Gavin Rich

Heyneke Meyer, as every Springbok coach has before him, will have his year’s work measured by how his side goes against the All Blacks.

That is just the way it is in South Africa and Meyer would have known that before he accepted the job. But if anyone thinks it’s a fair contest, and that he is pitting himself against his All Black adversary Steve Hansen on equal terms, they need to think again.

The expectations of South Africans do not match the rugby realities of the two countries. New Zealand’s centralised system, with Super Rugby coaches and players contracted to the NZRFU and everything geared towards making the All Blacks excellent, gives Hansen a leg up that Meyer doesn’t have.

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Meyer has often spoken in recent years about the improved relationship between the national coaches and the franchises. He is not wrong about that. But it’s still not equal to the system in New Zealand. If it was, he would not have been confronted with the contradiction we saw in the Super Rugby season when the national coach was talking about the need to be cleverer and quicker and the top local franchise, the Sharks, was playing rugby that belonged in the Dark Ages.

Ditto for most of the other South African franchises in Super Rugby, with the Cheetahs being the only exception but themselves also confirming the folly of thinking you can play an expansive game against Kiwi teams that are just better conditioned for it. The Cheetahs developed a bit of a trend in their matches against New Zealand sides this year – they would contest for the first half or maybe, at a push, up to the hour mark, and then their opponents would run away with it.

Does that sound familiar? It’s also what happened to the Springboks when they played the All Blacks in the deciding game of last year’s Castle Lager Rugby Championship. I keep hearing or reading people suggesting that game proved the Boks are capable of mixing it with New Zealand by playing the Kiwi fast paced game, but I can’t see that point.

The All Blacks ran away with that game in the last quarter, when they were completely dominant and the Boks started blowing air bubbles after their fast start. The All Blacks won by 11 points, which is a sizeable margin at international level and particularly at a ground which was considered the home team’s fortress.

At the end of the last end of year tour, Meyer said that conditioning and mental toughness were what the Boks needed to work on in order to close the gap on the All Blacks. But he only has his players for a very short window, and never for longer than two weeks before his team has to play a test match, so he has to rely on the fragmented South African system to do the rest.

Meyer just isn’t with the players long enough to condition them for a faster game and affect the revolution in playing style many are calling for and which he has occasionally hinted at.

Western Province is one provincial union that has realised that an up tempo game requires a lift in conditioning, and because they had a Kiwi coach and a Kiwi conditioning coach a couple of years ago, the Lions also have it right to some extent. But for the rest there isn’t much evidence of that.

You don’t need to have watched the recent All Black game against the Wallabies to wonder if rugby in our country is played in slow motion in comparison to in New Zealand. I’ve watched a bit of the ITM Cup, and the impression I have is that the game is much quicker paced there too than the Currie Cup, even though the conditions here should suit the quick paced game more.

The Dunedin clash between the Highlanders and Crusaders in Super Rugby was just one of many matches between Kiwi sides in that competition that looked like it was being played on a different planet to that inhabited by our teams.

So, while I agree with the many arm-chair critics who reckon the Boks should in time be looking to emulate the All Blacks, and the Sharks’ overly rigid plan in Super Rugby was flawed, I can’t see how Meyer can be expected to overnight reinvent the way the Boks play when that reinvention isn’t happening at the lower levels.

The players selected for the All Blacks have been reared on a faster paced game and it is second nature for them because they play it in Super Rugby as well as in the ITM Cup. Most importantly, they are conditioned for it.

Getting the Boks to a place where they can compete with the All Black pace and skill will require long term planning and synchronised conditioning and skills programs across all levels, something that hasn’t been much in evidence in post-isolation South African rugby. When that changes, but only then, will the clash between Bok and All Black coaches be a genuinely fair and equal one.