Durban – Springbok rugby supporters can rest assured that come the Rugby World Cup in England in 2015, anything remotely possible will have been done by Heyneke Meyer to ensure the team is equipped to win it, but there are some things that are beyond his control, and this is where the All Blacks will always have an edge over their traditional rivals.
The advantage Steve Hansen has over Meyer is he pretty much has control of his players for 52 weeks of the year.
Meyer has the Boks under his direct control for about 12 weeks. The All Blacks coach, as well as all the Kiwi franchise coaches, not to mention the leading 150 players, are all contracted to the New Zealand Rugby Union, and the governing body calls the shots to ensure the All Blacks are always better prepared than any other team on the planet.
Their consistently exceptional results show that.
In South Africa, the provinces own their coaches and the players, and the Springbok coach has to rely on co-operation from the provinces.
But he cannot tell them what to do. Meyer cannot ask for leading players to be rested. Hansen can.
Meyer cannot tell our franchise coaches to play individuals in certain positions. Hansen can.
Meyer cannot, for example, insist on sending his scrumming coach, Pieter de Villiers, to work with the provincial teams. He can ask nicely. But that is all he can do.
The New Zealand Rugby Union can insist that a kicking coach appointed by them work with all the teams, as they did to rectify a weakness in their game identified in 2009.
In New Zealand rugby, the country comes first, the provinces second. The Crusaders can be ordered to rest Richie McCaw for two months, to lengthen his career. Meyer can ask the Stormers to give Jean de Villiers a break, but it won’t happen.
The Stormers are under pressure to deliver results and thus will play their best players. De Villiers played every game possible this season for the Stormers and Western Province.
He is 32. Will he make it to the World Cup? It will be a miracle if he carries on putting his body on the line week in and week out for province and country.
You cannot blame the Sharks and the Stormers for recalling their Boks for the last three weeks of the Currie Cup. Meyer would have loved them to have had a break.
But the Sharks and the Stormers are business enterprises. They pay their players huge money, and who can blame them for wanting a return on their investment?
It is a tricky situation, and one that is so entrenched that it is difficult to see a quick and easy solution.
Throughout the professional era, Springbok coaches have raised this same issue – there is only so much they can do when they only get their hands on the players for a short period of time during the rugby year.
When they get the players, they have the immediate task of winning a Test match that is only days away.
There is little time for hands-on coaching. Life would be a whole lot easier for the Bok coach if national strategies were in place throughout the year addressing key areas of the game, such as scrumming, line-outs, breakdown work and defence, etc.
Last week, Meyer said a key area where the Boks were lagging behind the All Blacks was fitness and conditioning, and that he would love to have a national conditioning programme put in place.
He has a good relationship with the franchises, and he will suggest this to them.
But he cannot demand it. The bottom line is that the Springboks will not overtake the All Blacks unless the status quo changes.
Meyer needs buy-in from the franchises over the next two years. There is only so much he can do on his own.
The Mercury