ROB DAVIES, Cape Town | Monday 12.30pm.
THIS weekend will go down in Super 12 history as the first round in which a South African team failed to win a match as the Sharks lost 51-10 to the ACT Brumbies, the Cats were blasted 61-16 by the Waratahs and the Stormers and Bulls managed to deadlock 19-19 in Cape Town.
Half of South Africa’s regional sides are at the bottom of the Super 12 ladder and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out why. The main problem is the lack of try-scoring.
The Cats and the Stormers, South Africa’s best placed teams, have managed to score seven tries between them, while the top New Zealand sides, the Highlanders and the Hurricanes, have notched up 27 tries.
Thus far, 88 tries have been scored in the Super 12 of which South African teams scored 19, New Zealand teams on the other hand, have scored 47 tries.
What is even more ominous, is that coach Nick Mallett has done very little to get directly involved in the regional competition, despite the Springboks playing a Test against Canada and two Tests against England before the Tri-nations kicks off.
It is also worrying that the Bulls and Stormers are not playing their best rugby, despite the fact that their respective coaches, Alan Solomons and Heyneke Meyer, are also assistant Springbok coaches.
When compared to New Zealand and Australian teams, the South African sides look almost pedestrian. They have little flair, play one-dimensional unintelligent rugby that is based around an offensive defence. This may make sense when one is holding onto lead in a Test match, but one has to have a score to defend in the first place.
It’s no good hanging around and waiting for your opponent to make a mistake that you can take advantage of if they don’t make mistakes. Teams can apply all the pressure they want, but if their opponents blitz them with four tries in fifteen minutes, chances are Plan A isn’t really working very well. In South African rugby terms this then means that it’s the fault of the backline, especially so if your flyhalf and scrumhalf are of the inexperienced variety.
South African backline play, last seen at its best in 1998, has decayed to such an extent that our coaches no longer recognise or appreciate a fine backline movement. Why play rugby if you’re afraid of running with the ball?
Making a run to the goalline with a well though-out backline move is not high-risk rugby fraught with dangerous and life-threatening obstacles just waiting to snatch a try from your side.
Indeed, if getting a try on the board through enterprising backline play is high-risk rugby, then why do the New Zealand teams win so often?
Why do they score four tries a game and South African teams one?
If winning means playing high-risk rugby, then so be it, at least we’ll have some excitement instead of the downright humiliating sight of South African forwards grimly inching the ball to line and then being sent back to their own 22 through poor ball-retention.
South African Super 12 teams can compete successfully in the competition, all that is needed is a change in the way they’re “supposed” to play. South Africans don’t need to play solely with forwards. If our forwards are as brilliant as they’re made out to be, why do our teams lose?
It is also unfair to say that local backs are mediocre and that there are only two playmakers in South African rugby. We cannot keep bemoaning the loss of Dick Muir until a heaven-sent inside centre turns up in front of Alan Solomons’ door.
South African teams need to play with their weaknesses, not against them. One gets the feeling that half the backline players in South African teams are fielded either as tackle-bags or runners programmed to get the ball back to the forwards as quickly as possible.
If South African rugby wants to get back where it belongs we need to see backline players being encouraged to do what they do best.