What a classic Springbok / All Black test match.

It is games like these that keep the rivalry alive. Two opposing styles played almost to perfection with uncompromising defence and a bit of referee controversy into the mix.

What a game!

What a timely victory for the Springboks and congrats to the Springboks for not getting drawn into the capacious game so promoted and drooled over by the All Black ‘groupies’.

We want a contest not a flap-flap razzle and dazzle mismatch dominated by one team with a bunch of natural athletes suited to play a league hybrid gobbledygook.

To be fair the Springboks stuck to their traditional blueprint or style of playing in the last 4 encounters against the All Blacks. They came very close in the Soweto test but were unable to secure a victory until this weekend.

So what exactly made the difference this weekend? There were a number of factors including the fact that players like Carter, McCaw, Brad Thorne, Mills Muliaina, Nonu, Conrad Smith, Kieran Read, Andrew Hoare didn’t play.

It was, however, no weak All Blacks side (there is no such thing as a weak All Black side) so it might have been helpful -that the All Black stars didn’t play- but in my mind not the main reason why the boks achieved what they couldn’t accomplish in their previous 4 encounters.

The game panned out almost exactly as I predicted in my previous post with the boks focusing on forcing penalties by keeping it tight and through domination of set piece and the breakdowns. The Springboks dominated the scrums and set piece for the first time in a long time and that made a massive difference but one has to ask why did it work this time round and not on pervious occasions?

This victory I think resulted from five main factors:

1. Desperation;
2. Selection of combinations;
3. Dominating the scrum;
4. Numbers and aggression at the breakdowns and;
5. The Morné Steyn/ Heindrich Brussow permutation.

Desperation

Don’t underestimate the fact that we are currently playing with vintage players who have accomplished it all (apart from being the first team to win the RWC back to back).

This team –or the primary players in the team at least- have broken all national records in terms of being the team with most Springboks caps ever; having win the RWC, the Super 14; beaten the All Blacks in New Zealand and a tri-nations victory.

What is left for players like Fourie du Preez, Victor Matfield, Bakkies Botha, Schalk Burger, Bryan Habana, Francios Steyn,John Smit, Bismarck du Plessis and so forth to accomplish.

How do you stay hungry if you’ve done it all?

You need an exceptional coach which keeps setting new standards in terms of team performances; who can manage his players and who can develop and introduce new talent. We don’t have the coach to motivate our vintage players towards aiming for perfection or who can introduce new talent. So we ended up relying way too much on our class of 2007. (Yes I know PdV introduced Morné Steyn and Brussow but in all fairness he did not develop them).

There is however the new challenge of defending a RWC title and that was helpful to lift performances in this last match before the start of the 2011 RWC tournament.

The major elevating factor that produced a cohesive effort beyond normal best was in this case pride and fear of utter humiliation. It was desperation to prove to themselves that they still have what it takes to beat the All Blacks. Mostly it was desperation to prevent the utter humiliation of not being able to beat the All Blacks at home and/or not winning a single tri-nations test this year.

The fact that utter desperation was required to provide the stimulus to narrow the focus of the team sufficiently to win a test match at home is the result having a team consisting of a group of troopers who have played way to much rugby over the last 4 years.

The large number of injury breaks towards the end of the match due to senior players struggling with ailments a silent concession that our players are not in the best of best shape for this year’s RWC tournament.

Selection of combinations

Apart from desperation I think the other major factor was the make-up of the team including the bench that played in this match.

For the first time in a long time the coach respected the importance of major and minor combinations required to win important matches. He also respected the need to stick with most of these combinations throughout the match by not breaking them up with substitutions (apart from replacing Bismarck unnecessarily).

The major combinations in a rugby team are the frontrow, the loose trio, the locks the 9/10, the centre and back triangle combinations.

Minor combinations include the 8/9 combination, the hooker/lock and the lock/prop combinations in the lineouts and selecting players that can combine effectively on defence and attack at the breakdowns.

For the first time in a long time there were not only established combinations selected for the starting line-up but also we did not see the break-up of the important 8/9, 9/10, 12/13 combinations as was the case over the last three years in vitually every match. Other important combinations like the loose trio, the locks and hooker/lock combinations were also only partially broken-up with substitutions.

In terms of the major combinations (8/9, 9/10, 12/13) we saw no break-up for the first time for the last two seasons (at least). In many matches over the last two seasons we saw all these combinations messed-up with substitutions.

In terms of the loose trio we saw a selection of a loose trio with power and speed as well as pilfering ability. Players that can power it up on attack and who can destruct on defence or at least force opponents back in the tackle and/or steal the ball (or slow it down). I’ll write later more about Brussow and his impact but I believe it is significant that the coach stuck with his loose trio combinations for the majority of the match; Alberts being the only one to be replaced by Johnston relatively late in the match.

Only one lock was replaced and Smit coming in as hooker didn’t have a huge impact on the lock/hooker combination(s) as it is established combinations.

The replacement of the frontrow was however needed to maintain dominance in the scrums and at the breakdowns. Beast Mtwarira came on at the start of the second half in place of Gurthro and CJ van der Linde came on late in the second half. Not too much messing-up of the forwards combinations as even Danie Rossouw was only brought on after Bakkies Botha started limping on the field. These replacements up front, I believe, was mostly spot-on as it help not only with our scrummaging but also to maintain numbers committing at the tackle ball.

Dominating the scrums

I can’t recall the last time that we actually pushed the All Blacks back in the scrums. We were clearly the dominating team in the scrum.

We targeted scrums in field positions where the All Blacks could launch starter moves, disrupting them and preventing them from getting rhythm on attack.

This is as important as tackling.

More importantly the All Blacks ended up with back foot ball in the scrums and their halfbacks (Cowan and Ellis) were consequently under constant pressure and that took Slade and SBW out of the match. Ellis and Cowan had no space and had to speed-up everything they did which resulted in them kicking poorly and less able to attack channels 1 and 2 (either breaking or passing to angled runners).

Dominating the scrums also allowed us to rush-up in defence to either tackle them behind the advantage line or to shoot out of line on defence to smother players put into space before they got going. We were able to employ an umbrella defence with Jaque Fourie, Habana and Pietersen occasionally shooting up in defence to tackle players coming from depth behind decoy runners. This smothered a lot of their planned moves.

All of this became possible only because of the pressure applied at the scrums and on the halfbacks. Brussow was massive in this regard and his successfulness as a pilfering player and as a player that can pressurize the halfbacks was greatly enhanced by our dominance in the scrum.

I just hope that the boks keep on working at the scrums and not going into comfort zone as usual after one good scrummaging performance.

Numbers and aggression at the breakdowns

Other than in the previous three tri-nations test matches, this year, we didn’t try and pick-up the ball at the tackle area while on attack but drove through it cleaning slow-downers away providing neat ball for Fourie Du Preez in the process. This resulted in Morné Steyn being able to do what he do best namely dictating procedures and launching a drop goal (just missing with another).

More importantly it allowed us to force penalties and getting ahead on the scoreboard.

Our dominance at the breakdowns through numbers was born out our desperations to win but more specifically from the fact that players were selected in the starting line-out that complements each other at the breakdowns. On defence Bismarck, Brussow combined well as pilfers while Alberts, Spies, Gurthro, Bakkies Botha combined well with the first two players to force opponents back in the tackle.

Brussow made at least two crucial steals but was instrumental in slowing the opponent’s ball down while constantly acting as a blocker around the fringes. He was so effective in driving attackers back and so lethal in slowing ball down and stealing ball that the All Blacks started to avoid the fringes more and more as the game progressed. Cowan was consequently only a shadow of what he was in the Wellington test against us.

On attack these players also combined well in taking the ball up creating space for Morné Steyn to dictate.

It is therefore no surprise that Morné Steyn played his best test in the last two seasons.

The Brussow/Morné Steyn permutation

The South Africa cricket team played some of its best cricket with Jonty Rhodes and Allan Donald combining to smother opponents and to take wickets by exerting presurre. Brussow and Steyn does the same for the Springboks.  Steyn slotting the penalties resulting from the pressure Brussow exert at the breakdowns.

Just like everyone in the SA cricket team lifted their workrate in the field when Jonty were playing so does the whole Springbok team seem to lift their workrate at the breakdowns with Brussow on the field.  It was this pressure (making big hits, getting hands on ball, forcing opponents back in the tackle, making turnovers, aggressive counter rucking and driving in numbers and with explosiveness through on the ground ball) exerted by the Springboks which culminated in penalties against the AB at the breakdowns.

Steyn plays better when he play’s with Fourie du Preez but Brussow has so far been the unrecognised factor in terms of optimizing Morné Steyn’s impact.

They form a unit –like Alan Donald and Jonty Rhodes- in which the total is greater than the sum of its parts.

It is Brussow that constantly apply the pressure and who lifts everyone perfomances/commitment at the breakdowns. This culminate in a collective outcome where the Springboks are able to successfully slow down opposition ball and/or that speeds-up their our ball. This improves Steyn on the one side as a defender and make him more lethal as a dictator of proceedings on the other hand. More importantly the constant pressure exerted by Brussow (or his influence on the rest of the team) culminate in penalties which brings Morné Steyn place kicking accuracy into the foe.

Brussow improve our ability to turn possession over after Steyn and Fourie du Preez have kicked it; making our kick and charge strategy more effective.

Brussow was in this test one of the primary players putting pressure on Cowan/Ellis and who drove players back in the tackle. His pressence made us defensively less suspect/weak in channels 1 and 2 which are Fourie du Preez and Morné Steyn’s channels.

Steyn naturally takes position deeper when he lines-up behind the pack and this was one of the reasons why we struggled to tackle the opposition behind the advantage line in the previous test matches in which Morné played during this years and last years tri-nations. Brussow takes defensively a lot of pressure off Steyn and Fourie du Preez which allows them to focus more on reading and dictating the game.

It is no co-incidence that our last three wins against the All Blacks were with Brussow on the field.