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South Africa's Bulls captain Victor Matfield gestures to the fans after winning the semi-final of the Super 14 rugby match against New Zealand Crusaders at the Loftus Versfeld stadium in Pretoria, South Africa, Saturday May 23, 2009. The Bulls defeated the Crusaders 36-23. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe
The Bulls have a drop kick expert in Morne Steyn as he showed with his match-winning four field goals in the semi-final at Pretoria against a clever and brave Crusaders side. But more importantly, they are one of the few teams in international rugby to have a system to exploit Steyn’s talent.
One of the rules regarding a short-arm penalty is that a side cannot kick a penalty or field goal directly from it. There has to be a phase of play before the field goal can be kicked. It has always defied my understanding why sides don’t have a play when close to the opposition posts (or further away in the case of Steyn) to set up a field goal attempt.
The Bulls did this when they were 20 – 14 down after 35 minutes of play. Then they did it again to take the score to 20 – 20.
A man down after Thomas Waldrom was (incorrectly, in my opinion) sinbinned for lying on the wrong side in a maul – what about every ruck and maul that Bakkies Botha is involved in? – the Crusaders made a couple of breakouts and almost scored. A stupid chip kick followed and Pierre Spies took off from about 60m out and the Bulls were in front on the dot of half-time.
This score-line was against the run of play with the Crusaders bombing a handful of try-scoring opportunities.
In the second half they ran out of gas as the Bulls became increasingly rampant with hard, direct and fast running.
The crucial part of the Bulls game, though, was the way they were prepared to accept a three-point field goal when it was available rather than push on for a possible try. In tight finals contests this approach makes sense, if you have a player who can slot the kicks.
Which team do the Bulls resemble in this determination to drop-kick opponents out of games? And which player does Steyn resemble in his ability to slot field goals from any part of the field?
Answer: Sir Clive Woodward’s 2003 Rugby World Cup champions England side. And Jonny Wilkinson.
The point about field goals if the system is well-rehearsed and the kicker is an expert striker of the ball is that they are almost impossible to stop. If sides over-compensate on preventing field goals by rushing forward, as the Crusaders did from time to time, they leave gaps in their defensive lines for good running backs to exploit.
There is always an argument about the value of a field goal at 3 points. Up to the 1950s field goals used to be worth 4 points. This was a throwback to the earliest days of rugby when no points were awarded for crossing the line, which then allowed a side to ‘try’ to score from a goal. As rugby was seen as a kicking game as in ‘rugby football’ there was a tendency to reward kicking in the points system.
A tendency that remains, somewhat as a fossil of past eras, with the 3-point drop goal. It should be 2-points, of course, but no one should expect this to happen soon.
One of the consequences of the short-arm sanctions under the ELVs played in the Super 14 (but revoked for all rugby after next Saturday’s Super 14 final) is that there are fewer full-arm penalties awarded. This, in turn, means in general fewer penalty goals kicked. In this context, under the ELVs, the field goal can become a surrogate penalty goal.
The Chiefs have the kind of game, ball in hand with lots of pace out wide, that could worry the Bulls. But this is a difficult game to play at altitude, especially for sides that are not acclimatised by living on the veldt.
Unfortunately for the Chiefs, too, they may not have Brendon Leonard or apparently Sitiveni Sivivatu. Sivivatu was the difference between the Chiefs and the Hurricanes on Friday night. His broken field running, especially from high balls taken by Mils Muliaina, broke down a strong Hurricanes defensive pattern and led directly to Muliaina’s try that gave the Chiefs the lead.
Unlike the Crusaders, the Chiefs are historically not a good travelling side. They don’t win often in South Africa.
They have to travel from Hamilton to Pretoria this week. Their lineout is a bit shaky. They haven’t played impressively in their last two matches. You’d have to say that the Bulls must be favoured to win the final.
If I were Chiefs coach Ian Foster (a Morne Steyn type of kicking five-eighths in his day) I’d be getting Callum Bruce and Stephen Donald putting in plenty of practice at kicking field goals.
In the altitude of Pretoria, as the Bulls demonstrated against the Crusaders, it’s often the best tactic to kick your way to a victory rather than try to run your way to glory.