STRIKING IT RICH: A Christmas wish for the Boks

ETZEBETH IS GETTING WHAT EVERY PLAYER SHOULD GET

There was some surprise in both directions when the ban handed down to Eben Etzebeth by a Six Nations disciplinary committee was announced last week. Some felt it was too lenient, some thought it was too harsh.

What happened in the last two minutes of what was a brilliant international season for the Springboks has probably received enough attention already, so let’s move on, except to say this: what Etzebeth is getting is what every Bok who was used in the Castle Rugby Championship and the July Incoming Tours should be getting. A proper off-season.

There has been some talk from the Sharks about putting Etzebeth to work as a coach, both of age-group teams and helping Warren Whiteley with the lineouts, during part of his suspension (they acknowledge that he also deserves a holiday that is due to him at some point too).

But regardless of what chores they choose for him to do, he will not be playing himself, which means he gets roughly, or maybe just a little bit more, of what he got in terms of time away from playing when South African rugby was committed only to the southern hemisphere season through the alignment with Super Rugby.

It used to be the case that the Boks would end their rugby year with the last international game on the last weekend of November. They were usually pretty knackered by then, so they looked forward to a complete mental and physical break from the sport over December and halfway into January. They’d then start their pre-season and might play a pre-season game in late February before starting the Super Rugby proper in March.

Even then, there were complaints that the season was too long and arguments that further time should be allocated for a window of no rugby so that the players could go through a proper conditioning phase. But it was heaps better than what the case is now, with the top players going straight from a long tour, which culminated a long international season, into a busy period of Vodacom URC and Investec Champions Cup fixtures.

Etzebeth’s next game will be on 28 March, and given that he needs a mandatory eight-week rest as per the Bok resting protocols, he is missing closer to four to six Sharks games, rather than the 12 stipulated in his suspension.

Given that he is not out for the entire season, like some of us thought he would be, the Sharks can balance out their unhappiness at losing him over this period with the probability that he will return refreshed after having his first continuous non-injury-related break from the game since he was playing Super Rugby for the Stormers.

Given that SA’s commitment to the Rugby Championship means he played in August and September when his teammates were resting, his time in France would not have allowed him an off-season either.

And if there are Bok teammates who envy Etzebeth for his time off, I wouldn’t blame them. He’s getting what they should all be getting.

THERE MUST BE AN ENDING AND A BEGINNING

All of the above cues my answer when asked in a YouTube podcast what my wish would be for the Springboks for Christmas. Indeed, for more than just the Boks but South African rugby in general. It has to be the long-awaited inception of a global season, which in this country’s case would mean the end of the ridiculous 12-month season that not only impacts negatively on the SA challenge in the URC and the Champions Cup but could yet come back in time to bite the Boks.

That the All Black players who will face the Boks in the big event of next year, which is the Greatest Rivalry series in late August and September, are now spending their time doing the summer pursuits of fishing, surfing, watching cricket and generally taking time off from the game, while all the Boks are still working, has to be a concern.

Those Boks who aren’t home-based are playing the northern season through their alignment to Japanese or UK clubs, so every one of them is officially working now. And a one week of rest as per the protocols, which we are told is why Handre Pollard isn’t playing for the Bulls this weekend, doesn’t crack it. He and his teammates need a couple of weeks, actually, make it a couple of months, of continuous rest for it to amount to the proper off-season that is needed.

In answer to those who love to point out that rugby players are well paid and should therefore be prepared to sacrifice, let my response be this - I am no sports scientist, but I know enough about the body to know that no mechanism says “Okay, I am well paid so I am capable of anything, maybe if I flap my arms they will become wings and I can fly to the moon if that is what my paymasters want.”

It’s bollocks and everybody in the game knows it. When the now ex-Sharks coach John Plumtree said a few seasons ago, when he was first starting to get his head around the challenges the all-year-round season throws up, that players are not robots, he was scolded by the SA Rugby hierarchy. But he was only stating a fact. And issuing a warning.

It may also not just be the players who are at risk when it comes to overload. That there is hardly a weekend in this country when there isn’t some kind of local rugby being played might be one of the reasons that the Bulls played in front of only 7 000 people when they hosted the European champions at Loftus.

The Bordeaux squad had 14 players who have been capped for France and some others who have played for other countries, while the Bulls had most of their top Boks back. And yet the people of rugby-mad Pretoria stayed away. Could it be that there is just too much rugby?

Everything needs a beginning and an end. In our rugby, there is no beginning and an end anymore, no point where we can say okay, this is the end of the rugby season. And this is the beginning of the next one. Let’s go back to Etzebeth as an example - had he not sat it out through injury, his last game of last season from a franchise point of view would have been when the Sharks lost the 2024-25 URC semifinal at Loftus. What did he do the next day? He reported straight to the Bok camp preparing for the new international season.

The next time he got a break was…well, it’s now. But it’s an enforced break. Otherwise, he’d be expected to use every sinew of his body and every molecule of emotional energy to help the Sharks’ cause in Saturday’s big game against the Saracens.

There’s no beginning, there’s no end, and every season just flows one into another in seamless fashion. The Boks will get some downtime in February and March in the period that coincides with the Six Nations, but if their franchises are still playing, what chance do they get to properly switch off?

GIVE JP A CHANCE

Mention of the Sharks brings us to the big news that replaced the media fanfare around Etzebeth - John Plumtree’s decision to move aside so that JP Pietersen can get a fair chance to show whether he can crack it as a Sharks coach at URC and Champions Cup level.

In making that decision, Plumtree was responsible for possibly the only small shard of logic to come out of Sharks country in several months. I have written before in this column that the decision to react to the poor start to the Sharks' season by making the announcement that Plumtree would not be continuing as coach after this season was an indication of a vacuum of leadership. And it was most emphatically was.

Once Plumtree knew that this was it, that he was effectively a dead man walking as Sharks coach, what was there in it for him? It was just a matter of counting down the days to his exit, when, at least according to what he was told in the meetings with the Sharks' big-wigs at the end of October, he would be responsible for mentoring a new coach.

If that is indeed going to be his future role, then it makes a lot of sense to get the process started now rather than to delay it. And if Pietersen is the man he feels could make a proper fist of it, then good on him for making the right call.

There has been some understandable cynicism towards what Plumtree said in what was effectively an exit mini press conference with myself and the IOL’s Mike Greenaway last Friday. Meaning his support for Pietersen and his belief that the former Bok win could make a good Sharks coach.

But let me assure Sharks supporters that Plumtree does believe what he said, for back in October, when he was really under pressure, I did have a conversation with him. It followed an article I wrote speculating on whether any coach worth his oats would be prepared to take the job given the myriad challenges he would face. Plumtree told me there was only one person he believed could do the job - and that was JP Pietersen. He wasn’t planning to step aside at that point; there wasn’t anything loaded in the statement. It was his genuine view.

It is also one that should be supported, given how well Pietersen dealt with crisis situations in two successive Currie Cup seasons, effectively turning the Sharks XV into a Currie Cup-winning unit after they lost three successive games at the start of last year, and then recovering well from the disaster of a 60-odd point defeat at Loftus in the most recent season.

I interviewed Pietersen in Durban in September and was impressed with his philosophy and approach. He played under a lot of coaches and it has given rise to what we might term an eclectic philosophy. Provided he draws on Plumtree’s experience as a drawing board and safety net, because his youthfulness in the coaching game is obviously one concern if he goes too man alone into the challenge, I am hopeful he will surprise a lot of people.

DON’T EXPECT AN OVERNIGHT TURNAROUND

Having said the above, anyone expecting an overnight turnaround from the Sharks under a new coach may be living in Cloud Cuckooland. The same disadvantages to being Sharks coach apply to Pietersen as applied to Plumtree - namely not having a proper pre-season because there are too many absent Boks on the books, lack of alignment between the coaching and recruitment department and also the lack of a proper feel for the game in the people who have made the decisions that have backfired on the Sharks ever since Brian van Zyl vacated the CEO’s office in 2013.

I would say that Pietersen couldn’t face a tougher baptism than the one he does face if it were not for the recall of what could have happened - had Plumtree vacated his position at the end of October, Pietersen would have had to start against Connacht in Galway and then follow up with an under-strength team playing away to Toulouse.

Instead, he has home games against the Saracens and the Bulls. If this were a WhatsApp messag,e I’d insert a grimacing face there. In short, he’s in for a tough ride, and the Sharks are going into a busy and critical phase of their season without Etzebeth and also without Ox Nche and other star players, such as Aphelele Fassi, are also injured. If someone like Siya Kolisi was mentally and physically fatigued, that would also be completely understandable.

What we should be looking for is not necessarily an immediate turnaround in results, but some kind of indicator of improvement, both defensively and on attack. You could call me mad for saying this, because they did lose by 37 points, but I thought I saw some positive signs when a very young, inexperienced Sharks team lost in Toulouse this past weekend. It was just Plumtree and Pietersen working together at that game, the rest of the assistants had flown home to help prepare the first-choice players for the Saracens game.

EPCR SHOULD HELP THE SA CHALLENGE A BIT MORE

There’s a myriad of reasons why the local challenge in the Champions Cup falls short, and that continued failure is also behind the slowness with which South Africans are connecting to the elite club competition. But one of the big standout reasons is the logistical challenge of being committed to not one, but two, cross-hemisphere competitions.

The Bulls probably blew their chances of getting out of the pool phase of the Champions Cup when they lost to Bordeaux last week. There was nothing surprising about that result. Bordeaux are not champions for nothing, and I predicted they would win in my supersport.com preview. Yes, the Bulls had their Boks back, but they played international rugby the week before that in the out of international window clash with Wales.

In a perfect world, the Boks would not have played outside the international window, and like the players from France, England, Ireland and Italy, there’d have been a two week break between the end of the November internationals and the start of the Champions Cup. There would also perhaps have been a proper opportunity for some of the Boks to be assimilated back into the team the week before the Champions Cup started by playing in the URC games scheduled that weekend. But it couldn’t happen as the Boks were in Cardiff that day.

Bulls coach Johan Ackermann did go all out to win against Bordeaux. He chose his strongest team. But like we saw when they got several Boks back for a URC game against Ulster back in October, getting Boks back doesn’t mean an automatic gel. In fact the Sharks are an ongoing, living embodiment of that truth.

Now he’s going to Northampton with a weakened squad, and overseas critics who question the SA commitment to the EPCR competitions would be right to raise their eyebrows. The Lions have also gone very understrength to Newcastle for their Challenge Cup game this weekend.

But what choice did either team have? The Bulls have a six day turnaround after their trip to Northampton to their crucial URC derby against the Sharks in Durban. And for the Lions it is similar as they head into a derby against the Stormers in Cape Town.

The simple solution to all of this is the one that was mooted by SA Rugby - let the local sides play their overseas games one after the other, meaning it is a proper tour and it can be managed easier. I hear it was the French clubs who shot that request down, but if the EPCR really want SA to be competitive in the competition, and it is only when that happens that the local fans are really going to be properly drawn to the Champions Cup, they should be going all out to do whatever is necessary to make it easier to compete.

The French argument is that they would also like to play both their away games in the Pool phase in one block. That seems fair on the surface until you realise that most of their trips are across the English Channel and not across the equator.

TOP 14 POSITION DETERMINES FRENCH APPROACH

Not that the French teams always go full strength when they play away, anyway. In fact, they very seldom do, with log position in the Top 14 often determining the French approach. Bordeaux-Begles are comfortably in the top six on the Top 14 log currently, therefore far from relegation threatened (the bottom two teams on the Top 14 log get automatically relegated at the end of the season), but La Rochelle are 10th, meaning just a few places above relegation.

So it wasn’t much of a surprise that Bordeaux came to Pretoria at close to full strength last weekend. They could afford to do that. It is not so clear cut though for La Rochelle as they head to Gqeberha for their second round game against the Stormers. Given that they picked up a full house of five log points against Leicester last week, the smart money should be on the two time Champions Cup winners being under-strength against the Stormers so the top players can be at home focusing on their next Top 14 game.

THE SEASON TO BE JOLLY IS A TIME TO WATCH CRICKET

It’s cricket season now and with the local franchises mercifully deciding to postpone the URC games that were scheduled for the festive week between Christmas and New Year, there are two big winners - the first are the rugby players who can now at least have time with their families and get to lie on the beach at Stilbaai or whichever destination they choose for their downtime, and the second being the organisers of the Betway SA20.

There’s a Boxing Day fixture scheduled for Newlands as the tee-off for the SA20, and that’s the way it should be. The week between Christmas and New Year has always been cricket time in this country.

When I was growing up Natal were always at the Wanderers for the start of a Currie Cup game against Transvaal on Boxing Day (and it always went terribly for them) and the big New Year game was always Transvaal coming to Cape Town.

It didn’t change when SA cricket returned from isolation, there was a lot of tradition there too - the Boxing Day test was at Kingsmead (now Centurion) and the New Year test was at Newlands. That’s the South African tradition, and while there were big crowds in Christmas URC games between the Stormers and the Bulls for a couple of seasons, the theory that it endorsed festive season rugby was challenged by my counter-theory that the north/south derby would draw more people if played in February or March. And this year they did that and I was proved correct - the Stormers/Bulls derby saw DHL Stadium packed to capacity.

This column may look like a whinge on behalf of rugby players who may have understandable problems with playing in the Christmas week, but it is also personal - for goodness sake, all of those of us who work in rugby need some window in the year when there is no rugby. And as it stands, Christmas week is it.

The need to get out of the rugby brain-fog that comes about through a 52 week of the year rugby season is one of the reasons this will be the last Striking it Rich for this year… There is a round of URC derbies scheduled for next week and I will be working on those as usual but seeing next Tuesday’s public holiday is the traditional start of the SA holiday season, with many people travelling somewhere in search of a soft air compressed comfortable lilo to lie on, this might be a good time for Striking it Rich to take a break and restart in January. Festive greetings to one and all.