Cyclic patterns in Sport
Cyclic patterns are prevalent in the weather, in economy, in markets, in life in general and in Sport. Old Joseph in the bible secured himself a position of status and wealth by explaining this concept to the Faro. South Africans rugby has just completed one of those cyclic patterns with players like Matfield, Bakkies Botha, Danie Rossouw, Fourie du Preez, John Smith, Percy Montgomery and so forth. These players carried South Africa for longer than a decade.
The saddest thing for me was when these players were at the top of their game SARU in their wisdom negated all that experience and talent by selecting a puppet as a coach.
I blame PdV and SARU for last year’s disastrous RWC results. When we were at the top of our cyclic pattern we nullified that moment by selecting the wrong coach. A significant part of our downfall was of course the fact that the game changed halfway through PdV tenure and he just did not have the stature and strength of will to change the way we play. The senior players started to run the show and what was needed was somebody like Fred Allan who had vision and who was prepared to sack the Matfield and John Smit’s in order to enforce a change in style.
Like in 1965 we are now at the bottom of the next cycle. We need to rebuilt and bring some new players through but the challenge is harder than before because the game has changed and we are still suffering from having had a puppet and not a visionary as a coach for the previous 5 years.
It is the national team that set the pace in how the game develops. The S15 franchises need to work in alliance with the national coach to set and develop a certain style of play.
That just did not happen during PdV tenure so we not only wasted players at the peak of their careers we also wasted opportunity to develop the game in South Africa.
We proceeded with the ‘Skop en Hoop’ (kick and hope) pattern and saw no development in backline play or with regard to rucking at the trenches. The lack of vision in SARU and among SA top coaches is shocking. The Stormers scored the least amount of tries in the S15 and based their whole game around defence. Their backline play was non-existent even though they fielded some of best backs in the country.
The Bulls persisted with the ‘skop en hoop’ game plan while player power saw the end of Mitchell at the Lions. Shockingly some of the top coaches are now suggesting that SA players don’t have the skill to play differently. All the while the other New Zealand coach in SA namely John Plumtree took the Sharks against all odds to the final of the S15 by playing a brand of rugby that is pretty close to latest developments in the game.
Everyone (including me) has been pretty critical of Heynecke Meyer over the last few weeks for good reason. Meyer seems hell bent on staying with the old ‘skop en hoop’ and ‘stamkar’ style of play. His player selections (even though some selections was forced on him through injury) indicates a certain rigidness in thinking and a unwillingness to change.
Page 1 of 3 | Next page
