The Springboks, victorious in Pretoria’s first Test, can’t lose the two-Test series against Ireland, but they need to default to their natural DNA to ensure they win the series in Durban, writes Mark Keohane.
Why fix something that is not broken?
I get that the Boks want to evolve their game in the lead in to the 2027 World Cup in Australia, but not at the expense of what made them back to back World Cup winners and the best in the world in the biggest moments in the World Cup.
It has been interesting to hear so many varying opinions about Saturday’s 27-20 Test win against Ireland. I wrote in my Sunday Times column, great result, but terrible Bok performance.
Many disagreed with me, on social media, in conversation and within the rugby media industry.
There has been an instant love affair with former All Blacks flyhalf and Japan backs coach Tony Brown as the Boks attack coach, but it is the defensive brilliance of departed Jacques Nienaber that won South Africa back to back World Cups.
The Boks, in Pretoria, played a type of game the world keeps pleading for them to play. One that is easy on the eye, but one that is vulnerable and very beatable.
It is also very predictable to a well organised defence.
The Boks in Pretoria were too lateral and too liberal in their offloading in the tackle because too often they offloaded in situations when the tackler had not been dominated.
The Boks were fast but they were loose, and to quote former Bok coach Nick Mallett, if they play like that in Durban then the Test win is no certainty.
The penalty try from the scrum in the 76th minute was proper Bok rugby, but the restarts were a shambles on the night and every time the Boks worked to score a try, they conceded from the kick-off.
This was the most indifferent Ireland performance I have seen for some time and they should have been buried by half-time and by 20-plus points over 80 minutes.
The bounce of the ball favoured the Boks, the TMO decisions favoured the Boks and everything favoured the Boks on an afternoon/early evening when they should not have had to rely on the multiple television replays for an Ireland ‘no try’ and a Bok ‘try’.
I wrote in the Sunday Times, in the immediate aftermath of the match, that I felt like I was watching a Bok backline play like the All Blacks and Japan, when the natural DNA of South Africans and the Boks it the antithesis of this.
It looks fabulous, going side to side and making loads of passes, but the metres gain was negligible and all the pressure was on a flailing Bok attack.
Nienaber’s defence may not be sexy but it was World Cup title winning. Brown’s attack looks great for Barbarians rugby and exhibition rugby, but it won’t ever win a World Cup.
I would like to think Rassie is going all out attack to remind everyone of why we need to go all out defence closer to 2027. He is a coach who has never minded to drop a Test to prove a point. Tony Brown has value for the Boks, with attacking nuance shifts, but not with trying to overhaul 100-plus years of Bok rugby.
The X handle @HuwGriffinRugby posted that the Boks in their last five matches made the following number of passes:
V France: RWC quarter-final, Boks win: 82
V England RWC semi-final, Boks win: 67
V New Zealand RWC final, Boks win: 84
RV Wales (this season) Boks win, 119
V Wales (Saturday), Boks win, 175
The Boks made double the passes against Ireland in Pretoria than they did against New Zealand in Paris in the World Cup final and looked more fallible in Pretoria.
The Boks DNA is physicality and halfbacks whose strength is a line kicking game.
Faf de Klerk and Handre Pollard, at 9 and 10, were the drivers of the Boks World Cup title wins in 2019 and 2023, but they looked lost in Pretoria, playing ‘All Blacks’ rugby.
Many raved about the romance of the Boks attack, but the reality is the Boks looked most potent when driving the Irish from Pretoria to Johannesburg for that scrum penalty try and their most potent attacks came from their kicking game, however sparingly it was used.
*I watched the Test match at the Karoo Art Hotel in Barrydale, alongside Stormers coach John Dobson and Stormers kicking coach Gareth Wright. WHAT A JOL!
Src: keo.co.za
