Blanket
RUGBY: Jon Swift
TO ANY thinking follower of rugby, the margin between South Africa and the All Blacks at Christchurch this Saturday must be at least two tries.
It is an interesting hypothesis if weighed against the perspective of national coach Andre Markgraaff, who has pinpointed a lack of success from the Springbok goalkickers as being the chief factor behind last weekend’s 21-16 defeat by the Wallabies in Sydney.
“The goalkicking,” Markgraaff says, stating what was patently obvious, “was awful. The guys kick well in training then lose it on match day. We have to accept that we just don’t have the kickers at the moment.”
All of that is true and one would give Markgraaff the benefit of applying a bit of reverse psychology in trying to deflect a deeper analysis of the current South African woes. For the problems run far deeper than not having the metronomic precision of a Naas Botha to call on.
Which leads back to the hypothetical try count in the coming clash with the New Zealanders on their home turf.
The All Blacks buried Australia under a 43-6 deluge at Wellington in the opening encounter of the tri- nation Sanzar Series which is the present focus of on-field activities. And fully 30 of those points came from the six tries the New Zealanders ran in. Against this, the Wallabies managed only two penalties from Matt Burke to avoid the ignominy of a total whitewash.
It is also of more than passing interest to note that Tim Horan’s breakaway intercept try provided the difference in the final scoreline in Sydney where the Wallabies scored two tries to the one by Pieter Hendriks in the dying moments that added some respectability to the record books and earned South Africa a vital point for finishing inside a seven- point differential.
Even with the genius of a kicker of the Botha calibre on tap, tries still count for more than anything else; it is still a running game played with the ball in the hand.
To his credit, Markgraaff — albeit somewhat circumspectly and sticking to his displeasure over the goalkicking — acknowledges this in the retrospective light of the loss which ended South Africa’s 15-Test winning sequence.
“With all the ball we were winning we should have consolidated and slowed the game down, but instead we hurried things and wasted opportunities through opting for tap kicks,” is the way the coach reads it.
Fair comment in one respect. Blinkered vision in another.
First, there is no way the All Blacks are going to let South Africa dictate the pace of the game. The New Zealanders are so awesome because they do the basics well … and at speed.
Second, given the fact that the tight five really did perform exceptionally well against Australia and that Markgraaff is not wrong about the amount of possession achieved, there was a distinct lack of finish about the Boks; a failure to turn pressure into points that bodes ill against the All Blacks.
They are every bit as robust and arguably more physical than the Wallabies, and as well as Mark Andrews and Johan Ackermann did in the line-outs against John Eales and Garrick Morgan in Sydney, they face an uphill struggle against the battle- hardened pairing of Ian Jones and Robin Brooke.
Especially when you consider that Gary Teichmann — – the Natal captain was the pick of the Boks for his perpetual motion play — was moved to jump at number two to up the averages. This time out, Teichmann has both Zinzan Brooke and Michael Jones to contend with in his own position at the tail of the line.
Which leads to the second point that typifies a New Zealand side. They always play to their strengths and minimise any slight weaknesses that might remain. It is a tenet of rugby that Markgraaff might well attempt to adopt as credo.
Given the current lack of cohesion — something that has to be urgently addressed before there can be any talk of a settled game plan — this would surely point to a number of issues which have to be addressed.
Possession against the All Blacks counts first, last and always. From the set pieces, one would expect the South Africans to at least get a share of this.
In the broken play, the evidence of the Australian debacle would point to a serious problem in ball retention … especially in tackle situations. On the attack, the Boks cannot afford to spill the ball forward into the eager arms of as dangerous a counter-attack as New Zealand’s hugely exciting new fullback find Christian Cullen.
On that same evidence, the crash ball run from the centres is a ploy which has largely been rendered ineffective except as a method of setting up second phase. And when the South African pack is operating in as loose and individually isolated a manner as the Wallaby Test would indicate, this ceases to be a Springbok option.
More strength is given to this argument by the fact that Hennie le Roux, this country’s finest exponent of broken field running, is at home nursing a neck strain and setting his alarm along with the rest of us for an early start to his Saturday.
This would surely indicate that trying to get the ball behind the All Black backline into the corners where Cullen has to raise more than a leisurely lope to cover is not just an option but a matter of pressing priority.
And even if 80% of South African tactical kicking follows the route of imminent self-destruction that always lurked in Sydney, it would certainly give Hendriks and James Small something more constructive to do than act as crash test dummies.
Small and Hendriks are two of the best finishers in the world game. But they have to be given the ball and the space to demonstrate this valuable attribute. It is a strength in the South African game that has to be played to not fought against, as seems to be the case currently.
The tactic is not a new one. Indeed it has all the time-worn appearance of a river stone. But it does have the advantage of keeping a player as potentially dangerous as Jonah Lomu pegged to his line where his ability to arc round and burst through the middle is circumvented and his weakness on the turn can be exploited to the full.
But perhaps most important of all, the Boks have to get players to the breakdown in numbers. The All Blacks have perfected this in the eight-forward Black Blanket that descends on anything rattling around in the open.
It is no use a player as committed as Teichmann continually getting across the gain line — something he managed with startling regularity against Australia — if he is left trying to fend off a swarm of black jerseys on his lonesome.
It does not need the application of advanced intelligence to understand that the gain line has something approaching the status of the deities in New Zealand rugby. The tryline is even more important than that.
And yet, it is the tryline that must be the focus of Springbok intentions. There can be no holding back against a side on a high and still smarting from the World Cup final defeat. We have to score tries.
But even with that said, the original wager holds good. If South Africa can get within two tries of the All Black score, they will have done an amazing job and take heart from the fact that the next time round is at home.