Another day, another Springbok victory, and another occasion where there are those who want to begrudge the South Africans their success on the grounds that they are uncomfortable with the way they deploy their bench.
It wasn’t so much New Zealanders that were getting hot under the collar about the way that the so-called Bomb Squad swung the Castle Lager Rugby Championship game the Bok way in an Emirates Airlines Park epic. Former All Black wing Jeff Wilson, speaking on Breakdown, had the right attitude: “Shouldn’t we be working on something like that ourselves to combat it?”
The answer he was given by the people in the studio with him is that New Zealand just doesn’t have that kind of depth available right now. While the Boks are able to select from players based all over the world, the All Blacks are selected only from players based inside New Zealand. Which is why for instance, Brodie Retallick, who in my view is a player the Kiwis miss a lot, is not playing.
But that’s in New Zealand’s hands. They can change their selection policy if they want to. I was a critic when South Africa changed their policy and took away all barriers to selecting overseas based players, and still am in the sense that I don’t believe uncapped players should be selected from the foreign leagues. There should be some kind of qualification stipulation that at least keeps the young stars in the country initially.
But there has been a positive spinoff from the selection policy, in the sense that other players have been given opportunities at franchise level they might not otherwise have got. South African rugby is at an all time high when it comes to depth, and Rassie Erasmus could probably in some positions go to his sixth or seventh ranked player and the Boks will still be okay.
QUALITY OF JOBURG GAME BELIED THE CONCERNS
The critics of the Bomb Squad come not from New Zealand, but from the pages and comments sections of some of the UK newspapers I read. “It’s killing rugby”, “It was a good game but I have concerns about the future of rugby…”, “The fatigue element has been taken out of the game.”
Those last two comments in particular need taking issue with. If there are concerns about rugby, it should be about the way the TMO interventions are slowing down the game and dragging it out. If the fatigue element is being taken out of the game, that is the reason. Teams can regroup and catch their breath in the inordinate amount of time TMOs and referees take to make up their minds about the video replays that get played over and over.
And of course, if there’s a concern over the future of rugby, those dratted red and yellow cards play a big part. Too many big games are ruined by red cards, there’s too much talk about the impact any kind of card might have had on the momentum of the game and the end result. That is something the Kiwis were talking about post Ellis Park, although they’d conveniently forgotten that when they scored their first try and established their initial dominance, Aphelele Fassi was off the field due to a yellow card.
It is not the Bomb Squad, or to be more particular, the eight players allowed on the bench, that is killing rugby. On the contrary, far from rugby being under threat as it is being played currently, I’d argue the opposite - it is in rude health. Just ask the more than 60 000 people who shared in the vibrant occasion that was the Ellis Park game.
It was a game for the ages too, played with incredibly high tempo. And there have been a few of those in the last year. The two Rugby World Cup finals in France were universally hailed as perhaps the best games of rugby ever. The final wasn’t far off that level either. The top four teams in world rugby - South Africa, New Zealand, Ireland and France - produce some sublime, pulsating and highly entertaining rugby when matched against each other.
MALLETT AND MAC PIONEERED IMPACT BENCH
And when it comes to the Bomb Squad, the concept of an impact squad is hardly new. It was a different era and a different time, and there weren’t quite as many players on the bench, but it was two South African coaches, the late Ian McIntosh at provincial level with the Sharks and Nick Mallett at international level with the Boks, who pioneered it. Remember how Mallett got so much out of Ollie le Roux and Bob Skinstad, and Franco Smith too, as bench players in the 1998 Tri-Nations. It was his deployment of his bench that led to the great comeback win that year over New Zealand in Durban, where the Boks trailed 23-5 going into the last quarter and won the game.
Mallett’s policy was praised, he was seen as innovative. Perhaps it was because it was X-factor players that were being added, and not brutish forwards, that the reaction was different. The reason there has been less complaint from Kiwis is also maybe because they have longer rugby memories than most, and recall how the 2013 Championship decider in Johannesburg was effectively decided by the introduction of some game changing X-factor players from the New Zealand bench in the last quarter, in particular Beauden Barrett.
Barrett coming off the bench by the way was also the game changer for New Zealand in the second test of their recent series against England. Who complained about that? Having 23 players in a squad, with eight playing off the bench, gives coaches options that have the potential to improve the whole spectacle.
EDDIE WAS RIGHT
Eddie Jones, then coaching England, made headlines in the 2019 World Cup in Japan when he took on someone from the English media who was taking issue with him selecting one of the better players on the bench, and not in the starting team.
“Mate, welcome to the modern world, rugby is not played by teams of 15 players anymore, but squads of 23,” came Eddie’s response.
Some of my fellow journo colleagues did the usual anti-Eddie thing, but I completely understood where he was coming from. There isn’t the distinction in level of importance between players on the bench and in the starting team that there used to be.
Some of the Bok bench players this past weekend may have had an advantage in both ability and experience on players who started. That though was a risk Rassie Erasmus was prepared to take. It could have backfired, like it did last time the All Blacks were in Johannesburg, when Joseph Dweba started ahead of the previous week’s man of the match, Malcolm Marx.
On that topic, here is something interesting - the Bok/All Black confrontations in recent years have tended to be close, but the two that have been won by the Boks by a big margin, meaning Mbombela in 2022 and at Twickenham last year, have been the two games that featured Marx in the starting team.
Playing Marx off the bench is done with a reason by Erasmus, and there is an element of risk that he is prepared to take. The point being that it is up to him how he deploys his players, in the starting team or members of the impact squad (which is really what the bench should be called these days).
The other nations are not prohibited from doing what the Boks do. Let’s see how New Zealand responds to what happened at Ellis Park. They can go to a six: two split between forwards and backs to combat the Boks if they want to. Likewise they can elect to play Beauden Barrett off the bench to potentially maximise his impact. If they want to.
It isn’t the Boks’ fault that they have more forward depth than anyone else. It is up to other teams to catch up. The narrative of what impact the bench might have has become part of rugby everywhere, and it is nothing to be concerned about. It just means the sport has evolved.