SPIRO: Win at Ellis Park against the Boks, win anywhere

Heyneke Meyer, the intense Springboks coach, talked up the positives after the 27-20 loss his side suffered at the hands and feet of a resilient, occasionally brilliant All Blacks side at Ellis Park.

But there is a large element of whistling in the dark with Meyer’s optimistic take on the defeat. The defeat at Ellis Park is a massive setback for the Springboks’ hopes of winning the 2015 Rugby World Cup tournament.

The Springboks should rarely, if ever, lose at Ellis Park – the 62,000 crowd there is among the most intimidating in world rugby.

I should qualify perhaps with the insight given to me by Gerald Kember a day or so ago, when he told me that when he played there as a Beauden Barrett-type of five-eighth/fullback for the All Blacks in 1970, he was thrilled and excited by the challenge of the roaring crowd.

I noticed, too, that feisty All Blacks halfback Aaron Smith was so excited amid the din and tumult of the crowd that he actually did a little Catherine-wheel flip of pleasure as the players galloped out on to the grass after the daunting and tricky (in studs) walk down corridors and steep steps to the playing arena.

Even if the intimidation factor might now work against the opposition, the fervour of the Ellis Park crowd clearly charges up the Springboks. You could see this during the playing and the singing of the anthem, especially when the Afrikaans part of it was being sung. Heads were back, eyes were closed, and many of the players were virtually crying with the emotion of the moment.

Again, a qualifier needs to be made here. It was a stupid piece of grandstanding by the Minister for Sport to bring back the tradition of an important dignitary shaking hands with the sides before the anthems were sung. I don’t know what emotions Springboks captain Shalk Burger experienced when the Minister shook his hand and fervently told him, “Love you.”

There is no doubt, though, despite all these distractions, that Ellis Park is the accepted spiritual home of South African rugby. Like its New Zealand equivalent, Eden Park, Ellis Park has seen a home side win the Rugby World Cup. It is the venue that SARU schedules Tests that have to be won.

The degree of difficulty of winning for visiting teams is enhanced by the fact that Johannesburg is on the high veldt. Visitors find their lungs searing with pain minutes into the game, and adjusting to this pain and keeping steady legs, hands and minds has been a difficult task for visiting teams, including the All Blacks, over the decades.

Interestingly, the 1928 All Blacks, who squared their series with the Springboks, won their Ellis Park Test. But up to last Saturday, the Springboks had won nine Ellis Park Tests to the All Blacks’ four. Some statistician could confirm this, but the new ratio of nine lost and five won must be one of the All Blacks’ worst records at any ground.

The truth for the All Blacks as far as the 2015 Rugby World Cup tournament is concerned is that if they can win at Ellis Park, they can win anywhere, and against any team.

And the mirror image of this contention is this: if you lose at home, especially at a fortress ground, your chances of winning away from home against strong opponents are greatly diminished.

This rather forthright viewpoint is supported by one of the leading South African rugby writers, the controversial Mark Keohane.

Writing in the Business Day newspaper, Keohane insisted that, “Heyneke Meyer should not be taking any positives from a home defeat to the All Blacks…

“Meyer spoke of winning Test matches, being successful 80 per cent of the time, and going to the World Cup with a winning habit… The Boks have lost four of their last six Tests, against Ireland, Wales, Australia and the All Blacks respectively… The trend at Ellis Park against the All Blacks has been too familiar. The Boks play with passion and lead for an hour and then aren’t in the contest in the final 10 minutes…

“I couldn’t believe Meyer’s cliché-driven statements of pride and belief and the game being one of millimetres. I’d have preferred the honesty of him calling the result for what it was – not good enough and potentially damaging to any World Cup-winning ambitions.”

An interesting statistic concerning the All Blacks’ incredible run of winning results – with only two defeats since the 2011 Rugby World Cup tournament – is that in the last 20 of these Tests, only six wins have been by 10 points or more.

Steve Hansen’s take on this, and on the close Ellis Park result, is interesting: “It’s not the first time we’ve won a tight match … Every time we’ve done it, they grow an arm and a leg because of it.”

The more you win, especially the tight away Tests, the more likely a team is to continue its winning trend.

We come now to the controversy over the Richie McCaw try.

Brendan Nel, another feisty South African rugby writer, has started a massive controversy over the legality of the move. His main points are that Kieran Read was lifted before the throw and that McCaw, at the halfback position, was not back the required two metres from the lineout for someone being eligible to join it.

He has been backed up by Jonathan Kaplan, the former Test referee, who runs a refereeing blog.

I will make this point that the blog tends to serve the interests of South African rugby, which Kaplan is perfectly entitled to do.

Earlier in the year, for instance, just before the Crusaders began their South African matches, and after their scrum had pulverised a South African side, Kaplan ran a scathing article about how, in his opinion, Wyatt Crockett, a key member of the Crusaders front row, scrummed illegally. Needless to say, Kaplan’s referees’ alert on Crockett encouraged the Crusaders to hold him back until their second tour match.

As I say, Kaplan is entitled to express his opinions. But we don’t have to accept them, even though he has been a Test referee, and I remain sceptical about the Nel/Kaplan attack on the McCaw try.

From the photos I’ve seen of the incident, Read is in the air after or as the ball leaves Codie Taylor’s hand. McCaw, too, seems to be coming from a long way back (two metres or so) to race into the gap in the lineout, also after the ball is slowly lobbed forward.

Speaking on South Africa’s SuperSport channel, former Springboks coach Nick Mallett – who led the Boks to 17 straight victories, including one over the All Blacks in New Zealand – hailed the move.

“It was brilliant,” he said. “They are the most innovative team in the world. We’ve never seen that and we didn’t know how to defend against it.”

And this is the point. The Springboks were leaden footed and even more leaden in their reaction. If the move is pulled off again, the All Blacks will ensure that all the requirements of the law are met. But will the Springboks be ready to counter any new move pulled off by the All Blacks?

The McCaw try came late in the Test. The Springboks were also caught short in reacting to an All Blacks ploy at their first lineout in the match.

The Springboks won the lineout, moved the ball to the back and started a maul. The All Blacks, however, had pulled back. No contact was made. Tony Woodcock ran around and tackled the Springbok with the ball. This stopped the maul and stopped further mauling until the second half when, in danger of winning of the Test by open-running play, the Springboks retreated into their laager, with a mauling and kicking game.

Typically, too, the South African commentators, including a one-eyed Bobby Skinstad, had no clue about what had happened. They accused the touch judge, who was metres away from the lineout, and the referee of not knowing the laws.

What Woodcock did, of course, was legal and an early example of how the All Blacks react quickly to what happens on the field, in contrast to the Springboks who seem to be slow and too obvious with their tactics.

There is an Australian context to all of this. In 10 days or so, the Wallabies are playing the first Bledisloe Cup and deciding Rugby Championship Test against the All Blacks at Sydney’s ANZ Stadium.

The last time the Wallabies beat the All Blacks in Australia was at Suncorp Stadium in 2011.

Coach Michael Cheika, rightly, makes the point that a win for the Wallabies will provide a good pointer to their 2015 Rugby World Cup ambitions. Beating the Springboks this year at Suncorp Stadium and the Pumas, even more convincingly at their fortress at Mendoza, are a good start.

“We know where the All Blacks are and it’s a long stretch for us to get up there but we want our people to be proud of us,” Cheika told Fairfax Media.

Winning away from home is extremely important. But winning at home, not matter who the opponent is, is absolutely crucial in establishing the habit of winning.