Boks need a master tactician
When Heynecke Meyer started out in his tenure as Bok coach he said that he will play every game to win. I do not know what to read in that statement because surely you coach a team to win games. It goes without saying. Right? Why would he make a point of stating the obvious? How can it be that a coach that promised that he would aim to win every match could have been so stagnant after taking over the ranks from two progressive coaches in Jake White and Peter De Villiers? Surely it is not for a lack of trying.
I am of the opinion that to learn the ropes in coaching and what will make you an outstanding coach is to start at grassroots level. Meyer coached a number of clubs before he became an assistant coach at SWD Eagles in 1997. That alone tells me that the man have earned his stripes as a coach. He went on to become the most successful South African Super rugby coach ever.
In short, the man knows his business. That makes it hard to understand that it is so difficult to deal with his troubles of late in getting a quality side to win matches against quality opposition including Argentina. The one match he won against the All Blacks was in Johannesburg last year and that is thanks to a television producer that intervened and showed replays repeatedly on the big screen of a “dangerous tackle” by Liam Messam on Schalk Burger. The on field referee did not see anything into the tackle but on a slow motion replay, such a tackle tend to look amplified as to real speed. The referee referred the incident to the TMO and they adjudicated that a penalty be awarded to the Springboks and Pat Lambie converted a long distance penalty to clinch the match.
As a former club rugby player and having refereed and coached at club level I have seen how club coaches must adapt to conditions and situations on the match day and sometime during a match to get the upper hand, small little adjustments must be made. It is on grassroots where you develop as a coach. You don't have any budget to work with to attract already skilled players. You have to coach the skill and enhance player qualities. You might find yourself playing much stronger opposition and you have to have a carefully planned game plan to starve the opposition of possession. You manoeuvre ways to play away from their strengths and you win games in that way.
This is how Peter De Villiers coached the Springboks. Many might ask how did he do it and why does it seem to be impossible now. He sold the idea to the players and his coaches, got the buy-in and the results showed. At first there was objections but once there was total investment from the players it would be short before the results would show and it did. Sir Graham Henry said on record, "In 2009 they were unstoppable and we (the All Blacks) feared playing them".
In 2007 Jake White acquired the services of Eddie Jones. He is a master tactician in his own right. How brilliant did that work out for the Boks. They were able to read play, attack of first phase play, run intelligent lines and mislead defensive lines. Yes they had players like Victor Matfield, Percy Montgomery, Brian Habana and JP Petersen at their peak. A luxury that Heynecke does not have. The fact remains that we need visionary leadership or a master tactician.
Peter De Villiers was ostracized for all the wrong reasons. Yes some will feel that he was not the best man for the job. Irony is that those same people is now obliviously standing behind Heynecke Meyer and his sometimes questionable selections. The fact is that it is too late for things to change now. Meyer needs help and somehow I don't believe that he will knock on the door of mister De Villiers nor will he ask ‘Jake the Snake’. Asking Eddie Jones or any other foreigner might be a bit too unorthodox to be true. Perhaps the answer is in front of him by the name of Rassie Erasmus.
Time alone will tell if this will be happen but this is our best chance because as it is now Samoa and Scotland poses huge threats and we might not even see the play-offs. Let's hope Mr Meyer wake up and smell the roses before it is too late as the only thing that can save him is the William Webb Ellis trophy with him at OR Tambo airport when the Boks arrive at the airport from the World Cup.
19 Sept 2015: This article was written a month ago and it was saved on my laptop. I never posted this article. At this point I edited and add this last piece to this article. At this point, the Springboks played their first match of the Rugby World Cup 2015 against Japan and lost 32 – 34. History was made for the wrong reasons. When I started writing this article, the Boks lost against Argentina and the alarm bells went off.
I can remember sitting in the studio at Radio CCFM with Marco Jacobs and I told him that any team that can organise their defence well enough can and can match the Boks physically, they can win the Boks. You don’t need to analyse them for weeks to know how they will come at you. They build phases of the set piece and try to break down defences systematically. I can recall once last year in 2014 when Cornal Hendricks scored a try of the set piece from first phase but that hardly ever happens and that was the exception.
Heynecke insisted with this approach and was very picky as to which players can play this type of game for him. He got his way and now one opposed him. He got all the full support from his bosses, SARU other than his predecessors, Jake White and Peter De Villiers who came under fire for transformation, selection and media related utterances be it job offers or ballerina comparisons to rugby like only PDV can. PDV was highly notorious for his comedic comments in press conferences and the conservative media at the time did not take light to his remarks always and as a result they used their power which is their pens to taint him.
A luxury that was never afforded to Mr Meyer. Rugby in South Africa is in a bad place at this point. The positive is that when the Sprinboks was with their backs against the walls, they always turned things around. Everything rises and falls on leadership and if Heynecke Meyer is up to the task to turn things around remains to be seen. I predicted a quarter final exit for the Springboks but I might be wrong after the loss to Japan.