Last Saturday in Edinburgh was a day when it all came together. South Africa were poor, Scotland were poor, the referee was poor and the weather was shocking.
And so the one game that the Springbok camp would have regarded as a banker before the tour began ended up being a massive banana skin, robbing this week’s fixture against England of the status it might have had if the Grand Slam was on the line.
What a difference a day makes. Prior to the Scotland game it was possible to construct a meaningful progression plan, with young players being blooded in close encounters with good sides. But in retrospect those narrow victories were warning signs.
No one, not even their coach, Andy Robinson, is claiming that this is a good, or even a half decent Scotland side. And in retrospect Ireland and Wales fell way short of the standard generally associated with the Tri-Nations. So perhaps this was an accident waiting to happen, because it was a game coach Peter de Villiers regarded as ripe for experimentation.
The modern way
Part of the problem with the modern obsession with coaching every aspect of the game is that players no longer learn to play what they see.
The laws have changed, player fitness has undergone massive improvement and the game is undeniably more fun to watch than it was in the past. But teams can still be hoist on the petard of tactical naiveté.
It should have been painfully obvious to the South African players freezing in the Edinburgh rain that this was not going to be a try fest. It was a day for pragmatic 10-man rugby, with the flyhalf kicking for the corners, one of the oldest tactics in the game. It was a day when the coach should have swapped Willem Alberts and Ryan Kankowski before the national anthems.
Most especially it was a day when the sanctity of possession should have been reinforced. Instead the half backs happily kicked away every ball won by the toil and sweat of the forwards.
Under De Villiers the Springboks have become so used to chasing high kicks that they have forgotten how to do anything else.
In the first quarter it should have dawned on Victor Matfield that the wrong player was at fullback. The physically imposing Frans Steyn should have swapped positions with Zane Kirchner, with strict instructions to kick everything that came his way as far as possible, which, in Steyn’s case, is an awfully long way.
Instead he was wasted at outside centre and Kirchner was the proverbial lamb to the slaughter under the high ball.
So the captain must carry some of the blame. It’s not as if the most capped Springbok of all time lacks the authority to tell the coaching staff what he wants.
And it is galling in the extreme to listen to De Villiers explain the introduction of Pat Lambie in the final quarter thus: “If you look at the bigger picture towards next year’s World Cup then you have to say that the players need to get experience of playing in these conditions.”
‘Stupidly surrendered game’
It was a substitution that owed everything to planning and nothing to the needs of the moment. And so, with one stupidly surrendered game, the spotlight turns right back to De Villiers and his coaching team.
They now have to find a way to beat England and will have to do so without the carrot of the Grand Slam dangling before the players. And when the team to play England was announced on Tuesday there was a worrying lack of accountability from the coach.
De Villiers said: “That game is behind us now, but we’ve looked hard at the lessons of it and know that we can’t allow ourselves to make as many mistakes in our basic execution.”
This is myopia writ large. No acceptance of tactical errors, merely the familiar excuse that if handling errors and wobbly set pieces had not occurred the game would have been won in simple fashion.
Adding to the sense of foreboding came an announcement that training on Thursday had been cancelled due to a severe weather warning in London. Sleet was due on Thursday, turning to snow on Saturday, with the temperatures enjoying a midday high of 3°C.
It goes without saying that a team unprepared for rain in Edinburgh is not going to relish snow in London. Presumably if the game is close going into the final quarter De Villiers will send Lambie on to test his snowman making capabilities ahead of next year’s World Cup.
In making just two changes to the side for this week’s game De Villiers and his coaching team have ignored the lessons of the last three weeks. Deon Stegmann is out of his depth as a fetcher at international level.
Kirchner was not in the original touring squad and has done nothing to justify his recall. Frans Steyn is too slow to play outside centre and should be wearing the number 15 jersey.
Despite winning back to back against Samoa and Australia, England aren’t very good, but in the circumstances likely to prevail on Saturday they should be good enough. Prepare for a night of the long knives at the offices of the South African Rugby Union.