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During the past two years, the Springboks have come into each of their Tests with a new ploy to match the specific occasion. Against the British and Irish Lions last year, they disrupted the tourists scrum so effectively that they got off to a strong lead, which created the series win in the end.
In other Tests against the All Blacks and the Wallabies they’ve had lineout drives from inside their own half, or terrific plays from scrums inside the opposition’s 22. Or on one disastrous occasion for the Wallabies, they targeted Timana Tahu, and scored four tries on his side of the defensive wall.
At Eden Park, I was looking for the ploy. It never came.
Perhaps the ploy was to drop kick the All Blacks into defeat. Morne Steyn has kicked 5 dropped goals in15 Tests compared with Dan Carter’s two in his long career.
From the way Peter de Villiers and John Smit are talking, we can expect more of the same as at Eden Park at Wellington on Saturday night. Smit thinks that what went wrong against the All Blacks was that the Springboks were not mentally alert.
Nothing wrong with the tactics of kicking the ball away most of the time. Just that they didn’t ‘fetch’ the ball from their kicks.
I must say that I was surprised the Springboks did not take the catcher out with false jumping all over him at Eden Park. Bryan Habana usually does this, but the tactic (illegal of course) was not used.
Presumably, it will be brought back for Wellington.
The Springboks team with only two changes, CJ van der Linde at tight head prop and Danie Roussow to replace the disgraced Bakkies Botha, suggests that coach de Villiers is happy enough with his personnel.
This, in turn, suggests he is happy with the game plan, too, such as it was, at Eden Park.
Now that Botha has been sent back to South Africa, the question arises who will be the Springb0ks enforcer. The tactic of taking out important opposition players very earlier on in a Test remained the one constant at Eden Park.
Victor Matfield (an elbow to the head of Byron Kelleher) and Shalk Burger (eye-gouging against the Lions) are two possibilities for the enforcer role who have some form with this tactic.
Looking back on the Eden Park debacle, it is obvious that Fourie du Preez was the power of one in the Springboks side.
Du Preez is one of the great players in the history of rugby. He provides the Springboks with most of their running attacks with his devastating running from the scrums. His defence against kicks in uncanny.
His own kick and chase invariably puts pressure on opponents.
But the shrewdness and expertise of his passing is the real key to his and the Springboks game. While he is switching the attack and picking out the correct runner to pass to, the Springboks game plan becomes a thing of beauty in its variety and effectiveness.
But without him, the Springboks game becomes as predictable as the temper trantrums of their senior forwards.
On Saturday at windy Wellington the Springboks have the chance to redeem their game plan and their chances of retaining the Tri-Nations trophy.
Will they do this by coming up with something new? Somehow, without the genius of du Preez, I doubt it.
I hope I’m wrong but I think the traditional ‘might is right’ tactics might be the way a team that should be better than this will go.