Let’s be honest, the Springboks were pretty darn poor in Nelspruit on Saturday. In fact, they’ve been poor for a while now.
Let’s go back to last year. Remember the Boks lost to the Pumas in Durban, 37-25, they lost to Japan at the World Cup, and they battled, under new coach Allister Coetzee, to get past an injury-hit Ireland in June.
On Saturday in Nelspruit, they just got past the Pumas, thanks mainly to the visitors gifting the Boks a few soft late penalties and the hosts scoring two pretty good tries. It was desperate stuff though.
The fact is the Boks, whether now under Coetzee or in the four years under Heyneke Meyer, have been pretty average. There’s no consistency in performance and there’s also nothing in the style of play that suggests they’re going to scare the All Blacks.
I do, however, believe that the future, in the next two years, looks far brighter than it did when Meyer took over at the beginning of 2012.
I like the fact Coetzee is prepared to back promising, in-form youngsters, and it certainly appears as if the Boks are looking to play a more ball-in-hand, attacking style of rugby. Yes, this new-look Bok team struggled to get past Ireland and they battled to shake off Argentina, and they may again struggle this weekend in Salta, but there are without doubt encouraging signs.
I firmly believe that Coetzee and the bulk of his players need some time to find each other and get to know and understand what everyone else in the squad is about.
Let’s not forget that none of the combinations are settled ones ... yes Faf de Klerk and Elton Jantjies have played together for some time at the Lions, but they’ve got very limited experience at Test level. The man on Jantjies’ outside, Damien de Allende, is a newcomer to him and he surely needs to learn the centre’s nuances, and then outside him is Lionel Mapoe, who he also needs to get to know better.
The back three have also not been the same in the four Tests Coetzee’s been in charge, while up front, the loose-trio hasn’t played four Tests together and Coetzee is yet to decide whether SA Rugby contracted Lood de Jager must start or play off the bench, or not at all. The front row has also not been settled. And this week, the Boks will be down to their third choice tighthead prop following injuries to Frans Malherbe and Julian Redelinghuys.
How can we expect the Boks to perform like clockwork when the team is changing the whole time and the players have only played four Tests together, at most?
There are wonderful players in the set-up, many of them pushing hard for greater recognition and a chance (like Jaco Kriel), and there are those who still need to pay back the faith shown in them by Coetzee (like Francois Louw, Beast Mtawarira, Adriaan Strauss) ... but it’s going to take a few Tests to get the mix right and surely any coach deserves a chance to sort out the good from the bad. And, to get his team to click.
There seems to be plenty of nerves in this Bok squad - for whatever reason - but I’ve got a feeling that when they get it right they could be seriously dangerous. All the ingredients are there, most especially the players, they just need to gel with each other, and that could be a little more time than what many are willing to give them. Is that fair? - The Star