Boks need a specialist No 13

The Springbok centre pairing does not work on attack, with both Jean de Villiers and Jan Serfontein natural inside centres. Photo by Steve Haag/Gallo Images

The Springbok centre pairing does not work on attack, with both Jean de Villiers and Jan Serfontein natural inside centres. Photo by Steve Haag/Gallo Images

Published Nov 10, 2014

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London: Perhaps the surprise defeat to Ireland was a ruthless lesson that came at just the right time for Springbok coach Heyneke Meyer and captain Jean de Villiers ahead of next year’s Rugby World Cup.

Irish coach Joe Schmidt, a hardened New Zealander who has been a major force in European club rugby with Leinster before, played the role of the underdog perfectly last week.

He spoke glowingly about how the Boks had beaten the country of his birth at Ellis Park recently, and how he had just “five trainings” to prepare his own team – missing several players through injury – for Saturday night’s showdown at the Aviva Stadium.

But the fact that Ireland had played with greater urgency, to a well-designed gameplan thought out by a master tactician Schmidt, would’ve been the biggest disappointment for the Springboks to digest on the hour or so flight out of Dublin to the British capital yesterday.

Where was the speed in the Springbok attacking game? Why wasn’t poor old Cornal Hendricks brought in from the blindside wing? Where were the clever running lines from skipper Jean de Villiers, and for that matter Bryan Habana and Willie le Roux?

The Bok fullback did produce one sublime counter-attacking break up the middle, but for the rest of a chilly night in Dublin, Le Roux ran mainly across the field, closing down the space of his teammates as a result.

The South Africans looked lethargic initially, and did well to hold out the home side and go into halftime just 6-3 down. The two weeks of training leading up to the tour, especially the tough five days in boiling-hot weather in Stellenbosch, where the players did a lot of conditioning work, may have taken its toll.

The forwards were caught off-guard by the intensity of the Irish pack in the collisions, and the fact that the Boks couldn’t really get over the advantage line meant that star playmaker Handré Pollard had to do the dirty work himself. But the Irish had studied his performance against the All Blacks closely, and weren’t going to allow the 20-year-old to run through their defence.

The Springbok centre pairing does not work on attack. As mentioned before, De Villiers and Jan Serfontein are both inside centres, and play like that too. The Bok captain needs a specialist No 13 next to him, and it has to be someone who can bring some spark with his footwork and pace instead of being a similar “target-setter” like Serfontein.

Bok coach Meyer clearly does not rate Western Province captain Juan de Jongh highly, so perhaps he needs to pick JP Pietersen at outside centre against England this weekend. At least Pietersen has silky running lines and won’t just run straight at defenders, and in that way, De Villiers can also benefit by playing off Pietersen’s shoulder and looking for the offload in the tackle.

It would also be hard to argue against the coach giving Cobus Reinach a chance at scrumhalf too, as Francois Hougaard undid the confidence that he gained in the Championship with a jittery display in Dublin.

You need something more than forwards and backs just bashing at the line when you are five metres out, and the Boks made it easy for the Irish to defend by utilising a series of one-off runners instead of coming up with a clinical play, like they have done in the recent past.

The try Hendricks dotted down against the All Blacks in Wellington is one that the Boks need to look at over and over again. It was precise and well executed, with the forwards dragging the New Zealanders in, which allowed Pollard to probe space for Hendricks to burst through.

Perhaps, deep down inside, there may have been an element of underestimating the Irish. Of course, the Boks would never and could never admit to that, but the arrogance of kicking two penalties into touch when you are 6-0 behind in the first half, in wet conditions and with a fired-up Irish side knocking you back in the tackle, showed otherwise.

De Villiers is a fine captain, player and gentleman, but he made the wrong call on both occasions. The fact that Pollard kicked another penalty before halftime could’ve seen the Boks 9-6 up at the break.

Romain Poites’s yellow card against Adriaan Strauss was a close call, but he was well within his rights to give it as you cannot take an opponent out in the air.

But it should never have come to that. The Boks have proven before that they are a much better team that what they showed in Dublin on Saturday night. The high of beating New Zealand needed to be followed up by a compelling performance against Ireland, but that didn’t happen, so they must make a serious statement of intent against England.

If they mess around at Twickenham this weekend, their status as a worthy World Cup contenders will be eroded. - Cape Times

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