i realise it probably does not mean a damn in any case.
November 30th, 2009 at 9:28 pm
Yeah Bok’s are overrated, no two ways about it. When we get past this insular day dreaming illusion about how fantastic we think we are we might start along the road to becoming vaguely like the real top rugby playing country we like to believe we are or as we were once upon a time, then maybe we start the journey to recovering that true top rate status once again.
November 30th, 2009 at 9:30 pm
@cab:
Racism is as old as father time Cabbie…
Difference is, in SA we tackle that problem head on while other countries hide behind it.
SA is far from perfect, but at least we acknowledged we have a problem and we are dealing with it.
In time, other countries will learn from us.
November 30th, 2009 at 9:31 pm
@PissAnt:
yeah maybe, i dont mind the head on bit, just not sure thats really true, and ppl hide behind it and indeed use it in SA for all sorts of reasons…but sure i may well be wrong.
November 30th, 2009 at 9:33 pm
Its going to be interesting next year, wonder what game plan the boks are going to play next year as the kick n chase plan is obviously not working as well without Jdv n Mossie in the midfiled. Run at all cost hasnt been succesfull before for the boks so its going to be interesting.
November 30th, 2009 at 9:33 pm
@Transformation: #250
“When the Boks did make a linebreak there was rarely one of the loose-forwards running on the inside shoulder of the linebreaker.”
When ADI made line breaks he apparently ran away from his support runners. No talk of loose-forwards running on his inside shoulder then!
The hypocrisy is just mind blowing.
November 30th, 2009 at 9:34 pm
@Papoose: hey Pap…this i Keo.co.za boet “an independent look at south african rugby & politics”
Look, when in the early 1980s the likes of the late Steve Tshwete & Rev Makhenkesi Stofile were lobbying, writing letters and making other such overtures to countries like New Zealand not to allow the Springboks to tour, the sport changed from just being a game where the most talented & best trained athletes must represent their country to being a political battle field.
And as long as some erroneosly harbour notions that only they should have some sort of hegemony over the sport, how it is played, coached, appreciated, markerted, commercialised etc, you will still have these scuffles in mzantsi afrika!
Believe That!
November 30th, 2009 at 9:37 pm
the issue of jacobs is an interesting one, and probably hints at my own racism, which i like to think i have none of, but i’d pick olivier over him every time. so perhaps its ingrained. perhaps its time for the new age running game to take us into the brave new world, perhaps it will be viljoen all over again.
November 30th, 2009 at 9:39 pm
i think I tend to agree with cab. I highly doubt anybody here or perhaps anywhere on the planet is free of racism. Obviously there are degrees and then degrees. Each individual being bred and nurtured along certain conditioned programming. Its simply better to recognize it for what it is but I sincerely wonder if anyone truly and honestly is ready and able to witness the subtle degrees of such programmed conditioning within their own mental make up. From whichever quarter it comes.
November 30th, 2009 at 9:40 pm
@cab:
When I say head-on, I mean we deal with it, not always in the most productive manner, but it is discussed and debated and challenged – much more than what is happening in a lot of (1st world) countries around the world.
November 30th, 2009 at 9:41 pm
Politics and SA rugby go hand in hand, it will always be that way, i thought where have accepted that already and moved on. What impresses me about Pdivy is that his decisions are based on rugby only (well for the first team atleast) and i admire him for that.
November 30th, 2009 at 9:41 pm
@byoboy: #258
“…the western world likes to deflect its guilt somewhere and what better place than on white and coloured south africans.”
What did them coloured do wrong to deserve the wrath of the west?
@byoboy: #263
Isn’t it why they currently are regarded as the “pariah of the world”
November 30th, 2009 at 9:42 pm
@skopskiet:
yes the question is whether to overcompensate for that conditioning and try and pick the black player every time even if he is weaker. cant blame the conditioning on my folks cos they were pretty much totally against racism, but almost certainly wathcing ppl clean up after you in menial jobs day in and day out has an unconscious effect.
who knows, who cares.
November 30th, 2009 at 9:43 pm
@PissAnt:
i think that is true, we are too raw and blunt too really be that PC, which might be the saving grace. perhaps all these moral values count for nothing and we should just be selfish, survival of the fittest and f’ck the rest and all.
November 30th, 2009 at 9:48 pm
yeah up the revolution out with the ou doose their time is passe fini time for the swashbuckling poetry of the artist and of panache in motion. Up with the progressive, down with the conservative. Get shot of the ou doose they killing our progress stone dead.
Ban kicking, make a penalty worth 1 point and a drop goal 2. Tries up to 6. Get the gdam game beautiful again. Lets get the poetry and artistry back into the sport and anyone slateing a player of color as a quota can go and support Sarries for a decade till they learn the true meaning of progressive transformation to inclusitivy away from dead end bigoted exclusivity.
November 30th, 2009 at 9:48 pm
@cab: think thats called ethical egoism
November 30th, 2009 at 9:50 pm
yep i’m probably off to sarries.
enjoy.
November 30th, 2009 at 9:52 pm
@nama1: ha ha ha ha nama1, mark keohane & his band of jake white praise singers probably think we have short memories boet! Hypocrisy on this site is a valuable currency! There was even a thread early this year titled ” fourie flounders as jacobs jols” where jaque fourie was implored to leave the lions as his career was stagnating while adi jacobs was flourishing @ the sharks and mossie will look @ his career & rue what could’ve been while adi will be smiling that he reached the height of his career.
Then enter jake white and his “winning ways” and the mercenary element inside these journalist awoke, next thing we heard that mossie’s integrity was @ stake and all such bluster…like i saud man, hypocrisy and double standards are rife in here boet.
November 30th, 2009 at 9:55 pm
yeah f’ak the rest up the revolution. All white quotas go sign up at Blou Bulle or Sarries on the dotted line.
Bottom line there’s no perfection on this planet. Not white nor black or in between will ever be perfect so better get used to the idea of getting along cause the other option is simply beating about the same bush another 200 generations or more.
November 30th, 2009 at 9:57 pm
Just popping in chaps… Here is a quick one for those who seek some sort of justification for racism.. We naturally fear the unfamiliar but we do need to stoop to racism in the same way that *** is natural but this cannot justify rape.
The biggest problem with racism to society at large is that puts a cap on progress. The English premiership is probably the most diverse in terms of demographics. It is the best in the world without a doubt because no manager can afford to be racist. Competition is tough and prejudice is considered to be irrational. Irrational managers don’t make it in this environment.
November 30th, 2009 at 9:59 pm
@Langenhoven: sorry lads but I emant to say that we DO NOT NEED to stoop to racism
November 30th, 2009 at 10:00 pm
@Langenhoven:
what do you think racism means?
if you were to select a Bok team on merit who would it be?
November 30th, 2009 at 10:02 pm
Jeez my spelling and grammar is kak… but I am trying to give my kids attention while blogging
November 30th, 2009 at 10:03 pm
perhaps we’ll just sing them off the field from now on with our artistry.
November 30th, 2009 at 10:04 pm
@skopskiet: #286
It will have to start way earlier, at schoolboy level I would suggest. Schoolboy rugby at even junior level are way too structured and do not allow for individual creativity. In other words, allowing a schoolboy to sum up a situation on the field and react accordingly. The first try by the AB’s on Saturday is a good example of what can happen if players are encouraged to think for themselves on the field of play. No way that SA will score a try like that if players are coached from an early age to kick the ball whenever you are in your 22m area/only play in your oppositions half, no matter what the situation on the field at that specific moment.
Knowing the fickle SA fans they will not take too kindly to the Boks losing matches while trying to alter a playing style that’s ingrained in them by coaches at school level. We saw this last year.
November 30th, 2009 at 10:05 pm
oh please.
November 30th, 2009 at 10:06 pm
Racism is racism, what else can it possibly mean, selection or consciousness of peoples ethnic metabolism in determining their worth. What else would you possibly classify racism as?
November 30th, 2009 at 10:08 pm
@cab: Racism is about Deprivation and Degradation. Apartheid was about giving white people advantages as well as about giving them the confidence to succeed. Apartheid was also about destroying the confidence of black people and about making them feel worthless. We need to destroy the myth of white supremacy if we wish to succeed as a nation. It does not help when we continue with detruction of black confidence as is the case with white Journos like Mark Keohane.
November 30th, 2009 at 10:11 pm
this tour just showed again that we need to develop our second stringers.not our third and fourth stringers.
how can a third hooker in at any province,not getting any game time be considered better than a first choice playing every weekend? its sad to think the eoy tour is a window dressing that keeps biting us in the ***,over and over again.
our so called elite players was so far away from this tour mentally,they might as well have stayed home.
something has to be done in the way that potential in a player is spotted.but we cant have players ending their careers even before it started just because he was wrongly selected,or not selected at the right time in his career.
what does a forward coach with the boks really do?when the back line is playing touch,is the forwards standing around dissing the passing game going around,or are they trying to come up with new ideas playing the same old structure?
where is all the intelligent rugby brains in this country?apart from the obvious bloggers here with their insight and understanding of the game