The terrible Test tenure of Allister Coetzee: The aura of acceptable loss and player-blame

Allister Coetzee blames his players after each loss. His Springbok team has lost five of the nine Tests played under his leadership. Several of the wins were lucky, to say the least. Each time, he uses the same explanations for the team’s poor performance.

“Execution.” Then, he mentions how he just got the job. He usually singles out a few players’ specific errors. If JP Pieterson, a player Coetzee brought back into the team to defuse bombs, drops a ball and England scores, this will be mentioned in the post-game press conference, as if this explains the first loss in a decade to a rival. If the kicking is poor, he’ll mention that, even if it was he who fielded three left-footed kickers and the Irish kicked to the Boks’ left corner. He looks calm after losses. He looks OK. He looks as if he is not upset. He ends with something about how the players believe in the new direction he is taking, that the scrum was good, and that the Boks still have an ‘aura.’

A leaky sieve aura, maybe. An aura of matador defence. An aura of letting in first phase tries.

Not once has the coach dubbed Kootchie Koo by Roarer RobC faulted his own game plan or failure to motivate excellence, particularly in the surest sign of good coaching there is in rugby: preventing tries.

The Boks have allowed 31 Test tries in 2016, or almost three-and-a-half per Test. This generosity has meant that every opponent has rather enjoyed playing Kootchie Koo’s Boks.

Yes, Kootchie Koo has faced quality opposition: Ireland (3), New Zealand (2), Australia (2), Argentina (2), and England once. No cupcakes there.

But his defensive systems have looked so amateurish, and progressively so. Or regressively. I’m not sure. Last week, the English looked surprised to be running in fields of gold, with several seconds to decide which support runner to feed for untouched tries.

The average scoreline during the Toetie Tenure is: South Africa 21, Opponent 28.

He has presided over the first home loss to Ireland, the first ever loss in Argentina, and the worst ever loss to the All Blacks.

Pieter de Villiers was roundly mocked for his press conferences, but he had five of those after he’d beaten the All Blacks. Has Coetzee looked, on any level, to have the secret of beating the All Blacks? Now or ever?

After the no-card no-fight no-punch Boklings let the All Blacks score nine tries in Durban with nary a whimper, the powers-that-be in South Africa tried to help Coetzee out, by holding an indaba, a conference.

The best and brightest rugby minds gathered, except a dozen of them were abroad or were not invited, including the defensive coach who helped Coetzee’s Stormers team lead Super Rugby year after year in the fewest tries conceded.

They concluded that the Boks’ big deficits were in skills, defence, and kicking. Coaches were added to Coetzee’s team in those areas.

Nothing was said about slowing opposition ball, winning the breakdown battle, first-man-off-ruck tackle scheme, contesting lineouts and counterattack after turnovers.

Richie Gray, who was Heyneke Meyer’s breakdown guru and had over ten of the Boks competing for the ball on the deck, is long gone.

But Coetzee is still here. And somehow, nobody at SARU seems concerned about Coetzee becoming perhaps the worst Bok coach since the 90s in win-loss, world ranking, and succession plan.

What does he want to do? How does he want to play? Willie le Roux is picked, dropped, and recalled; despite no evidence of confidence or form. His flyhalves kick too much or kick too little. He seems to want to play through nine (he was a scrumhalf), but picks very poor kickers. Does he want to transform the Boks? Well, picking Beast Mtawarira and Pieterson isn’t exactly a big breakthrough; didn’t they break through three coaches ago? Oupa Mohoje was a Meyer project.

What about the attitude of the Boklings? Coetzee’s lack of fire seems perfectly reflected by the mildness of his skipper, the retiring Adriaan Strauss, who has played two good games out of nine, and doesn’t seem to forage with any urgency, perhaps thinking of his health in 2017.

Even the few truly world-class players in his squad (Eben Etzebeth, Pieter-Steph du Toit, Pat Lambie, Bryan Habana, and Francois Louw) seem to losing their form under Coetzee, not gaining any quality or motivation.

Does anyone really want to hear Coetzee talking about his scrum? There were seven scrums at Twickenham. Yes, the Boks pushed the English back. Then the referee did not penalise the crumpling Poms and just watched the Boks’ inept attack waste the ball with inaccurate box kicks by Rudy Paige and tackled-into-touch wings pushed to the side by le Roux and his predictable hop-skip-pass.

There were 200 rucks, seven scrums. Eddie Jones prepared for the rucks. The English rucks were clean, tidy, and brutal. The Boks’ scrums were good.

In the Rugby Championship, the Boks only scored seven tries (just a little over one per Test match). They generated only three clean breaks per game; the worst of the four SANZAAR teams at CB/C (clean breaks per carry).

Somehow, Coetzee has managed to turn the twin menace of Etzebeth and du Toit, who stole dozens of lineouts in Super Rugby into non-jumping tackle bags.

Why are we surprised?

Coetzee was a head coach a few times before he led the Stormers (South Africa U23, South Africa “A” and the Mighty Elephants): never with distinction.

It was only as assistant to Jake White that he had real success.

Then, from 2008 to 2013, he created a power-defence set-piece team in Cape Town. There were good years (a lost final in 2010) but it always ended the same: in the knockout games, the Stormers couldn’t defend or score tries. His last game was symbolic: a 39-19 blowout loss to the Brumbies, at home.

But even his Stormers could play 10-man rugby most of the time.

The Boks tried it at Twickenham and could not master Bok basics, things baked into Bok DNA:
– win collisions
– slick set-piece
– pinpoint kicks
– smash tackles
– convert chances

So, what is the next excuse, Kootchie Koo?

Is Italy about to get a “first?”

We all know what the post-game excuses will be.