With the Springbok Tri-Nations hopes over, how should they approach their remaining three home fixtures?
Survey Results now added
Over the last few weeks we heard opinions from everywhere. Must we drop the old game that brought us great success last year? Must certain players be rested. Tim Noakes sent a letter to the Springbok management for the umpteenth time about player burnout, but will anybody listen to him.
Many of the bloggers here want us to play a running game like the All Blacks play it, do we have enough time to perfect a total new game plan? We used to play a pressure game with swift counter attacks when the opponents fail to secure the kicks.
The kick and chase game was poorly executed this year, was it because the All Blacks and Wallabies read it easily and ran it back at us or was it because we did it wrong. The master of the kicking game was Fourie du Preez, he was absolutely brilliant with his precision kicks. Should we drop this game plan, will we have enough time to re-implement it before the World Cup?
I hate it when we drop a Test for the sake of resting certain players. But with the experience of nearly 100 Tests for both John Smit and Victor Matfield and many more Springboks with 60+ Tests to their name maybe this time we must listen to Dr Tim Noakes advice. There is not much more they can gain from a vantage point of experience. For once players must let personal goals and achievement take the back seat and take the break away from rugby.
Trying to implement a new game plan can be a double-edged sword. If it works and everyone clicks in the new game, then wonderful, however how long will they persist with it if it does not work? There might be 12 tests left before the next World Cup. If after 6 to 8 Tests we realize that it is not working will we have enough time to fall back to the game Fourie Du Preez perfected?
There is a lot of scenarios but lets face it the road to 2011 World Cup crown has become a rough ride for our beloved Springbok team.
Results from survey
With the Springboks Tri-Nations hopes over, how should they approach their remaining three home fixtures?
Pick their strongest available team 8 Votes(44%)
Rest tired players 10 Votes(55%)
Must we pick young talent like Patric Lambie or rely on the experienced players?
Yes 4 Votes(22%)
No 2 Votes(11%)
Use Lambie in the EOY tour 12 Votes(66%)
Can we afford to fire Peter de Villiers now?
Yes 6 Votes(33%)
No 12 Votes(66%)
Can a change in assistant coaches save Peter de Villiers bacon?
Yes 8 Votes(44%)
Yes for sure 9 Votes(50%)
No 1 Votes(5%)
No only a miracle 0 Votes(0%)
Will resting players like Dr Tim Noakes suggested give the old war horses the necessary fuel to go one more World Cup Tournament?
Yes for sure 17 Votes(94%)
I doubt that anything could re-ignite the fire in those old bones. 0 Votes(0%)
No 0 Votes(0%)
Tiredness is all a hype 1 Votes(5%)
Must we use the remaining 3 Tri-Nations tests to experiment?
Yes 13 Votes(72%)
No 5 Votes(27%)
I dont think we should change the game plan, but we must play the fringe players against the two other best sides in the world…yes I did take the survey.
@ 4man:
Peaking at the World Cup is the whole idea. The ABs did peak a week or 2 ago and they certainly can reach another peak in the RWC. One thing that might hamper them is their quest to break the World record for consecutive wins.
They currently stand on 12 in a row and the record is 17, so if they go for this one they might just miss the Big one.
@ superBul:Erm…so do you agree with me?
I said 3 weeks ago, they ahve peaked too soon, they can peak again but they will at that stage have injuries, so there will be disruption….they werent quite so fluid last week, so my mening is…they are off the boil already.
They wont make the 17 if we play our best team, but we must blood ou’s against them.
Is Rugby Princess cross or something, I see whe hasnt blogged again?
whe= “she”
@ 4man:
Yes and No, she is very busy now some major project, but she said she are going to take a sabbatical because of the heated atmosphere here. i reacted like Bakkies, lost my cool and really said something that irked her. I apologized so many times and i really hope she mails me someday so that we can resume our friendship. She was on my game picture list and she always enjoyed the wildlife photos.
Lately there was no real special photos though.
@ superBul:OK I read the stuff on the other thread too after I posted this….she will be back, but for a while it was good, because I have gone up in the rankings.
Lekker warm dag hier vandag, het n goeie dag gehe, n maatskappy wat vuurwapens maak wil saam met my werk vir jag pakkete vir hulle kliente, so my nuwe besigheid hopelik is besig om te groeie. Ek het nou 450 kliente op my lys. Ek en vroutjie gaan Roma toe vir vier dae op die 27ste, dit is n lewenslank wens van my…St Peters basilica, Trevi fountain, collisseum, Vatican, die ou stad….en die pasta,,,,, ek kan nie wag nie. Ons bly in die Hotel Piazza Venezia wat in die Piazza in die senter van die stad is….gaan dit gate uit geniet.
@ 4man:
Julle wereld reisigers maak my darem werklik soos n armgat voel. Ek droom gelukkig nie eers daaroor nie, so ek sal nie slapelose nagte he daaroor nie. Jy moet dit geniet. Hel ons ou vroutjies is darem juwele, ek en myne doen so baie saam. Vandag het sy my onder die tafel ingewerk met my tuin makery.
Superbul, I am happy with playing the kick and chase game. But not all the time, I don’t know how many of the Currie Cup matches you watched this weekend, but looking at the guys playing beautiful flowing rugby suggests to me at least that we can retain possession and run the ball.
The problem with our kicking game this year was that we missed the accuracy of Fourie du Preez, then also Ricky put Morne under pressure with not clearing rucks quickly. You can perhaps put some of the blame on our loose forwards for not dominating and securing decent ball for him. But then again when Ruan pienaar came on, he showed there was a clear difference to the space and time Morne had to make decisions.
Also last year Habana was on form and he had JP Pietersen who chased as well as he did. This year Habana has not been at his scintilating best, and no Pietersen.
So if plan A is not working and it clearly didn’t, you need plan B which is lacking.
I am happy to see us employ the kick and chase, but when in the opponents half I want to see fast flowing phase play, retention of ball at the ruck, quick ball to morne and attacking play from the back line.
Variation in play is key, and without it, we are sitting ducks as the opposition knows exactly what comes next.
@ superBul: Ja nee, die tuinwerk hier is n ander ding in die somer, jy kannie glo hoe die goed groeie, en ons vrugte in die werf is ongelooflike, my vrou maak net aanhoudend jam, jy kan dit nie alles opeet nie. In Januarie is ons 35 jaar getroud, ek kan dit donders nie glo nie, ek voel nog soos n laaitie, maar die ou in die spieel lyk soos my Pa. Ons het honde gister gewas vir die laaste keer voor winter, want van Sept af dan word die dae baie korter, maar die son is nog op 2030 op die heidige oomblik en dit word lig 0430 in die oggend.
@ biltongbek:
If you think back to the first 4/5 weeks of the Super 14, the Bulls played this free running game. They scored at about 6 tries per match whilst the Stormers barely made it to 2 tries per match.
Yes we must play a more attacking game but like the Bulls you leave yourself vulnerable for counter attacks. The Bulls conceded a lot of tries in that early stages when they played the helter skelter game. Now my question is would you like to take the All Blacks on in a game where they are the masters?
@ 4man:
Ek en my vrou is al amper 29 jaar getroud, ken mekaar ook al 35 jaar. Ja my ou skool flame het my toe gekry. 😆
@ superBul: Nee wat, ek het myne ontmoet na ek in die Vloot was en het ook n heel paar dinge gesien en gedoen voor dit, sy het afgekom van Rhodesia, maar ons is taamlik jonk getroud. Sy maak my kwaad net 20% van die tyd, so ek reken ek is “ahead of the game” dis nie bad nie.
Sy is n juweel, jy kan ou GBS vra.
@ superBul:
I agree wholeheartedly, we mustnt change our fundamental game plan, which has been the same for time immemorial, in the absence of competent up and unders, we should just put the ball out and then conte4st the lineout properly. Our acceptance of high kicks in the last few games has not been great, esp in the first game against NZ, so that needs work……so, we must rest players and let the other locks have a go. If the Scrummie supplies quick ball to Morne we wont have a problem with the kicks, our chasing must just get better and if guys get in our way, we must force the ref to see it by running into them…hard.
Het jy al gehoor wat hulle met Divvie aangevang het. Sy verhoor uitslag sou mos teen die end van die week bekend gemaak word.
Superbul, if you look at the stats for the Bulls and the stormers for 2010 Super 14.
The Bulls scored 47 tries in 13 round robin matches averaging 3.6 tries per match.
The Stormers scored 36 tries in the round robin averaging 2.76 tries per match.
THe Bulls conceded 2.46 tries per match, and the Stormers 1.3 tries per match
The nett result is that the bulls had a positive factor of 1.14 tries per match and the Stormers 1.46.
Now I have been castigated about this before, but will say it again, the Bulls forward pack may be very, very good, but their back line has weakness in defence. I don’t believe Zane Kirchner, Wynand olivier, Morne Steyn and Jacques Louis potgieter are the most solid defenders. Also Wynand doesn’t even come close to having the ability of organising a defense as what Jaque Fourie has.
Both these teams played a blend of kicking and chasing and ran the ball very well.
THe only difference in my opinion was not the game plans that led to the Bulls conceding so many tries, it was the inability to organise and execute defensive lines and tackles.
@ biltongbek:
I just checked after 4 games each the bulls had 24 vs 15 tries
Stormers had 10 vs 2 tries
At the end of the round robin stage the Bulls conceded 32 tries, it means that in the next 9 games we conceded 17 witch is less than 2 per match. The only thing this proves is that the attacking was high priority and defense was secondary.
If the Boks do the same we might be murdered by a more superior All Black backline.
I would love the Bulls to crack the WP defensive code. If not reveal it to the Boks. It is just brilliant.
Superbul, I am too lazy to check this out now, but I seem to remember that last year we scored many of our tries from first phase possession, more than any other team.
The All Blacks this year, has scored almost all of their tries from returning kicks and counter attacks.
Coming back to my point I made in the beginning, Plan A didn’t work, and we were punished for it, at a rate of 4 tries per match. But we didn’t score any points our selves. Why?
Because we kept on kicking the ball away, and they returned it by running at us, retaining possession and scoring tries.
My logic says to me, if they are scoring tries because we gift them possession, would it not make sense then to keep the ball away from them, us retaining possession, putting them under pressure as it is clear the defensive team has been penalised heavily during this Tri Nations and scoring tries ourselves.
Look at what happened to the All Blacks this weekend, a referee that didn’t allow as much, the All Blacks was not very effective with those superior backs of theirs this weekend.
OK guys I’m out, suppertime…remember its only 2000 here now.
geniet die aand.
cheers 4man, geniet die ete.
biltongbek wrote:
Last year we followed up brilliant and nailed them before they could run. Yes i agree we must have plan A, B and C. But our game plan that worked last year was poorly executed so far. a Little fine tunning might do the trick, i hope.
Maybe we must drop that game plan if the Boss(FduP) is not there and play plan B and C , if we dont have those plans we better get them.
Yip, we can only hope.
Het n’ lang naweek gehad en gaan maar vroeg inkruip, geniet die res van jou aand, dankie vir die chat.
@ biltongbek:
sorry jou vertrek gemis, dankie dit was lekker om Rugby te chat.
Superbul, I know your first language is afrikaans so please don’t take offence here. It is (trials) not (trails)
I make many typos so maybe should not say much… 😀
Okay with that I will go now and read further.
I say play our strongest team, BUT put some new youngsters on the bench. Nothing to lose here. Think after a 4 week break they will be rested. Need to rest the players after this Tri-Nations. NO CC for any of them. Send our best for the eyot tour too but take some of the exciting youngsters coming through.
Our kick and chase will work again if we have FdP and Frans Steyn back. Morne struggled with Ricky there and also once Habs is back to form with JPP on the other wing we can do it again. With only Morne there and our wings not up to it this year it never worked. Also our loose trio last year was far better with Juan and Brussow there. We need a out and out fetcher. Need numbers to get to the breakdown at speed.
Super, you are right, if we play a all out attack game against the ABs we will lose by even more. That is their strength. We tried it in 2008 and come horribly short there. Play a bit of both.
A turkey was chatting with a bull.
‘I would love to be able to get to the top of that tree’ sighed the turkey, ‘but I haven’t got the energy.’
‘Well, why don’t you nibble on some of my droppings?’ replied the bull. They’re packed with nutrients.’
The turkey pecked at a lump of dung, and found it actually gave him enough strength to reach the lowest branch of the tree.
The next day, after eating some more dung, he reached the second branch.
Finally after a fourth night, the turkey was proudly perched at the top of the tree.
He was promptly spotted by a farmer, who shot him out of the tree.
Moral of the story:
Bull S *# t might get you to the top, but it won’t keep you there..
Bokke need to change their game plans slightly, in the absense of Fourie du Preez, but not radically so.
In addition they MUST become more effective at the reakdown points, to get more effective and faster possession.
Additional game plan options just adds more weapons in the Bokke armoury.
Accuracy in executing the existing game plans has probably been the Bokke’s biggest downfall.
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