Matfield baffled
Victor Matfield says he was shocked to discover that Ireland could understand their lineout calls in Afrikaans.
In the disappointing 15-10 defeat at Croke Park, Ireland had the unexpected upper hand in the lineouts. The Boks normally reign supreme in the air battle, but to Matfield’s suprise, they were countered by their Irish counterparts.
Matfield believes former Boks assistant coach and now Ireland forwards coach Gert Smal played a major role in this.
‘It was a bad day for us,’ said Matfield. ‘After the second lineout, we discovered that Gert (Smal) had to have given the Irish some Afrikaans lessons, because they could read the calls.
‘Gert knows our lineouts very well, but we thought that we could get away from that with Afrikaans calls. We tried to change things thereafter, which did not work either. In the second half, it went slightly better, but this was the worst lineout contest I have ever had in my life.’
Matfield added that they will need to modify their lineout work after last Saturday’s experience.
‘Our own ball was shocking. There is nothing that we can say, but it does not happen everyday. We will have to ascertain where things went wrong,’ he said.
November 30th, 2009 at 8:47 am
Gert Smal was the defensive coach of Ireland and Matfield is surprised they knew the calls?
November 30th, 2009 at 8:49 am
Its not that hard to learn to count to 100 in any language.
November 30th, 2009 at 8:50 am
thats funny. lets hope they learned their lesson.
November 30th, 2009 at 8:51 am
It didnt help when Barney wasn’t throwing straight neither
November 30th, 2009 at 8:53 am
So “Gee die bal vir my” won’t work anymore?
November 30th, 2009 at 8:54 am
Victor, is jy stupid (are you stupid), their assistant coach is Afrikaans speaking (hulle hulpafrigter is Afrikaanssprekend). Probeer volgende keer julle tekens in Zoeloe (try your calls in Zulu next time). Gert Smal was julle baas (Gert Smal had your number).
November 30th, 2009 at 8:57 am
Matfield you tosser – DUH !!!
I didn’t exactly see us contest on the Ireland lineout feed? Our lineout was kak.
couple of points however:
at lineout time – Ireland threw in skew most of the time and were hardly ever penalized for it.
when we shunted the Irish scrum and their front-row popped, disintergrated or collapsed – we were not awarded penalties. BUT – When the bok scrum suffers a slip, or is retreating – ref awards an immediate penalty to the oppostion.
+ Morne Steyn needs to practice his kicking as he was terrible.
November 30th, 2009 at 9:05 am
Well…..since there are SAFFAS all over the worl maybe it´s time to speak in Zulu….
November 30th, 2009 at 9:12 am
Matfield is even dumber than I thought possible…Anyone can learn a few basics in a couple of days.
Didn’t South Africa lose horribly to Australia when Vickerman knew all the calls??
November 30th, 2009 at 9:13 am
Go easy on Big Vic guys. Gert new all our calls and taught them Afrikaans. Sounds like the Irish had been preparing for this game for a long time.
November 30th, 2009 at 9:18 am
Do the calls in Kaaps — PDVs mother tongue. Wif vyowls fletter then a pencake…
November 30th, 2009 at 9:18 am
A great hindsight wisdom for Matfield
November 30th, 2009 at 9:21 am
@brains_trust:
Can you specify the exact minutes it happened?
I watched the replay but haven’t noticed it, very much to opposite, the Beast dropped most of the scrums on the Irelnds’ put ins?
November 30th, 2009 at 9:23 am
@iamthebear: Hahahahahaha! LOL! OMG …that was funny.
November 30th, 2009 at 9:28 am
I don’t understand all this over the top criticism of the Boks.
People seem to conveniently forget that we won most of our big games this year by 7 points or less – many by 5 points or less, in fact.
So it is perfectly reasonable to assume that if we are just slightly off our game, we should lose against a top class opponent.
A loss by 5 points is not a sign that our entire team is falling apart. It is merely a recognition that according to the law of averages, Steyn must miss some kicks at some point and Matfield must miss some lineouts.
Our defense was as tough to crack as ever.
We lost this game not because we had the wrong tactics, but because we didn’t execute our gameplan effectively. The tactical kicking was poor and that cost us the game.
If anything, this result is merely evidence of how integral Matfield, Du Preez and Morne Steyn is to our success.
At the end of the day, if a particular gameplan guarantees you an 80% success rate, I think I’ll stick to it. And considering that the games we lost came when our top players were extremely fatigued after a long season, that gameplan is even more effective than the stats would suggest.
Take this gameplan into a World Cup, with our top players fresh and rested, and we have the best chance possible of succeeding.
November 30th, 2009 at 9:46 am
I want to retract everything bad I ever said about Nigel Owens. He was excellent in this game. He managed the players very well, communicated brilliantly and applied the advantage law faultlessly (the latter the reason for the few scrums). He did everything he could to make this game a spectacle – pity we were hell bent on making Kearney look like the world class fullback that he is with aimless kicks and poor chasing.
Our lack of contesting their line out is a mystery to me. Proves that they were more prepared than we were and our guys were completely knackered
November 30th, 2009 at 9:51 am
Maybe Victor should try Zulu.
November 30th, 2009 at 9:56 am
Just curious… does this mean the Boks simply said ‘Gooi op 4′? Really, that would have been very un-pro of them. You should always work on the codes as if the other team understands your language.
Many questions to be answered:
1. Lineouts – the team has relaxed in this facet the entire season as if they expected to win it.
2. Kicker – Morne failed in the NH. We really need a backup kicker from the coast, who’s able to kick in wet weather.
3. Scrums – it doesn’t seem as if the boks have taken it seriously the entire year.
I think everything comes back to the basics. Stop silly tricks, which never seem to work, and give focus entirely on the basics. Each of these players have their own cool skills which will provide the flare when required.
November 30th, 2009 at 9:59 am
@Tacitus: Actually during the 3N we didn’t win 1 game by less than 7 points, except the last game against NZ.
November 30th, 2009 at 10:05 am
@Pietie: He is a Bulls player
November 30th, 2009 at 10:19 am
More excuses for the choke at Croke, are there anymore left to come out of the woodwork? Try this one – you weren’t good enough.
November 30th, 2009 at 10:24 am
NZINCHINA whats your excuse at world cup, choke choke …gonna loose at home to, lol oh yeah baby.
Anyway Doese Victor what the hell did you expect. They read your game like a book. Maybe next time rest or at least leave the wife at home and play rugby.
What was a bit low was the idiot trying to get in on the huddle every time.
November 30th, 2009 at 10:27 am
Firstly… Congratulations to the Irish… They fully deserved the win. They did their homework and they did the work on the field… Well done…!!
Speaking of Victor… He was nowhere in this match… Saying they knew our calls is a cop-out… What happened to all the video analysis and intuitive play that Victor spoke about a month ago…??? What happened to Victor “knowing they know where the ball is going to go and doing something different” or words to that effect…
Thing is… we didn’t even compete on their put ins and hardly competed on our own… Victor duffed several kick-offs where he is normally the banker… He was also strolling around after the play many occasions during the game…
Victors head was definitely NOT in Croke Park on Saturday…
One thing I would like to ask everyone else’s opinions on…
Seemed to me that their number 1 prop scrummed in at an angle the whole game and was only penalised once in the 43rd minute for it. We”ve been pinged plenty on this tour for doing just that… but seems that Ireland got away with it on Saturday…
Not that this has any impact on the result of the game… just an observation because I find it as confusing as all hell…
Finally… why do we always play so well in the last few minutes of a game when the chickens have flown the coup and no amount of trying is going to herd them back in…??
Farking frustrating…
November 30th, 2009 at 10:30 am
In the tri nations Matfield called in multiple’s of the players number. And any number above 8 (not a forward player would be for Matfield himself) here’s an example from the 1st test 12-20-14 = 12 is above 8 = Matfield, 20 = 5×4 = Matfield,Bakkies. 14 = 7×2= juan smith
November 30th, 2009 at 10:31 am
@KevinRack:
We weren’t good enough just like the last 4 games out of five the Bokke played, the Bokke were humiliated on this tour and no amount of spin etc will change the fact.
November 30th, 2009 at 10:36 am
@Tacitus: Winning with robots
Peter de Villiers has matured as Springbok coach, writes Keo in his weekly Business Day column.
Springbok rugby is in a good place and so is Bok coach Peter de Villiers, whose team has been allowed to play without the interference of politicians and without their coach being flown back to South Africa to explain why he selected two non-white wingers and a black Zimbabwean prop in picking a merit side to win the Tri Nations.
It is how it should be when searching for normality in our sport and when looking to the future and not being stifled by the pain of the past.
De Villiers, his media mauling over the last 18 months mostly self-inflicted, has been at his most impressive in the last two months. He has answered rugby questions with rugby answers, steered clear of mixing his metaphors and left his biblical rhetoric for his Sunday church sessions.
De Villiers, when he succeeded World Cup-winning coach Jake White, promised greater transformation than the two non-white wingers who featured in South Africa’s winning World Cup final in 2007. De Villiers said it was a disgrace that Bryan Habana, the world’s best finisher, did not touch the ball in the World Cup final from structured play and said his aim was to turn White’s robotic players into individuals who thought for themselves and played what was in front of them. De Villiers said he did not coach from a clipboard and that it all came from within.
Ironically, it was mostly the same two non-white wingers (Habana and JP Pietersen) who made up De Villiers’s non-white selections in the successful Tri Nations and Habana, in the 32-29 win against the All Blacks in Hamilton, hardly touched the ball as the structured and robotic Boks used their robotic strengths to defeat an All Blacks team that played from the heart but with no appreciation of what it means to play with a bit of common sense.
De Villiers said he wanted to be judged as a rugby coach and not the first non-white bloke to coach the Springboks. When he lost, he struggled and was criticised because of a questionable game plan and poor selections he blamed the media and those doing the criticism as the work of racists. He said it was because he was not white. That is the minefield De Villiers created for himself when he took over from White.
It is important to remember how De Villiers found himself in this position at the end of the 2008 Tri Nations when a Bok team capable of winning the competition ended last with two wins from six. It is important because it shows how De Villiers has matured as a national coach in the last few months.
The Bok coach is saying less idiotic things, allowing his squad to play to their strengths and publicly stating that you don’t fix things if they aren’t broken. He also seems to have lost the inferiority complex of succeeding a coach who won a World Cup.
To be fair to De Villiers he was initially always on a hiding to nothing. If he won with the core of White’s World Cup squad, playing a similar pattern, then where was the credit? If he changed, for the sake of change as happened in 2008 and lost, there would only be condemnation.
Fortunately, De Villiers in the 2009 Tri-Nations applied logic to the squad he has at his disposal. He has allowed them to further mature, playing the kind of game that best suits them and currently is dominating the world order.
I find the comparison of the 2009 Bok squad to the 2007 World Cup winners absurd as 90% of the starting XV are the same players and naturally these same players would be better players since beating England in Paris in 2007. As individuals (and a collective unit) they are 20-odd Tests wiser and at their peak.
De Villiers deserves all the credit for not tweaking a winning formula and accepting that the winning way of 2009 may not be what he had in mind when given the job as Bok coach. He is winning with robots, unlike All Blacks coach Graham Henry who is losing with a bunch of headless chickens.
De Villiers, damned a year ago, is being applauded now because the Boks are winning, and that is the biggest lesson of 2009 for the Bok coach. He is and will always be judged on results; not on the game plan or the colour of his skin.
This entry was posted on Monday, September 21st, 2009
November 30th, 2009 at 11:10 am
Bokke missed Juan in the line-outs. He might even know a bit of Sotho, if another language option was needed at line-out time!!
November 30th, 2009 at 11:30 am
@Ratel Brussow (MSIUR): You would think that the team would be bright enough to change the calls after all the time Smal has not been with the team…
November 30th, 2009 at 11:34 am
@fish out of water: Robots ?
November 30th, 2009 at 11:35 am
@fish out of water: Ja.
November 30th, 2009 at 11:38 am
Ag nee Victor
If they understand the calls in Afrikaans, surely it is still coded so they do not know which position it is going to in the lineout?
For example 24-20-19 and the middle number is the one to use and tell everyone where the ball is going?
If they figure it out, you change to the last number, etc.
So I am baffled by his comments, the Afrikaans only makes it harder to understand the numnbers, let along the code.
Anyway, lineouts cost us BIG, and Morne’s very poor form with getting the line away and kicking out of hand and to goal.
Sad day.,
November 30th, 2009 at 11:48 am
One thing I learnt from this tour is that the Boks missed Juan Smith and Spies big time!!! Why wasn’t Deysel brought on and Schalk moved to 8? He is very much a hard grafter and a strong ball carrier like Juan so why wasn’t he used?! Heaslip was getting the better of us and Deysel should’ve been used to counteract him. I’ve seriously lost faith in the Bok management. Thanks to the 3 stooges at the helm we’ve been humiliated by the NH and the ABs showed us on Saturday just how superior to us in every facet of their play.
I’ve also lost faith in SA rugby as a whole as every provincial coach is a complete doos who will continuously select every Springbok available in their desperation to win week in week out. Watch the S14 coaches run the current crop of Boks into the ground this year. Boks shouldn’t even be playing in the CC! Doubt I’ll be watching much rugby in 2010. France will probably whitewash us at home and watch the ABs regain the 3N with ease.
November 30th, 2009 at 11:52 am
Now not sure what Victor was thinking. We all knew that Gert would have helped the Irish with the understanding to count in Afrikaans. He also knows our lineouts like clock work. Should not have used numbers, maybe names in Afrikaans. Places or objects in Afrikaans is more difficult for those that don’t speak the language to pick it up. Or even better we should change our calls to (Venda) think that is the language they speak far north of Pretoria. We would confuse everyone. As there are so many Saffas now playing for other countries we need to change the calls from Afrikaans to one of our other languages. Not Zulu it is easy to pick the numbers up in Zulu by English speakers.
Have plenty faith in Victor he will work out something next year and will work on every other countries lineouts. Why we never contested a lot of the time there was a baffle to me.
November 30th, 2009 at 11:58 am
@scar: Its a pretty pathetic excuse from Matfield. For a country that supposedly has 11 official languages we should be able to switch from afrikaans to zulu or another african language like sotho. I don’t expect them to know Xhosa because that is a very hard language to learn with all the clicks but surely knowing how to count in Zulu or Sotho isn’t too much to ask? We’re meant to Africans after all and should utilising all of the tools available to us including language. Gold knew we were coming against Gert Smal who is an afrikaans speaker but we’re surprised they learnt a bit?! Ofcourse they bloody well are going. The Irish were hell bent on winning and proving something to us and we let them succeed! Pathetic.
The Boks are as mentally strong as babies. We need passionate, committed players not these posing, prancing peacocks! They should be sent to train with the South African Special Taskforce…then they’d know what it really is to be mentally and physically tough!
November 30th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
@Crouching Tiger Hidden Bokke: “The Irish were hell bent on winning and proving something to us and we let them succeed! Pathetic.
The Boks are as mentally strong as babies. We need passionate, committed players not these posing, prancing peacocks! They should be sent to train with the South African Special Taskforce…then they’d know what it really is to be mentally and physically tough!”
I honestly hope deep down you don’t believe what tripe you have just typed and you were simply joking! Do remember that you can never win every match you play in.
Any team that sets new standards for other teams to follow is physically and mentally all-powerful… In anyone’s book! you should be ashamed of questioning their commitment and passion! that’s disgraceful, man!
November 30th, 2009 at 12:19 pm
@scar: Agree, Juan is massive at the back there in the linouts. He will be back though next year. Think we also missed Spies and Bakkies huge.
November 30th, 2009 at 1:03 pm
Next time make the calls in Xhosa.
It will also please the politicians!
November 30th, 2009 at 1:19 pm
England, New Zealand, Australia, Scotland, Ireland and Wales (I think) all make their calls in English.
It’s amazing that they win any of their own ball when playing against each other isn’t it?
November 30th, 2009 at 1:33 pm
@Hondo:#13
I waited for your rating of the Bok players yesterday. It never came. Why?
I can only deduce that the reason for you not putting up your weekly ratings was the fact that the players who performed pathetically on Saturday were mostly Bulls players apart from Zane and Danie.
November 30th, 2009 at 2:00 pm
i agree ireland hardly threw straight at all and got away with it
November 30th, 2009 at 2:45 pm
It has very little to do with knowing the calls anyway. It’s about competing against two possible positions normally. Purely outjumping the guy next to you, ie a hand in front of him is all that it requires. Ask Matfield. It’s definitely not rockect science. You give wayyyyyyyyy too much credit to them spoiling well and us not responding accordingly!!
November 30th, 2009 at 2:49 pm
@NZINCHINA: Lol .. a Kiwi talking about choking – that’s precious, very precious.
November 30th, 2009 at 3:59 pm
Naivity not to change the calls with Gert as their coach.
The way I have it the Boks calls consist of three number- mainly single digits. For example Twee! Ses! Een!
That in English is Two! Six! One!
Catch my drift?
The rest of the numbers 1 to 10 are also pretty close in sound and pronounciation
You can teach counting from 1 to 10 in Afrikaans to a English speaking ******!
If all fails- At half- swop the order of the ‘trigger numbers’ and see the opposition go up at the opposite end of the line out
November 30th, 2009 at 4:17 pm
@Hier kom groot k..:
Yeah and confuse the **** out of the Springboks!
November 30th, 2009 at 4:34 pm
@nama1:
That’s a kick under boet,,,,
I never asked for Danny to be in the Boks squad after October 2007, he is past his shelve life, there are far better No8s
After watching again:
BJ 7 why benched?
JS 5.5 Bissi and Strauss should be there
Beast 4 Nigel Owen likes him
Bekker 6 (YES!)
Matfield 5 a test to forger
SB 6.5 skills and efficiency diminished but still the beast
Brussow 8 say no more
Rossouw 4 gariatic
FdP 6.5 kicked too much away
M Styen 4 we know he can kick for a goal
Habana 6.5 wasting our best weapon by letting him high and dry is a scandal
JF 5 un used
WO 6 good defence!
JP 4.5 did little, looked as if carring a knock
Kirshner 4 shall we compare him to Rob Kearny?
Subs
Bismark 6
Potgieter 6 a promising test player, not sure if better than Vermulen.
Ruan 6 a natural, so much skill and talent been wasted
JdV 5 looked tired
November 30th, 2009 at 6:15 pm
Watching the lineout implode was a great time to crack open that 20yr old bottle of armagnac.
Finally, someone cracked the Victor computer code !
November 30th, 2009 at 6:20 pm
It is better that this sort of thing has been exposed in a nothing game like this! Hopefully it can now be retified and never happen again.
Imagine if this had happen in the World Cup quarter finals?
November 30th, 2009 at 6:22 pm
@iceman: @47
you gotta love these guys.
“nothing games”.
No wonder there arent articles on NH tours about the Boks ‘aura’.
November 30th, 2009 at 6:59 pm
For AB fans, there are more unicorns and leprechauns than “nothing games”. Well, dead rubber games are as close as it gets.
November 30th, 2009 at 10:10 pm
nothing games and fatigue huh…. typical loser talk…
as Victor has proven with his realisation that Ireland had a SA who could understand Afrikaans in their mix (seriously, would you think beforehand that they may now understand your calls)… I think it shows that the SA management and players have “breine die grootte van by dicks …”
thing is, Ireland and France have done their homework, theyve studies tapes of the Tri-Nations and noticed the Boks inability to play a different gameplan… hence they prepared for the usual soccer the SA rugby team plays, and came up victors (no pun intended)… to think NZ and Aust have not also learnt how to combat the Boks one dimensional game plan would be foolish in the extreme…
I feel for SA supporters, once this current world cup crop go, you guys are in serious kak…