New Zealand against SA on the rugby field is always a huge game, but this weekend’s Rugby Championship clash in Auckland has extra intrigue because of the evolution of both teams since they last faced each other in Johannesburg last August.
In particular, South Africans should be really eager to see how their team goes against the old enemy given that this is the first time the Springboks will play the All Blacks since they flicked the switch to a more dynamic and varied game on the last end-of-year tour.
There were many who felt the decision to run back-kick receipt and mix up their game more was driven by circumstance last November, but the evidence of a proper shift to a more flexible game plan was clear for all to see when the Boks thumped the Wallabies 43-12 at Loftus. It is odd that the visitors weren’t more prepared for what the Boks did, because I saw Eddie Jones quoted recently in the English media using the South Africans as an example of a team that was bringing something new.
Perhaps Eddie just forgot to communicate it to his players, who seemed surprised by the Bok tactics and were guilty of giving them too much space on defence, an indication that they felt Duane Vermeulen’s team were going to kick back at them rather than run.
Vast contrast
It was a vast contrast from the old Bok staple of contestable kicks and driving mauls. So much so that when the Boks did put in a concerted forward drive early in the second half, the Wallabies looked as if they were surprised by that too. The key is that the Boks have added angles to their game, and played to strengths such as the pace and X-factor of their back-three players, without eschewing their known core strengths.
What they’ve come up with is a blend of power and skill that had even long-serving English rugby writer Stephen Jones, never noted for being an SA fan, waxing lyrical in his match report in the London edition of The Sunday Times: “Are the Boks too long in the tooth to retain the World Cup? On this evidence they must be new favourites for France 2023. They were monstrous up front in all the usual departments, but were also rapid and sharp.”
As a South African who likes seeing the Boks win World Cups, Jones had me doing a bit of jig of delight with those words for there might be an omen there. It was the same Jones who, after watching the Boks destroy Swansea in a tour game in Wales in 1994, proclaimed the then unrated returnees to international rugby as “red hot favourites” for the next year’s World Cup. He got that right.
He forgot it in the week of the 2019 World Cup final on the evidence that his beloved England provided in decimating the All Blacks in the semifinal, but he also called the Boks to win in 2019 ahead of the tournament.
The point though isn’t so much that the Bok performance at Loftus was noted with concern in the northern hemisphere, but the way they went about making their statement. If you speak to foreign coaches in private, they often come up with quaint little phrases such as: “Thank goodness you guys carry on with your conservative game and don’t evolve to something more dynamic.”
Well, maybe the penny has finally dropped. And we won’t see the Boks revert to the more predictable and inflexible mode of old against the All Blacks either. For one good reason: They don’t have a flyhalf who can be relied on to play the traditional SA tactical game.
Not that I am necessarily saying Handré Pollard, who I still see as a must for the No 10 jersey at the World Cup because of his proven ability to provide what is needed in a final, can’t bring the attacking dynamic that Manie Libbok and Damian Willemse do. Those who remember Pollard’s powerful performance against the All Blacks, in which he scored two tries when he was hardly 20 years old at Ellis Park in 2014, will agree that he can definitely play the attacking game.
But Pollard has been good at playing what the coaches have asked him to play since his impressive debut season. Somehow it is hard to see either Libbok or Willemse, or for that matter Elton Jantjies, the fourth flyhalf, reverting to the old stereotype. That will make it an interesting clash with a team that started to evolve to a more direct style after they were blitzed by the Boks in Nelspruit last August.
That game feels like just the other day, but in rugby terms it might as well be decades ago in terms of the game evolution of both teams. The Kiwis will certainly be up against a Bok team that will approach the game very differently to what they are used to facing down when they play their traditional rivals.
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