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Heyneke Meyer was a very good club coach, transforming the Blue Bulls. He was an average Test-level coach, failing to transform the Springboks.
Meyer’s reputation was forged by winning.
When he arrived at the Bulls in 2001, they were a weak, underperforming squad; stuck in the amateurish methods of South African Defence Force and the University of Pretoria rugby, and populated by ageing players from the 1995 World Cup.
Gym habits were sporadic. Senior players ruled the youngsters in an unhealthy way.
Meyer cut 11 old Boks from the Bulls, and lowered salaries even for a superstar like Joost van der Westhuizen. He used the money to boost recruitment of younger, hungrier professionals. The average age of the Bulls dropped from 29 to 23.
He was innovative in that he coordinated a team of coaching specialists; at that time, a head coach was traditionally much more of a micromanager. He was a pioneer in the field of having dedicated experts in targeted fields of rugby.
He was able to turn them around – when he left, the Bulls were a strong sport business. The best things he did were to develop a sustainable system of talent identification, a clearly defined style of play, and team camaraderie with confident players. He built a machine; players were cogs, but they were happy, successful cogs.
The CEO of the Bulls had total faith in Meyer, and Meyer ended up hiring the son of that CEO to be his attack-forward coach at the Boks.
Yet his methods did not work at the national level. Why not?
Could it be that he departed from the very principles he was known for at the Bulls? Did he realise, in honest moments, that he was up against superior Test-level coaches, and instead of backing himself and the younger, hungrier players in South Africa – who have every bit the speed, power, talent, and creativity of their Kiwi and Aussie rivals – he became the un-Meyer?
Did he manage his anxiety by reversing the very process he used to reform the Bulls? There is evidence of this regression. It happens to people promoted over their level of competency.
Did he lack control? At the Bulls, Meyer recruited schoolboys and taught them everything. He did not have to explain himself to diverse players; most of them were from his own culture.
Biltongbek, RobC and I described his overcompartmentalised mindset in a previous article. Biltongbek also noted how Meyer’s first two years were marked by constant progression, but then calamitously fell to Ireland and Wales, then Argentina at home, and finally Japan at Brighton. Along the way, he managed to lose seven times to his good friend Steve Hansen, even if several of those losses were achingly close.
Most would agree with Hansen: Meyer is a likable man. He wears his emotions on his gold-trimmed sleeves, and is a gracious loser as well as a magnanimous winner. Players like him.
His bright spots were how well his Boks did against England, and how he turned around the South Africa-Australia ledger, which had become grim reading while Robbie Deans was competing against Pieter de Villiers.
That was not enough, of course. Meyer showed his limitations in 2014 and 2015. A Bok coach cannot lose to Argentina at home, and then lose to Japan in a World Cup, and keep his job. Maybe even one of those should be a disqualifier.
In addition, he didn’t transform the Boks in the way demanded by current politics. A Springbok coach has the most complex challenges in the sport; even more than the head man for England or the All Blacks, which are incredibly demanding jobs. But Meyer knew that, and the only new young black player he gave consistent game time to was Trevor Nyakane.
As a Stormers fan, I was not that happy when Meyer got the job in the first place, because I feared our national team would be the Bullboks; brawny, but not brainy, and too easily beaten by the higher echelon Test coaches.
But to be fair, Meyer was not as Bull-centric in his player selections as I feared. The front row seldom featured Bulls, and Stormers and ex-Stormers gone overseas were the loose forward stalwarts. He replaced an old Bull flyhalf with a very young Bull pivot, but the backline was usually drawn from an assortment of domestic clubs and overseas stars.
His wistful memories of Bull glory days showed up the best in his scrumhalf decisions. He simply did not groom a fleet-footed, attacking 9. He made do with Ruan Pienaar, but he pined for Fourie du Preez. Of course du Preez at his prime was world class, maybe even the best for a few seasons. With du Preez at the helm, the Bulls were a difficult team to beat.
Maybe Meyer never saw du Preez as old. He coached du Preez when the now grizzled veteran was 19; he found him at Afrikaanse Hoër Seunskool in Pretoria. In the end, du Preez got Meyer to the one game that might have saved him: a World Cup semi-final against the All Blacks, which could have gone the beleaguered coach’s way but for a dubious Richie McCaw pass, a tough whistle on Victor Matfield, and a serious rain shower.
I do find it funny, though, when Meyer calls du Preez a “genius”. On the (beautiful) play that knocked Wales out, du Preez told UK journalists about his secret call: “I just shouted: Duane, gaan links!”
For the non-Saffa, that means ‘go left’.
In the semi-final, though, du Preez could not seize the game from Dan Carter, who kicked the Boks into oblivion. Meyer lost and now he has lost the job he wanted so much.
Meyer fielded a fit team; the Boks at the 2015 World Cup were not fatigued at the end of their knockout games. They took Wales into deep water, and knew they could outlast them. Against New Zealand, the All Blacks could not score in the last 20 minutes.
But it was all very unimaginative by the end.
While he has no-one to blame but himself, in private moments he may curse the provincial unions.
Running the show with these unions biting your ankles reminds me of the scene in Braveheart where Robert the Bruce explains to a naïve William Wallace the byzantine machinations he must make every day to win temporary loyalty.
In extremely quiet and totally safe environments, Meyer may fault his political overlords. They gave him very little to work with by way of qualified non-white Test players.
There are about 40 or so serious rugby schools in South Africa that produce the vast majority of Springboks. Craven Week tends to sort some of the talent, and to a lesser degree the Varsity Cup, but by 17 or 18, most of the top talent is already spoken for by Currie Cup teams, and is on the production line.
Meyer was not pulling the levers of those rugby factories. SARU has never put enough income into funding a development campaign in areas where there is abundant black rugby talent. SARU cuts funding regularly to black high-performance academies, and then blamed Meyer.
The importance of a systematic overhaul of rugby development is obvious, but Meyer could not work that miracle. Still, he could have done more, in the first two years of his tenure, so that by the time the World Cup came he might have had a heavily capped link man, Nizaam Carr, able to do what Schalk Burger was trying to do. Or Rudy Paige could have been tormenting the All Blacks with clever kicks and snipes.
In all likelihood, former Stormers coach Allister Coetzee will replace Meyer. Coetzee’s Stormers have often fielded ten or more non-white players in their game-day squads. In fact, it is not even something the Stormers have to worry about. They can easily meet targets the rest of the unions and the Test team cannot seem to hit.
But Coetzee may be even more traditional in his approach than Meyer.
It’s not a grand time to be a South African rugby fan, with the Kings in dire financial straits, about 400 good Saffa players abroad (and probably at least 100 of them Super Rugby-starter calibre), and no prospect of fundamental change in a corrupt government.
We will hope that Coetzee’s time in Japan has opened his horizons to attack-minded rugby. But one thing is for sure, he will field a team that reflects the South African rainbow demography better than Meyer, and if his Stormer teams are any indication, Bok rugby will be as physically imposing as ever.
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.