THE SOUTH AFRICAN RUGBY ROLLER-COASTER RIDE IS OVER
Many people who read my book on the Springbok coaches, titled The Poisoned Chalice for the first edition, likened it to riding a roller-coaster. There was a high one minute, then in the next instant, the mood plunged.
A trend emerged, or so it was felt, with the national team ascending to great heights, and then mistakes would be made and the Boks would be back at square one, or even further behind the eight-ball than they were before. While some rated it an interesting read, it was also depressing because of the repetition of the same old mistakes.
Much of what has gone wrong in the decades since the Bok isolation ended in 1992 was down to the poor decisions made when appointing coaches. There often wasn’t any science to it, and one of the coaches, Carel du Plessis, told me that when he was appointed, he was never asked about his rugby philosophy and what path he’d take as coach of the Boks.
Of course, the questions should have been asked, because Carel had a very different philosophy to his predecessors. And a lot of the Bok failure in 1997, when they lost a series to the British and Irish Lions, was down to lack of alignment between the coach and the people who appointed him.
So with the Boks riding the crest of the wave at the moment, will the same depressing trend continue? Let’s not forget that the 57-0 hammering at the hands of the All Blacks in Albany happened just two years before the Boks, coached by Rassie Erasmus, won the 2019 World Cup in Japan. And many of the same players who won rugby’s ultimate prize were involved in that game.
So it’s a fair question, and sometimes when watching the Junior Springboks in recent years, it was possible to think that the same underlying problems persisted. Thankfully, though, after watching the latest version of South Africa’s premier age-group team annex its second World Rugby Under-20 Championship title, and doing it so emphatically and with such style, I’d contend that the cycle has finally been ended.
As my colleague Brenden Nel wrote in this week’s Talking Point column, structures have been put in place to ensure that the appointment of coaches is done more scientifically and with a better idea of what is wanted from those coaches than was the case before. As a result, the various national teams are given the best opportunity to succeed.
The Baby Boks, which is hardly what we should call them because if I had a baby that was as physically brutish as some of those players are, I’d send it to the vet, clearly took their cue when it came to playing style from Rassie Erasmus’ Boks. There were times in the junior tournament when it felt like we were watching what the Boks are working towards being perfected.
HEAVYWEIGHT COACHES MAKE A DIFFERENCE
What was clear in the tournament in Italy was how well coached the Junior Boks were, and it probably wasn’t a coincidence that the two tournament wins by the under-20 team, which came 13 years apart, were both presided over by what were relatively heavyweight and experienced coaching teams.
When the Junior Boks last won back in 2012, they had the experienced coaching duo of Dawie Theron and Brendan Venter at the helm. Then, as now, their bosses made it clear they were employed to win the tournament, but in the years in between, the attitude has appeared to be that the under-20 side provides an opportunity to blood young coaches.
That’s not to say that young coaches shouldn’t be blooded, and there were people in the latest coaching group who are considered highly promising future coaches who would have learned a lot from being part of the campaign in Italy.
However, they were guided by experienced coaches in Kevin Foote and new Bulls coach Johan Ackermann, and that was only fair for players who are at an age where they probably need coaching guidance more than the experienced seniors do. The advantage of having experience in the coaching group was writ large in Italy.
What was so impressive was the way they combined the traditional strengths of the South African game, notably frightening physicality and forward power, with the new attacking dynamic that the senior Boks started to introduce even before Tony Brown arrived as their attack coach.
After they scored 73 points against Australia, their coach, Kevin Foote, spoke about what an inspiration the Boks had been to his team, and you could see it.
The deadly counterattack and the pace onto the ball and off the mark of the backline, coupled with first-phase dominance and the strong driving we saw in the final, ensured that the eight-point margin in the decider was the closest any opponent came. It was a dramatic improvement on last year, when they finished seventh.
What also helped was that the introduction of an under-20 Rugby Championship meant the Junior Boks were given a tough preparation for the global tournament, which was different to most previous years. They lost to Australia and New Zealand in the TRC, but clearly internalised the learnings from that as they comprehensively reversed those results in Italy.
GAP BETWEEN THE TOP NATIONS AND MINNOWS WILL WIDEN
So I decided against paying for myself to go to Mbopmbela to watch the Springboks play their last test of the Castle Lager Incoming Series on account that it was a long way to go for a Georgia game. Them being minnows in rugby terms, plus Mbombela being hellishly far from where I am now, and all that.
A few more days in the Eastern Cape was also an attractive proposition, as in it wasn’t a choice between cold Cape Town and the temperate Lowveld. And by the time the game arrived, I was in a room at Beacon Island in Plettenberg Bay. The view from my window out towards Robberg is hard to beat.
For all that, though, it did cross my mind that maybe missing the Mbombela Stadium game was a mistake after all. For after missing the Boks v Georgia game at the 2003 World Cup in Australia, and also obviously the Covid game in Pretoria in 2021, plus this most recent one, I may never get to see the two nations play each other live.
Georgia haven’t been here often, and they are likely to be playing the Boks even less outside of World Cups if the Nations Championship, scheduled by World Rugby to start next year, gets off the ground. Featuring the top 12 sides in the world, meaning the Six Nations and the Rugby Championship sides plus Japan and Fiji, the drawback of the Nations Championship is that the likes of Uruguay, Georgia, Portugal or the 2031 World Cup hosts USA will now have even less contact with the bigger nations than they did before.
How are they supposed to improve and become more competitive at World Cups if they only play the top nations at the global tournament every four years? Given that, at the same time as creating a further barrier between top and bottom, they’ve also increased the number of competing nations at the next World Cup from 20 to 24, it is understandable that World Rugby have come in for criticism.
PORTUGAL HAVE ALREADY SLIPPED
Ring fencing the top nations into a higher echelon Nations Championship league is likely to halt the progress that was shown in the 2023 RWC by Portugal, who have slipped alarmingly since they were in South Africa last year, judging by them shipping more than a three-figure score in a recent match against Ireland. That was an Ireland team, by the way, that was denuded of top players because of the British and Irish Lions tour of Australia. Those who were at the game described the whole exercise as a farce.
One-sided games were generally a trend when tier 1 and tier 2 teams met during the July international window, with Ireland’s second team also easily outplaying Georgia in a game played on Georgia’s home ground in Tbilisi. No, one-sided games are not great for the sport, but then neither is the widening gap created by the lack of contact between nations who may get to play each other at the world showpiece event every four years.
GEORGIAN REFEREE MAKING WAVES
One Georgian on the up in international rugby is the referee, Nika Amashukeli. Not all of the UK media people covering the British and Irish Lions tour of Australia were enamoured with the way he handled Tuesday’s final tour game, where the First Nations and Pasifika XV employed a physical, confrontational approach to unsettle the Lions and came closest of all the teams the Lions have played in Australia to beating them.
However, Amashukeli has been appointed to referee the third test and potentially deciding game of the series in Sydney, and you wouldn’t have heard too many complaints from either side about that. Amashukeli is a highly respected ref among coaches and players and deserves his opportunity.
It was a pity in a way that the Pasifika team failed to get over the line in Melbourne - they lost by five points - as it might have shut up some of the complaints about the tour being too easy outside of the test matches. There’s been a lot of talk about the need to adjust future tours of Australia to make it tougher, and Tuesday’s game suggested the addition of games against Fiji and Samoa might just bring that necessary effect.
LIONS WILL BE EVEN BETTER THIS WEEK
The Lions did have an easy run to the first test, too easy, and it is why I am not really buying into the theory that the Wallabies showed in the last 30 minutes in Brisbane last week, where they cut what looked likely to be a 20 or 30-point defeat to just eight, that this week’s game at the MCG is going to be closer, and that they might even reverse the result.
There was, in reality, a wide gulf between the sides in Brisbane and the usual flow of a Lions tour is that, because the first test is so much tougher than the preceding games and it is the first proper test for combinations relatively new to each other, the Lions are much stronger in the second test.
It is true that it wasn’t the case when they were in South Africa in 2021, where the Boks bounced back from an opening defeat to win the series, but let’s not forget the context. Covid, which had prevented South Africa from playing any international rugby in 2020, dictated that the first game of that series was only the second test match played by the Boks since the 2019 World Cup final played in Yokohama 20 months before that.
In other words, that was one occasion when the hosts were always going to be on a sharp improvement curve. That is not generally the case; it is usually the other way around, and it is why I fear for the Wallabies on Saturday. There are some experienced and beefy personnel that could be added to the Aussie mix if fit, and the midweek game did show how the Lions can be unsettled, but I don’t see the Wallabies winning.
THE DAY GAWIE AND HUGO LIT UP THE BARBARIANS
There’s been some talk in the UK media about the Lions becoming a bit like the Barbarians because so many players have been added to the group to cover for injuries, and they only get to play one game to become Lions. Mention of the Lions and Barbarians in the same breath set my memory going.
When the Barbarians played the Boks in Cape Town in June, it was slated as the first time the national team had played the Barbarians on home soil, and it was. But it was not the first time a team called the Barbarians had played in South Africa. Back in 1976, a combined team known as the Quagga Barbarians played a midweek game against the All Blacks that still sticks in my memory for how exciting it was. It wasn’t covered live on television, but I listened to the game in its entirety on the radio.
I will just give the final score, which I have just looked up to check my memory is not playing tricks on me, as an indicator - the Kiwis won 32-31, and from memory, they had to recover from a big deficit to win that game against a local side that completely adopted the Barbarians running rugby ethos.
I was at the next Barbarians game against a touring team. It was at Kings Park on the 1980 Lions tour and the Barbarians team that faced Bill Beaumont’s men in a Wednesday game was known as the South African Barbarians. The Barbarians had, in fact, toured the UK the year before, with a multiracial team under the management of Chick Henderson, in what at the time was considered a groundbreaking moment for SA rugby.
Five of the players who were part of that 1979 tour were in that SA Barbarians team, and because of the multiracial element to the local selection, the game was seen as an historic occasion. Mark Loane, an outstanding Wallaby back row forward who played for Wynand Claassen’s Natal team that year, played for the Barbarians that day, as did Hugo Porta, the legendary Argentinian who was arguably the most exciting flyhalf I have ever watched live. And he didn’t let us down in that game.
Neither did the late Gawie Visagie, then still playing for Griquas, but later to move to Natal. I am not sure if there was an injury, but Gawie, who occasionally played flyhalf or centre when he was not playing his usual position, which was scrumhalf, played fullback that afternoon, and he cooked. Gawie could play anywhere in the backs, and he wasn’t the only backline player of excellent utility value playing in those years.
The Lions won 25-14, and it was a memorable occasion so I can completely get why the touring media find this current tour, and the last one to South Africa, a bit underwhelming. It is underwhelming if the comparison is with some of the epic tour games of the past.
NO COMPLAINTS ABOUT MUSIC AT THE SURFING
So just to ensure that my road trip didn’t include just one big sporting event, that being the second test between the Boks and Italy in Gqeberha, I popped into Jeffreys Bay to watch the J-Bay Open. Or whatever it is called. Actually, I do know what it is called, because I quaffed quite a bit of the sponsor's product while watching the surfers doing their thing at the world-renowned Supertubes. For the record, Corona isn’t something I’ve had much of, but it tasted nice that afternoon.
Being a born and bred Durbanite, watching surfing events wasn’t completely new. Back in the day there used to be the Gunston 500, that took place every July on the Durban beachfront and it was part of the staple during the mid-year school holidays - the others being the Boswell Wilkie Circus (when I was a bit younger), the Durban Military Tattoo and the Funfair that went up at that time of the year near the old snake park.
Anyway, this is turning into a digression. I just wanted to say that watching surfing at Supertubes was very different to watching back in the day at The Bay of Plenty, just because of the size and shape of the waves. A surfing mate who joined me on the boardwalk, where I bumped into and had good rugby conversations with former Stormers player and national under-20 coach Chean Roux and also the former Eastern Province, Boland Cavaliers, Border Bulldogs and Stellenbosch flyhalf Solly Goosen, told me that watching this live would make me marvel at how spectacular it was, and he wasn’t wrong.
It was an enjoyable morning and afternoon, and made more enjoyable by the thing I complained about ruining the mood in some rugby matches, particularly the second test between New Zealand and France the previous week. That being music. Looking out over the bay towards the distant mountains beyond Hankey, where you will find the entrance to Baviaanskloof and also the Gamtoos Valley, to the accompaniment of the music of Monsters and Men (if you haven’t heard them, look for them), was a very satisfying vibe. Music does fit with surfing, but the good thing was that they didn’t play it when the surfers were up and riding.
Who won? It was a guy living in Australia and representing Japan who had an Irish-sounding name and he brought off a perfect 10 with a magnificent ride in his semifinal win. But his name escapes me for now, and I don’t think it needs looking up, for that is not the point. I just know it wasn’t Shaun Tomson, who we all rooted for all those years ago at the Gunston.