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Pursuit of a championship title cost the Springboks a vital test win against the All Blacks at Ellis Park on the weekend because they abandoned their traditional style of play in pursuit of a holy grail win that was always going to be a bridge too far.
Take nothing away from the All Blacks. They were superb and deserving winners. But this is not a blog about how wonderful the All Blacks are; it’s about how trying to match the All Blacks at their own game is not the way to beat them.
I would go as far to suggest that the All Blacks struck a crippling blow against the Springbok Rugby World Cup hopes this weekend. The Springboks went into the game with belief, and the hollow look in Jean de Villiers eyes after the game said it all – it will take them a long time to come back from this.
A week ago, the Pumas showed the Springboks how to beat the All Blacks. Of course, Argentina does not have the strike power that South Africa possess, and hence the Pumas weren’t able to capitalise on their set piece dominance.
Bryan Habana, South Africa’s primary strike weapon, was also obviously a key player in the Springbok game plan at Ellis Park; and when he retired injured, the Springboks seemed to lose their way a little.
In my view, set pieces are like aircraft carriers. You use them as staging points to set-up your air strikes. You don’t strike from way behind your own lines – unless you have the fuel and the weaponry to do so. The Springboks have strike power which can be used from anywhere on the field – as they showed – but which is not necessarily suited for it.
Several factors played in to the All Blacks hands:
1. The Springboks did not attack with the maul often enough. Yes, the few attempts they made were undone by the All Blacks, but not without warnings from the referee about infringing. Inexplicably, after just a three or four such attacks, they seemed to abandon it.
2. They did not make enough of their superiority in the scrum by turning it into an attack weapon, although the arrival of Adriaan Strauss nullified this advantage to an extent.
3. The substitution of the du Plessis brothers at a crucial moment was mind boggling. The substitutes – as good as Adriaan Strauss is – were not as hungry or fired up as the du Plessis brothers were, particularly in the moment of substitution. Strauss is not the scrummager that Bismarck du Plessis is.
5. The conditioning of the Springboks were simply not up to the running game they tried to play. You do not abandon a structured, slower style of game without paying for it with different stresses and demands on your body and on your defensive structure.
As a result, the Springboks started making errors, dropping balls and losing the line-outs towards the end of the game because they were spent – and then the All Blacks stepped up a gear.
6. Morne Steyn had an average game, Fourie du Preez did not deliver to his usual standard and Juandre Kruger was poor, but I would suggest that’s because they ended up having to play to an unfamiliar game plan.
7. The Springboks have been criticised for their defence on Saturday, but an All Black backline in full flight is extremely difficult to counter even when a team is focused on defence and is fresh – the Boks were neither towards the end.
It comes back to a question I posed in a previous blog about which is more important, a test or tournament? The Springboks decided that a tournament trophy was more important than a test win – even though it was always an almost impossible task.
Possibly Springbok coach Heyneke Meyer is listening too much to the strident voices demanding more running rugby. The Ellis Park test would suggest so.
In trying to win the war the Springboks lost the battle and probably suffered a body blow in the overall “conflict”, which is ironic considering that it was Meyer who said that he’d rather take an ugly win over a pretty loss.
I don’t doubt there’s a few Springbok fans out there wishing they’d seen just a little more ugly.
Join The Roar rugby editor Christy Doran, former Wallaby Matt Toomua and a cast of regular and special guests as they look at the biggest issues in the game on The Roar Rugby Podcast. If you’re looking for great odds on the next game check out Aussie bookmaker PlayUp. Chances are you’re about to lose. Set a deposit limit.