All I read this morning are excuses, blaming others and a good old SA whinge to excuse the Springboks diabolical performance for 2 straight weeks in a row.

My view is radically different… the All Blacks are a well oiled machine at the moment, they play situations and referees perfectly, they play cleverly and they use their heads, not for head butting and shannanigans but to outplay their opposition.

The Springboks and their coaching staff on the other hand come accross as hotheads who easily lose their cool with NO ABILITY to get the referee on their side… and they follow it up with sub-standard play and incompetance!

I relaxed yesterday, spending time with the family and doing one of my favourite things, woodwork.

Whilst doing woodwork, I had plenty of time to reflect on the individual performances of the Springbok squad and their hot-headed coaching staff. I did not do my utmost to find a plethera of whinging and moaning ninnies who ascribe the Bokke loss to the referee, his assistants, the weather,  the cheats from elsewhere, the man in the moon and a general conspiricy against the Bokke!

Let’s look at a few contributing factors from within the Springboks inner circles to analise the losses of the last 2 weeks:

• Selection blunders
• Half-hearted approach
• First time tackling and terrible defence
• Not giving due importance to ground-ball situations
• Infatuation with playing players out of position
• Bad tactical kicking
• Bad tactical appreciation
• Wrong game plan and not adapting to a Plan B
• Losing focus
• Bad dicipline
• Terrible coaching assistants

Selection blunders:

Who’s to blame for continued selection of certain players who are out of form, players who do not have tactical kicking ability, ill-diciplined players, Northern Hemisphere players who are not used to SA Players patterns of play?

The blame here lies with the coach, National selectors and Springbok Assistant coaches!

Should Jean de Villiers, Butch James, CJ van der Linde and BJ Botha even have been contemplated for Bokke inclusion until back in the fold in SA and playing amongst SA players and Southern Hemisphere conditions?

Apart form a conundrum at tight head prop, I say no… never!

Super 14 form was rewarded for some and shunned for others. Where is the 2 fit and in-form hookers, Tiaan Liebenberg and Gary Botha? Why was SA flyhalves, apart from Mornê Steyn shunned… why did Peter Grant not get a look in during the June preparations? Why was a centre combination not cultivated in June?

The blame lies in stupid experimentation and clear favour for some “witbroodjies”!

Half-hearted approach:

The Springboks, after a super Super 14 season and after winning last year’s Tri-Nations the Bokke believed their own hype, underestimated the All Black resiliance to stand up and be counted and almost to a man put in some half-hearted performances for a couple of weeks now.

Motivation clearly lacked and that dogged determination to die for SA in a Bokke jersey was somehow absent. Focus was a problem and side-issues received a lot of attention.

One sees a half-hearted approach first and formost in the way players approach first time tackling and if one is brutally honest, there was plenty of that, more on this subject later.

The only players who have showed motivation and comittment required to my mind were Zane Kirchner, Schalk Burger and to a lessor extent Gurthro Steenkamp and Morné Steyn.

Bryan Habana, Jean de Villiers, Ricky Januarie, Pierre Spies, Victor Matfield and John Smit seemed least motivated of all players, they lacked intensity, work rate, grit and determination and guts.

First time tackling:

Not only is first time tackling very important in a game, it is paramount and tells the other team in no uncertain terms where they stand on the day. Fronting up in this department tells the other team to try other avenues whereas not fronting up sends the clear message to the opponernt to try his hand at running at you, aiming for the gap, playing the ball wide, making play from anywhere on the field, using quick throw-ins… and it gives the opponent so much confidence, it’s scary.

Those of us who have played the game for long enough in our lives will remember the specifc match days where you felt invincible, the days when the gaps opened up, the days you felt on fire… all due to confidence and what the other team allowed you on the day. But we also remember the days when we were smeared to the ground, when the other players looked inhuman and operated like machines, when the game could not finish soon enough. Am I right, do you remember it?

Not making first time tackles allows the opponent to cross the advantage line, to build momentum and to get the proverbial “go-forward”. Attacking ball is suddenly on the front foot, the second layers of defence is exposed and the resources stretched.

Well, Bokke… get your bloody first time tackling sorted out, it is weak!

Not giving due imporance to break-down points and ground-ball situations:

Match stats from any source will tell you that there are far more breakdown points and ground-ball situations in a match than set phases or any other aspect of our game. If I’m not mistaken, break-down points and ground-ball situataions roughly number over 140 occasions per match where scrums or lineouts are around 20 a piece.

Getting to break-down points first, effectively making an impression there, pilfering critical ball and slowing down opposition ball is what the modern game is about. Setting up continious phase play relies on a mastery of the ground-ball art and the modern day favours the team with ball in hand, so somehow the ball has to be obtained and possession maintained to build these phases and wear down the opposition.

Loose forward combinations need to have a balance, need to hunt in packs and the other players in the team need to know what their responsibilities are in these situations. To some extent all players become ball chasers and poachers, seeing as it is not enough to expect loose forwards or forwards in general to perform these functions any more.

Slowing down opposition ball gives a team the chance to organise defensive structures and align their defensive players, lessening gaps around the fringes, through the middle and out wide.

The Springboks have been bested in this department for 2 weeks in a row now, that is as clear as day!

Infatuation with playing players out of position:

Soon as a player is played in a position he does not normally play, one takes away from the familiarity on defence and attack. The modern game is a game of specialists in their positions, except in SA it seems, where scrumhalves play wing, fullback and flyhalf, where hookers play tight head prop, where loosehead props  play tight head prop, where centres are expected to play on the wing… and where we all lose!

John Smit is still carrying too much bulk from the experiments last year when he was shunted to tight head prop and the result is John has lost pace, misses first time tackles and his general hooker play is sub-par.

Not only does Jean de Villiers have to adapt back to SA play and Southern Hemisphere conditions, no he’s shunted to outside centre (Italy) and right wing (both All Blacks Tests), resulting in woeful performances from Jean, an otherwise astute inside centre. In the 1st All Blacks Test Jean was pathetic on defence and tried no less than 3 times to intercept with the resultant effect that the All Blacks got around him with ease on each occasion.

Forget about ever again playing 2 No 5 locks simultaneously (Matfield and Bekker), one loses so much of the grunt up front in doing that, with both locks suddenly prone to hanging around the backline at the same time.

Playing 2 traditional blindside flanks has now become an ugly habit as well, and although this ploy works wonders against lessor teams, the top teams will expose you when doing this. This was so clearly seen these past 2 weeks and also in the Super 14 final where the traditional loose forward combination which includes a fetcher, rules the roost. My message is, play Schalk Burger or Francois Louw, not both simultaneously…. but my plea will fall on deaf ears, of that I’m sure.

Bad tactical kicking:

Bad tactical kicking is just that, a mistake… and handing possession on a plate to the opposition.

Ricky January is a master of that, the bad tactical kick, in addition to his other bad traits. Morné Steyn has not kicked out more forcefully either and Zane’s biggest criticism is that his armoury of weapons has been largely limited to the Up-and-under kick.

In the Super 14 and in last year’s Tests we had the liberty of a fit Fourie du Preez, who in addition to his other tactical nous has been spot on with his tactical kicking. Well a word from the wise to the Bokke coaching staff, you have to steer clear of overdoing the tactical kick for now, seeing as Fourie is out, buddies….

Shelve it a bit, develop some other options, develop some better phase play… and take a leaf out of the All Black book on how they dismantled us these last 2 weeks… and choose your personnel better to effect your game plan, for goodness sakes!

Bad Tactical apprciation:

Option taking amongst Bokke players have been suspect for a couple of weeks…. when to kick, when to run, when to go for an intercept.

It has been been bad in the sense that we have played the game directly into the All balck hands for 2 weeks in stead of doing what SA does best…. slow the ball down, drive with the forwards, play in the opposition half and play into the corners.

Here the coaches and players must take an equal amount of flack and with the likes of Tricky Dicky Muir as backline coach and Gary Glitter Gold as forwards coach, I do not see the situtation improving unless we play one of the lessor teams.

Wrong game plan and and not adapting to Plan B:

Not only is our Plan A flawed and the wrong tactics used but when Plan A goes for a pot of snott, there has to be a Plan B, a fall-back method, a failsafe….. and we just do not see that at the Springboks at the moment. The same plodders do the same thing over and over again whilst we see broad smiles on opposition faces!

Losing focus:

Losing focus has 2 elements, namely losing focus during a game and losing focus during the week between games.

We have suffered both theses ills, giving far too much regard to Bafana Bafana’s soccer campaign, living the good life whilst on tour and not getting mentally focussed for one event, this week’s all important bloody Test.

There’s also far too much talking nonsense in the media, hey Peter de Villiers and hey John Smit and cohorts!

In game situations there are periods where it seems that the Springboks are now suddenly switched on and I find myself sitting more and more on the edge of my seat when this happens, just to slump back in the periods where we lack intensity and lustre, as if taking a bit of a smoke-break!

For goodness sakes people….. focus…. do what you are paid for, do what you are destined for with all those wonderful player abilities.

We do not want to hear about Graham Hendry and Snorire’s big mouths, we do not want to hear about bungi-jumping, we do not want to hear about extra-marital affairs, we do not want to hear that certain players are the Tiger Woods’ of rugby!

Bad dicipline or ill-dicipline:

Hell, how badly has this facet of Springbok play cost us in 2 short weeks… Bakkies banned for the dumbest heat butt in world rugby, Danie Rossouw for rising to the niggle and using a toe or 2.

Boys, you are putting us way behind during a match and coming from behind to win is simply more difficult than maintaining a lead or parity.

Time that Springbok rugby announce that players who show ill dicipline will be docked in their pockets and not selected, point blank!

Hard and uncompromising rugby is not the same as ill-diciplined and stupid rugby…. or thugby as one site coined it.

Time to change these perceptions and the only way to do it is to irradicate the cause of the problem!

Terrible Coaching assistants:

I promise to keep this brief, I could probably blabber on about this for a month, till one of you kick me in the nuts!

Trickie Dickie Muir has now shown us his true worth at the Lions, get rid of him, ban him to Siberia for all I care. He does not deserve a spot near the Bokke, that is just plain dangerous.

I’d rather forfeit a Currie Cup at the Bulls to have Pieter Rossouw join the Bokke, or forfeit the Currie Cup for WP (better option) by using Robbie Fleck or Alistair Coetzee as backline coach.

Gary Glitter Gold is in the same boat, the man is only able to talk a good game, not coach it. Get Mathew Proudfoot in there, damn the man is a magician having changed the powder-puff Stormers / WP forwards into solid units… hahaha.

I can just imagine what goes on after a Bokke game…… Peter de Villiers tells all the jokes with Ricky sitting on his lap, Dick Muir lies to the players in their faces and Gary Gold talks it all honky dory again, all in the space of a few minutes!

For goodness sakes, get a grip!