Are the South African Super Rugby teams improving in 2016?

After years of mediocre showings by the South African teams in Super Rugby, the 2016 season has been under the microscope here in the Republic and there seems to be one question hanging on everyone’s lips: Have the South African teams learned from their mistakes in 2016?

From a statistical point of view, the answer would be no. On face value, the current season for the South African teams is pretty much on par with the seasons of the recent past. You need only look at the results of all the respective teams so far; the performances against New Zealand teams in general are genuinely worrying, despite the fact that only half our teams are playing against them this year.

There are only two wins against the New Zealand teams so far – the Lions beating the highly impressive Chiefs at home in Round 2 and the Sharks beating the red carded Highlanders last week – but other than that, it’s been business as usual. The Lions lost handsomely against the Highlanders in Round 3 and then fell against an ever-improving Crusaders team at home some weeks later. The Lions look to be the best team in both of the African groups and not even they hold a winning percentage against the New Zealand Conference as of yet.

The other thing that remains business as usual is that the South African teams are still holding their own against the Australian Conference. As of yet, they have four wins out of six games against Australian teams. The only losses belong to the Cheetahs, who were thumped by both the Brumbies and the Rebels; both of whom are the top teams of their Conference.

The Bulls and the Stormers – the top two teams in Africa 1 – are unbeaten against Australian teams. The Bulls have beaten both the Reds and the Rebels handsomely at Loftus Versfeld and now face the Western Force in the first game of their tour. Meanwhile, the Stormers beat the top Australian team, the Brumbies, by 20 points at Newlands and then dismissed the Reds by 18 points at the same venue last weekend.

Now this is only halfway through the season, but those results look good. The South Africans are in prime position to emulate the 2015 season by completing a winning run against the Australian teams in terms of head-to-head encounters. That much is commendable, but the dour record against the New Zealand teams will leave many a South African supporter scratching their heads at history repeating itself.

All that said, results aren’t what this article is about. What this article is actually about is whether South African Rugby has successfully exorcised the demons of 2015 in terms of their style of play.

Let me start by first making something abundantly clear: I am in no way predicting a “golden dawn for South African teams” – that is a trap that many a Roarer has fallen into whenever there are signs of improvement.

In fact, the second point that I will stress is that we will see no improvement in results for all South African teams this year. I believe that no South African team is capable of winning this year’s edition of Super Rugby and neither do I believe that the Springboks will win The Rugby Championship – not from what I’ve seen so far.

That doesn’t mean, however, that there is nothing to be happy about. A fellow Roarer made a comment in one of the live feeds of the previous weekend saying that a certain South African team – the Stormers to be exact – have a “boring smash and bash game plan” and that no skilful team should be able to lose to them. This was against the Reds.

As a Stormers supporter, I can honestly say that my team’s performance last weekend was somewhat appalling and yet, strangely sweet. They made elementary errors in their exit strategy, and to make matters worse, they knocked the ball on like amateurs instead of catching it like professionals.

But the most satisfying aspect of this game from a Stormers supporter is the fact that – according to Vodacom Rugby Stats – they still managed more tries, metres made, passes and offloads than an improving Reds side with relatively equal stats in territory and possession. This also isn’t the first time that they’ve managed this.

One good match does not mean that they have changed their game plan, but throughout the season I have been led to believe that they, along with most other South African sides, have evolved their play; and this includes teams like the Lions and the Bulls.

Traditionally you would find the same thing with every South African team in terms of playing style. In the past it was always considered normal to see a South African team kicking the ball up the field to no end; to see a South African team strangle the opposition with penalties rather than tries; to see a South African team playing the ball to a forward five metres from every ruck; to see a South African team employing box-kick after agonising box-kick. This was the typical South African template.

I see neither happening in this year’s Super Rugby. I don’t see ridiculous amounts of kicking by any South African team, including even the Bulls, and even when they do kick it’s not box-kicks or kicking for the sake of kicking. They kick when they have to, not just because they can. They aren’t playing off nine on every occasion, they are varying the point of attack and so far only the Sharks are relying overly on penalties to win the match. We are seeing South African teams going for the line rather than posts more and more.

I’ll take the Stormers as a simple comparison from last year to this one. So far, the Stormers have kicked out of hand 199 times (Rank 4 of 18), beaten 163 defenders (Rank 6 of 18), offloaded 68 times (Rank 7 of 18), carried the ball 841 times (Rank 8 of 18), scored 22 tries (Rank 8 of 18), made 75 clean breaks (Rank 9 of 18), passed the ball 1106 times (Rank 9 of 18) and have run 3092 metres (Rank 13 of 18).

The Lions’ stats are far more impressive, and that at playing against New Zealand opposition. They have beaten 215 defenders (Rank 1 of 18), carried the ball 924 times (Rank 2 of 18), passed the ball 1216 times (Rank 3 of 18), run 3746 meters (Rank 4 of 18), scored 30 tries (Rank 5 of 18), offloaded the ball 71 times (Rank 6 of 18), made 83 clean breaks (Rank 7 of 18), and have kicked the ball 130 times from hand (Rank 12 of 18).

So the Lions, who are one of the best attacking teams in the competition lead the Stormers by these totals: kicked 69 times less, beaten 52 more defenders, offloaded the ball three times more, carried the ball 83 times more, run 654 more metres, scored eight more tries, broke the line eight times more and passed 110 times more.

The Lions are one of the best attacking teams statistically, while the Stormers range down the higher order of the middle of the table. It doesn’t seem like the Stormers have really changed much on that count, does it? No, but in comparison with their two previous seasons, they have almost doubled most of their attacking stats at the exact same point in the competition.

Now I know that they don’t face New Zealand opposition and I do know that they made quite a number of those stats against the Sunwolves, but there is still a lot of improvement. Take into account the fact that even when they faced everyone in the former format of Super Rugby, they couldn’t make any headway in attacking play even against the poorer teams in the competition.

Another interesting stat is that the Bulls are making more metres (they have made around 3100 metres so far) without passing the ball as much than they have in previous years, coupled with the fact that they make fewer kicks from hand than in the previous two seasons (they currently rank seventh out of 18 teams).

I show these statistics not to try to impress anyone. South African teams are not setting the competition ablaze with fantastic displays of attacking rugby; they are simply trotting around in the middle order. The point is not to say that they are catching up to New Zealand teams as I’ve stated previously that they are still the benchmark of the comp. The point I’m trying to make is that for the first time in years, they are trying to evolve their play.

The Lions are benefitting more than teams like the Stormers, Bulls and Sharks because they have been playing this style of rugby since Johan Ackerman took over as head coach in 2014. It did not come off for them in their first year. In fact, they tended to struggle playing that way in that season. It’s only in last year’s Currie Cup triumph that the style finally came off and they have been carrying that momentum into the new year.

The other teams are trying to strike that balance; it isn’t coming off as of yet, but the effort is shown in the numbers. That is all that we as supporters have been asking for. The only hope now is that they continue with this mind-set and not fall back on old habits when things go pear-shaped.

South Africans will also be hopeful that Allister Coetzee’s Springboks will follow on this. Personally, I wouldn’t mind bad results if there is a genuine intention to evolve and polish the game we play. That might sound like an excuse, but it is far from it.

I want South African Rugby to move forward and if the cost for that is a year of mixed results, then so be it. It can’t get any worse than Japan or Argentina at home.The 2015 Rugby World Cup was a wake-up call for South Africa and now we should be more concerned with adapting than repeating history.

New Zealand still lead the way and I wouldn’t be surprised if either the Crusaders or Chiefs win the tournament, along with the All Blacks winning The Rugby Championship. The South African teams, including the Springboks, won’t set the world on fire; but there is finally reason to believe that we may (may being the core word) be heading in the right direction.