Springboks successfully swimming with sharks

Swimming with sharks is a dangerous pastime, yet it can be done.

The most important requirement to swim with sharks is experience. Doing it regularly sees your senses heightened, your awareness elevated, and you learn to read the behaviour of these ocean predators.

Similarly for Heyneke Meyer’s charges, if they are going to play with ball in-hand they need to do it regularly.

You can’t circumspectly dip your toe in the cold water and brave it now and then, you need to be gung-ho about it, confident that you will survive and go all out.

For a coach with conservatism in every fibre of his being it must be a truly scary thing to ask his team to go full-tilt at tough opposition, and yet it is a necessary evolution that the Springboks have to embrace.

Against Australia at Newlands, the Springboks decided to embrace the cold, shark-infested waters and Kamikaze into the cauldron.

It wasn’t pretty for much of the game, and it certainly wasn’t error-free, but it was gripping, tense and grabbed your attention for 80 minutes.

It was tough as well, Australia’s forwards decided to embrace a physicality seldom seen by the men from Down Under. It is hard to levy much criticism at the Wallaby pack as they were competitive in the lineout, superb in the scrums and very effective at the breakdown.

If I had to single out players in the Wallaby pack it would be to James Slipper, and the much-maligned Wallaby back row. Scott Fardy looked like his 2013 version, Ben McCalman like he belonged in the Test arena and Michael Hooper, well let’s just say the man is industrious and gives his all for 80 minutes every Test match.

The two aspects that struck me most in the first half of this match was the unwavering commitment by the Boks to play rugby. Not once did they opt for a kick at goal; there was a commitment to attack the line for 40 minutes.

There were plenty of errors by the Springboks, handling errors, poor passes, times where they had players isolated, times when the forwards didn’t get to the breakdown, and times when the Wallabies managed to counter-ruck and get their hands on the ball for turnovers.

The Wallabies countered from these turnovers only to be stopped by resolute line defence or cover defence in which Francois Hougaard looked like a one-man army.

Both teams managed to maintain multi-phases of attack, but both teams’ defence was admirable, even if at times the breakdowns were a bit of a free-for-all as Nigel Owens decided both teams were there to create a spectacle and he was not going to be the one to spoil it.

In the true spirit of modern rugby both teams seemed to adjust well to the interpretation of Owens at the breakdown.

Tevita Kuridrani was immense, granted the Springboks at times went too high into the tackle, but regardless of their defensive technique, Kuridrani looked like a man possessed, intent on accelerating into every hit with everything he could muster. Adam Ashley-Cooper looked effective with ball in hand, but sadly Israel Folau is now a marked man, and with less space available he was shut down.

Jan Serfontein ran like a crash-test dummy being paid for every collision he could muster and Willie le Roux became the sole playmaker, something that tactically is not the best use of his talents.

Watching Handre Pollard missing one touch kick after another fooled me into believing Morne Steyn was on the field of play, and I wondered how slow you had to be on the uptake to continue making the same mistake over and over.

The two teams were at a stalemate midway through the second half, trading tackles, hits, breakdowns and field position with wave upon wave of attack. I suspected this would be the match in the Rugby Championship with the most minutes of actual play.

There were very few breaks in play, but a handful of scrums and not all that many lineouts. I cannot recall another match in recent times with so many multi-phases of play and the credit should go to both teams. They showed patience in attack, something the Springboks aren’t really known for.

The Springboks managed more penetration in these multi-phases though, their progress up the field was served like a slow poison as the second half went on, and by the time the substitutions started to come on, this poison turned into something best referred to as a prison break.

It was ultimately the change in pace on attack, the width afforded to South Africa via Cobus Reinach, Patrick Lambie and warhorse Schalk Burger coming on, that made the difference.

All of a sudden le Roux came alive as he gained that extra metre of space to move in, Serfontein found the line breaks, and Hendricks had barn doors to run through.

It took 70 minutes before Meyer’s men were rewarded, 70 minutes of trading punches against an Australian team who played their best match of the Championship.

In the first 70 minutes the match was up for grabs, it was anyone’s game and I know how heart breaking it is to be a Wallaby supporter this weekend, as South Africa had enough of those last minute disappointments this season.

And to them I can only offer my commiserations, but to Heyneke Meyer I want to say, as I said last year after the Ellispark Test, you have dipped your toe into the shark-infested waters, now you need the conviction of your own beliefs to keep it there, do not lose faith and pull it out again.

If we want to become the best team in the world the only way we will get there is to play this way every match, getting our players’ awareness and senses in tune and in peak condition, it has to become second nature, otherwise we will continue to fail in execution and not reach the pinnacle of our abilities.