Springbok coach Heyneke Meyer continues to prove his doubters wrong, especially those who brand him as a dour, one-dimensional coach.
rugby365
Not only has he given Patrick Lambie his third consecutive Test start at flyhalf, for what will be the 22-year-old’s 20th cap, but he also left Morné Steyn out of the matchday squad – something the naysayers thought would never happen.
And now Meyer has left his critics with even more egg on their face.
He has told Patrick Lambie to “attack more” and “kick less”.
This startling revelation was delivered by Meyer ahead of South Africa’s final year-end Test, against England at Twickenham on Saturday.
It was widely believed that Lambie was playing under strict instructions to adhere to a one-dimensional kick-‘n-chase game in the encounters with Ireland and Scotland.
Given that tactical kicking had never been the young player’s strong suit, his poor out-of-hand kicking was blamed on Meyer.
Meyer revealed that Lambie will be given the ‘freedom of the park’, to play his natural attacking game, when the Boks tackle England on Saturday.
“It is always a huge ask for any player,” he said of Lambie’s role at Twickenham.
“There is always this perception, that if you put a player in the [Bok] team he will come in and be a world beater, run through everybody – it doesn’t happen at this level.
“Defensive systems in the world, if you look at the tries scored, it is really difficult to score tries.”
However, Meyer feels Lambie could still be more effective by playing to his strengths.
“I have had a long one-on-one with Patrick and told him to just play his natural game,” the Bok mentor said, adding: “He has always been a guy that takes on the line and played really flat.
“I felt he played a little too deep in the last two Tests, because of the conditions. He wanted to turn the opposition and put them in the corners.
“I said to him I want a little more attack from him, that is his natural game.
“He must just go out there and get the backline going.
“However, in saying that, the defensive systems have been awesome from the two previous Tests and England’s defence is also great.
“It is also an improvement for Patrick, going forward, as a No.10 – he hasn’t played there all that often.
“I have been happy with his two performances so far, but I do need a good performance from him on Saturday.”
It will only be Lambie’s fourth start at flyhalf in an international – he had one last year against New Zealand and now again in the last two Tests against Ireland and Scotland.
The young player, who made his Test debut against Ireland in November 2010, has had six starts at fullback and 10 more caps off the bench.
OK Sharkie supporters, here’s your FIX for the day… drool over it… get it out of the system… no excuses after Saturday… NONE!
So what do we read from this article… do we read that Lambie wrongly interpreted his “Instructions” in the 1st 2 Tests or do we read that he just cannot step up to Test flyhalf level well… or do we read that he is out of form at the moment?
I guess Saturday will answer more of these questions.
Whatever the situation, Saturday is not going to be easy for the Bokke, England always somehow lifts themselves for games against the Bokke whilst playing in the Northern Hemisphere.
England also ran the Wallabies desperately close last weekend… with having a possible try disallowed a few minutes before the end of the game, which could well have seen them winning against the Ozzmob.
Their forwards pack is also one of the more formidable packs up North… so the Springbok pack will have to lay bloody good foundations if the Springboks are to win this encounter.
I just cannot get my head around the fact that the Springboks have been unable to string 2 consecutive good halves together in one match yet this year… but in EVERY Test there has been at least one good half…. in some matched the 1st half, in others the 2nd half.
The fact that some of the good halves have come in the 2nd half indicates that there is no problem with fittness and conditioning, but rather something else not clicking. Defence has been solid (bar the 2nd Half of the Soccer City Test), the forwards are capable of dominating, the breakdown battle has been good on several Test occasions, the set pieces has been fine except when CJ van der Linde has been in the front row.
The problem lies from scrumhalf and right through the backline… with possibly one more aspect and that is that the forwards have not given Ruan the fastest ball out there, by not cleaning rucks and blowing over them well enough.
All I can say is Gooooooo Lambie, Gooooooooooo Bokke!
(Still hope Elton Jantjies gets decent game time, so we can see what he offers in comparison to Lambie)
Agree GBS. Lambie has not impressed me much at FH in internationals this season. But then neither have the others really done much. Goosen is too injury prone, Steyn is having one of his worst seasons, and Lambie and Jantjies maybe don’t quite understand the game plan, as is evidenced by the above interview.
Hope Jantjies gets more than 10 minutes.
4 @ Lion4ever:
I’m hoping for Jantjies to get 25 minutes or perhaps even 30 minutes!
But HM is his own man. Does not always do what we want him to do.
3 @ grootblousmile:
Hi Gbs, have put up the England team, see they have made quite a few changes up front, will be interesting to see how they ‘gel’ at the start of the game as they will not be used to playing together – maybe this is an area the Boks should look to exploit try and take their pack on early and put doubts into their minds as a unit and try get many points on the board in the 1st 20 minutes in case their pack settles and starts playing well. Interesting you put your view as well that Bok pack will have to lay good foundation agree with you. But feel that the criticism of halfbacks further in the post is maybe harsh as you don’t mention there that the Boks pack couldn’t have been providing them with good ball in the 2nd half against Scotland – I mentioned it before here that that is where I think the Boks started to struggle and was surprised to see so little criticism for the Bok pack on here. Just on Ruan Pienaar think he was man of match againts Ireland so how can he suddenly all on his own go from that to being one of the bad players against Scotland. No mention has been made of a good break that Pienaar made that came to nothing because he had no support players close to him who he could pass to once he got tackled – where were the loose forwards or maybe centres there to carry on the movement after that good bit of play from him. I also saw Lambie make loads of tackles and saw him bravely taking on the opposition and at one point he did so and also ended up being isolated because of lack of quick enough back up support play.
7 @ Bullscot:
Forgot to add again that the stats I saw for the game against Scotland was two thirds for both territory and possesion for Scotland, maybe the halfbacks (and other backline kickers) can shoulder some of the blame for the territory stat for the Boks, but surely the possesion stat shows the inability of the Boks fowards, especially in the 2nd half, to get to Scotland and win the ball back from them not only just do the tackling bit. Think the Boks were very good in their tackling with so few missed tackles but why were they having to make so many tackles – methinks the forwards becoming less effective is one of the main reasons.
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