There have been many finals over the years but this one has the potential to be one of the most important ones as it could potentially direct coaching strategies for next year’s S15 as well as for the world cup.
Last year saw us at the top of the world; winning the tri-nations comprehensively.
A rule change, however, saw our wheels came off, this year; being totally outplayed by NZ and also humbled by the Aussies.
The bulls kick and chase, structured set piece and battering ram pods which worked so well during the S14 failed miserably during the tri-nations. This left me with a number of questions, namely:
- Did they fail because we had the wrong players on the paddock?
- How important was FdP with regard to the bulls success this year and the boks success in 2009?
- Is it the game plan that didn’t work or lack of proper coaching that hamstringed the boks this year?
The interesting thing for me during the S14 was the fact that the Stormers played a totally different game plan than the Bulls.
They were harder to read and to be honest I still don’t have clarity in my own mind exactly how they played the game. They certainly had a more complex game plan which took them longer to put together. In the early part of the season they relied mostly on the back three to produce tries with Joe Pietersen and Naqvaluki being instrumental on the blindside.
Later in the season they created magic with starter moves from set piece (mainly the scrums) and scored some brilliant tries notably by De Jongh and Jaque Fourie. The most impressive performance for me was the way they won in Auckland after the bulls were beaten the previous weekend with what was certainly the style that the All Blacks adopted for the tri-nations. In hindsight I now have a feeling that Henry was instrumental in that Blues performance against the Bulls and that he in essence provided the guidelines in how to approach/play the Bulls. I have a feeling that Henry as previous Blues and current All Black coach had the necessary access and status to convince the blues on how to approach the Bulls game. This gave Henry the opportunity to try out his vision/ideas with the Blues. This was an important test run for him as he knew the Bulls game plan was in essence the Springboks game plan.
No what is incredibly significant, for me, is the fact that that the Blues approach (read early version of how the All Blacks were going to play in the 2010 tri-nations) did not work the next Saturday against the more complex Stormers game plan. It is no co-incidence that Henry said after the Blues/Stormers match that the Stormers were playing the best rugby in the competition. I think he and his cronies must have been really concerned after the trashing the Blues received from the Stormers but he must have been enormously relieved when he saw the make-up of the Boks side for that first tri-nations test. He did his homework; he tested his ideas with the blues; he knew exactly how to counter the bulls/boks game plan; and it worked.
The problem with the Bulls game plan is that it relies too much on a few key players and on the opponents crumbling under pressure. The Blue Bulls just couldn’t get going without those key players in the Currie Cup and it was only after their Springboks returned that they got their campaign back on track.
The Sharks adopted the kiwi tri-nations style and again demonstrated the superiority of that approach against the set piece dominance and pressure approach of the Bulls in the semi-final of this years CC.
The Stormers massive failure against the Bulls in the S14 final and subsequent lost of Peter Grant saw them making some alterations to their game plan. They still have the S14 complexity in their approach but with Willem de Waal on flyhalf have brought territorial dominance back into the mix. Their set piece, especially scrums, also seems to have improved since the S14 final. They certainly kick a bit more and the backline seems to line-up a little deeper but they still play the ‘hang-on-to-the-possession’ game especially when in the opponent’s half of the field. In a sense they have brought something of the bulls into their game (kicking for territory and using the pods) but have maintained their more flowing, play it wider and hang on to possession format which worked so well against the kiwi teams in the S14.
However, since the S14 the Kiwi’s have refined and sped-up their game and the Sharks with their kiwi coach have adopted that refined approach of attack in depth and blow-over at speed as well as constantly mixing it up in the backline with angled runners. Secure handling and precision at the breakdowns was also key to their victory against the Bulls.
With the new interpretation of the laws, the team that keeps possession will have a chance of forcing penalties and scoring points,” said WP coach Allister Coetzee.
“You will be punished if you give away possession unnecessarily. The All Blacks’ style of play is based on keeping possession through phases.
“It’s important to make the right decisions in the right areas of the field. There is also a time and place for grubbers and aerial kicks. There is more than one way to play the game.”
Clearly Allister and his team think beyond ‘rush, bash and flush’ at the breakdowns. The Kiwi like to throw the words one-dimentional at South African rugby but I find the rush-up and blow-over also very one-dimentional. Why have ball players in your team if you are going to rush-up and blow-over until the gaps open up? If that is all you are going to do pick 100 kg buffulo’s in all the positions with some speed in the back three and rush-up and blow-over 80 minutes non stop.
The question for me is can the WP/Stormers game plan work against this refined, precision and faster pace rush-up and blow-over kiwi style?
If it works (the stormers game plan) then that will provide clear guidelines on how to adjust our game to counter the Kiwi blow-over style. Western Province plays for me a more traditional South African style. I don’t think we should try and beat the All Blacks with their own game. We need to do something different and play a style that suite the physique and cultural heritage of our players. Traditional Western Province rugby with some modern applications at the breakdowns is what Province are doing at the moment and maybe that is the way to go; this weekend I believe will tell. True the Sharks is not the All Blacks but beating the Sharks with their kiwi coach and kiwi style is the first step towards developing/maintaining our own style.
I have nothing against the Sharks and do find hope in the fact that they can mimick the AB style. It shows that South African teams can at least play that type of game. If we want to beat the All Blacks we need to move beyond duplicating.
I am hoping to see ‘moving beyond duplicaton of the All Blacks’ on the weekend.
This match, for me, is therefore more than a final. It is about strategems. It’s about innovation.
It is about converting to kiwi rugby or advancing our cultural rugby heritage.
It is whether we can move beyond copy capping; beyong duplication towards integration of new and old.
Whether we can create something new that is uniquely South African and don’t throw the Sharks away as the team who are on the forefront of innovating a new SA style. A team who is integrating South African forward physicality with the new style of rush, bash and flush.
To be honest I am not entirly sure what we are going to get but it’s going to be different; it’s going to uncompromising, physical and hard as well as exciting and hopefully out of all this we are going to see the dawn of an uniquely new South African style.
The national coach has learnt nothing from this new approach to keeping posession with great handling skills at speed and getting over the gain line until the space opens up.
Therefore the interesting thing for me is will he accept that a new approach is needed and if so what will he do about it?
As much as the All Blacks have successfully used this approach, I do not think that the Sharks have just gone out to copy the All Blacks but have understood the importance of posession once again from the point of view that if you do it properly then there is no reason why the ref should not allow you to keep posession.
The law now favours the side with the ball at the breakdown or tackle point.
To me, one of the most important aspects of how the game is now being played is that you have to pick skilled players that can play the game at a much higher pace than ever before.
This is the beginning of this new approach and it means that a national coach has to firstly find the skilled players and secondly has to make sure that their conditioning is at a much higher level than ever before.
You cannot play the new game if you run out of legs and that is exactly the first place where PDV failed.
We have been playing this rugby in the eighties even before the All Blacks won a WCup, and only deviated from it in a few years.
Snoek wrote:
Who is that? The Sharks, WP or the Springboks?
tight head wrote:
I would agree with that; our coach have shown no signs of being observant and able to see something new. I am hoping for a miracle for the EOYT.
@ McLook:
Sharks…..
tight head wrote:
It has always astounded me that most supporters understood the principle of holding on to your ball for at least the last 10 years and I would go as far as the last 15 years. Somehow our national team and coaches just couldn’t get it. Personally I think they (players and coaches) understood the principle but players didn’t have the skill levels and our coaches didn’t know how to coach players how to hold on to the ball.
I never quite got a handle on the “playing without the ball” method….
tight head wrote:
Skill at holding on to the ball and skill in relation to precision at the breakdown. Other than that it seems that if you bash it up and flush over long enough the gaps will open up even if you play Tony Woodcock on the wing.
Fender@7.Hahahaha good one. Absolutely it is a no brainer.
Snoek@5. I’ll agree with that although I would argue that Sharks are doing it now better and faster than ever.
fender wrote:
😆 Yes, truly amazing what is possible in SA rugby.
McLook wrote:
The problem comes in when these passes don’t stick. The first game against the Griquas and the second round game against the Bulls the Sharks dominated the games, but they dropped a lot off balls, and got killed with turnovers. So the importance of accuracy is extremely important.
Rugby is supposedly a simple game(not the laws)
you got the ball, you run, you pass, you score.
PDV sees it this way.
You got the ball, you pass, you kick ………………….
OK, we’ll try again next time we have the ball.
@ McLook:
Yes, McLook, the thing is that it takes tremendous levels of conditioning to keep at protecting the ball in the tackle for many phases, without making a mistake from being tired, when you consider the quality of the defences today.
Ultimately it has become a contest of who tires first and allows a turn over or a missed tackle.
Of course that is why it is so important to be the attacker with the ball and not the defender, because tackling tires you out far quicker than anything else on a rugby field.
Basically the longer you can commit the opposition to tackle, the sooner a hole will appear or they will concede a penalty.
It becomes a game of ball retention with patience.
Tighthead,
“It becomes a game of ball retention with patience.”
It might not be what you want to hear Tighthead, but as Spain proved in the SWC this year, the same applies to soccer… 😉
@ fender:
Exactly Fender!!
The best make it look easy, but underneath that is a superb grasp of the basics along with discipline and commitment.
Kinda like you in full flight playing “Stairway to heaven”
Tight head, I can in all honesty say that I have never played that Zep song. You can ask Jimmy Page – he’ll confirm that… 😉
tight head@14 wrote:
True buit this year the AB’s added depth and speed to the quotation. That is keep on to the ball but run on to it at speed to create depth on attack and then blow-over and ercycle with speed. It is a whole new dimension while the boks were still just trying to hang on to the ball. We were to static and predictable when we took the ball up.
It is the superb grasps of basics in our coaching and consequently lack of commitment and discipline among the players. It is hard to be committed to something you don’t fully understand. It is also hard to take it to the next level if your fundamentals are not in place.
Maybe you must revisit the Dwyer video that showed the All Black infringements. The SPEED they took players out. It is not all honky dorie unless you feel their whole game is legal.
@ McLook:
You might have seen this before , i might interpret stat skew , wrong and biased but somehow is see a lot of ball in the Springboks hands.
Have a look you might enjoy it.
http://www.greenandgoldrugby.com/2010-tri-nations-statistics/
tight head@16 wrote:
I think you hit the nail squarely on the head with this remark. My experience with fundamantals and basics is that there are levels of understanding and mastery. Most sports have in essence less than 10 truely essential basic movements; it is how you understand and master them that makes the difference. The higher your level of understanding and mastery the more you become aware of timing and space.
In my sport, karate, we have essentailly two punches, one strike, two stances and 5 kicks(of which we only realy use three in kata and kumite or fighting). If you look at an orange belt and a black belt they use the exact same punches and kicks but the execution differs so much that it look as if the back belt is doing something totally different.
You then go to the world campionships and you see the gold medals winners (the Bruce Lee’s of our sport) use the exact same fundamatals with an unbelievable level of mastery and consquently also superb timing and use of space that lifts them above anybody else. That level of mastery comes from hours and hours of practicing the boring fundamantals/basics. The fascinating thing about these “boring” basics is that the harder you work at them the more interesting they become.
superBul@19 wrote:
I wrote about this before that it is disturbing how much the AB game depends on illegal tactics but they certainly did clear up there act in the later part of the tri-nations. Everything is still not honkey donkey but I believe you are the one that said we need to start moving on and stop whingeing. Fact is the benefit of the doubt seems to go to the team carrying the ball and who are moving forward at speed.
superBul wrote:
Thank for this link. It will take me awhile to work through all that stats. Boks sure seems to had a lot of ball. It is what we did with it which is the problem. To static and slow when we take it up and way to much kicking.
From the article, One year: A long time in rugby.
So, being on the wrong end of all of these indicators so far, are the Springboks dead and buried for 2011?
I believe categorically not. In retrospect, moving from such a extreme gameplan – where they set new records for the fewest passes made in a test match – to the complete opposite was never going to happen in one season. An evolution of strategy and selection policy within the most capped Springbok squad of all time will see strong improvement.
And it’s not as if this experience comes at the cost of staying power on the pitch. Of all three teams, only the Springboks averaged more points in the second half than they did in the first in the 2010 Tri-Nations. They also had the biggest differential in being able to keep points out. Hardly washed out.
But of all of the factors that could reverse South Africa’s fortunes, I believe it’s the one that I most underestimated just a year ago; the application of the laws. In one short year we’ve gone to a complete reversal of advantage between attack and defence, possession and territory. Characteristically introduced in almost completely ad hoc way by the IRB.
Twelve months down the line, who can say what will happen? A cynic might think that, much the way of the ELVs, certain Northern Hemisphere parties might not be quite so keen on these new nuances after a sampling over this winter. We’ve also already seen wide vagaries in application of interpretation between referees.
Come the pressure of finals football at the World Cup, just how expansive will the game be? If history tells us anything – not very. In such situations, the Fourie, Morne, Victor and Heinrich stocks will be back in vogue.
Yes, a year’s a long time in rugby, and we’ve got another one to go.
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