Durban –The great poet Robert Burns could well have had sport in mind when he wrote “the best made plans of mice and men often go awry”, and Springbok rugby coach Heyneke Meyer, pictured, will identify with the Scot as he sits in his Durban hotel today and wonders how his long-penned World Cup script has been torn up and chucked in the bin.
It was just not supposed to be like this for the Bok coaching staff. Six weeks out from the World Cup the plan had been to throw their best resources at the fortnight against the Wallabies and All Blacks, win the games, and then tinker with the two Tests against the Pumas to both grow depth, gain momentum into the global showpiece, and give game time to needy individuals coming back from injury.
Yesterday, Meyer will have been struggling to digest the frankly unpalatable fact that the Boks are Rugby Championship wooden-spoonists, have lost three Tests in a row, lost to Argentina for the first time ever, lost four out of their last seven Tests, suffered yet more injuries in the form of a broken jaw for returning captain Jean de Villiers, a new knee ligament injury for flank Marcell Coetzee and a sprained ankle for fullback Willie le Roux.
The original plan had been for the first-choice Bok team to remain in Durban this week and for a side comprised of players returning from injury and those needing opportunity to play in Buenos Aries this Saturday, but this might have to change given the dire need for the Boks to arrest their losing sequence.
As it is, the team that played in the calamitous loss to the Pumas at Kings Park at the weekend was probably not what Meyer had in mind a month ago, but he went for the strongest combination he could field at the time because the team needed to win.
A score-line of 37-25 later, and after a performance where his front-line troops just did not pitch for work, it is back to the drawing board for the coach.
The 34-year-old De Villiers could not have had a less auspicious return from eight months of injury. His teammates were as flat as an uncharged battery, their opponents were playing the game of their lives, and De Villiers took a crack on the jaw that has now put him back on the sidelines for four to six weeks.
He is not in danger of missing the World Cup but at best can now play again in the opening Pool match against Japan.
Coetzee, who was making his comeback from a knee injury sustained against the Wallabies in Brisbane, went down with an unrelated knee injury and is also out for at least six weeks.
Le Roux will be back in training in two to three weeks.
There was little a crestfallen Meyer could say after what is nothing short of a devastating setback to his plans, other than offer his apologies to the nation. “We have let our country and our supporters down today with this unacceptable performance. We are a proud team,” he said. “What we dished up in the first half was very poor. I apologise to the country as the buck stops with me as coach. There are no excuses. I take responsibility and will work harder to rectify this before the World Cup.
“We need to give credit to Argentina, who outplayed us,” he added. “They delivered a great performance and deserved the win. They played a game that suited them and not us. We could not adapt and, sadly, we were just not good enough.” - The Star