Murray Mexted former All Blacks No 8, and currently TV commentator, has advice for Piet de Villiers.
He feels that the Boks will need to ad more dimensions than the cautious kick and chase approach to their game, to build on their successful 2009 campaigns. Scoring more tries will be vital.
Mexted acknowledged that the Springboks’ success in the 2009 Tri Series was the best he had seen from the side in 16 years.
“The Springboks had a fantastic Tri Series, absolutely fantastic. I think it is the best that I can remember, and I have been commentating for 16 years now,” Mexted said during a recent coaching stint at the International Rugby Academy.
However, he warned that coach Peter de Villiers’ men will have to improve other areas of their game ahead of next year’s international season, in order to build on the recent success.
“If you are not scoring tries, you are not going to beat many teams. You might win a few on goal-kicks, but generally, particularly with the way the game can be played, you’ve got to score tries. And I think that would have to be the goal of the Springbok team.”
He also felt that the Boks’ successful Tri-Nations campaign in 2009 was made possible because of the series against the British and Irish Lions.
“The series against the Lions was great preparation for the Tri Series, and by the time you played us [New Zealand], you were more Test-hardened than we were. And I think that helped your team considerably,” Mexted said.
Mexted mentioned the approach of the Wallabies and All Blacks in the latter stages of their respective northern tours this year, as areas the Boks can lift their game.
“We saw Australia focus on attack, and moving the ball into space and exploiting that space to score five tries against Wales.
“Now that was a fantastic indication of where the future of the game lies. And the very next day, the All Blacks did exactly the same thing against a fired-up France in Marseille.
“The French wanted to win that game badly, so they played it at a smaller stadium to ensure it was sold out.
“But the All Blacks just repeated what the Australians did to Wales. They showed their skill to create space with the ball and scored some outstanding tries. I think that is the way of the future, and an indication of the southern hemisphere’s advantage over the north.”
What a Jan he was!
Murray Mexted, My favourite Kiwi commentator. BUT Murray, Remember the Boks scored most of the tries in the Tri-Nations. What about that mate?
Do agree though we need more than the kick-and-chase. With wings like Habs not getting a lot of the ball it seems like a crime really. We still out scored the ABs and Wallabies with tries in the Tri-Nations this year.
He’s not too bad old Murray
Better speaker than Naas 🙂
Mexted we did score more than you mate. Yeah we know we must score more tries but your ABs team lost the first test by running every ball we kicked down your throat.
One thing i agree with is that we were for sure much better prepared going into the 3 Nations.
#,2,4
I think that you misunderstand Mexted’s approach here, we cannot deny that the Boks based a lot of their attack on the form of Fourie du Preez and Morne Steyn, when Steyn wasn’t firing on the year end tour, the results went down the drain as well.
We need to forget the Jake White mentality and aim toward something else, by now everyone knows what we try to do, and the French and Irish used it against us.
I agree with Mexted 100%, we need some life in the team, we need to become dangerous again.
I don’t understand where he’s coming from. We scored more tries, most of them by backline players where NZ and Aus tries came mostly from forwards. We also had the lowest kicking rate in the 3N. NZ and Aus opinions are based on emotions rather than the facts. Check the stats MM.
Saint yes you are right , but when PdV wanted to play the more complete game we and the senior players sort of forced him to go for the winning game. Lets face it it was dealt with in previous article that is not the South African game was never. Jake always tried to play the safety game, and with this kick and chase game that was save for PdV and the 2009 Springboks.
Do we have the patience to go trough a 2 year slump in trying to change our game plan. off course Mexted would love to see us doing the risky thing.
In my humble opinion PdV initially neglected the basics of forward “tenderizing” first and then running with good quality ball. That lead to what we referred to headless chicken shit.
Then he went to the opposite extreme end of the spectrum of trying to win ball with a pussy front row, and not enough numbers to a retreating breakdown, leading to shit ball which was kicked away, leaving us with 30% possession which was also kicked away.
Springbok rugby has(or had) a history of formidable forward play COMBINED AND FOLLOWED by exciting back play.
Nothing faarking new, it’s about balance and not messing about on the extreme ends of the spectrum.
Saint, I know mate, agree to a certain extent. We do need to change our gameplan but not totally like we done last year. We came short very quick. Remember us trying to run everything from our own line too and getting hammered. Please none of that helter-skelter stuff. Need to combine what worked for us this year and what worked for us last year against England and Austrialia the last test at Ellis Park.
ABs reminded me this year of the Boks last year. They tried running everything from their own line too and behind their line once. They looked as daft as we did last year. We caught them there everytime and punished them.
A bit of both is what we need. Not going to worry too much about our eoyt. Hoping we can learn from it.
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