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The 'bad thing' Nienaber has accepted about latest Springboks loss
By Liam Heagney
You’d imagine that yet another Springboks defeat, the ninth in the 23-match reign of Jacques Nienaber, would be the cause for grave concern for the head coach ten months out from his country’s 2023 World Cup title defence, but there was no inkling of any emergency when the latest excuses were aired in Dublin on Saturday night.
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If there is pressure, Nienaber certainly wasn’t showing it as he sifted through his reflections on the 19-16 defeat to Ireland, the Springboks’ primary World Cup pool opponents next September in France.
Instead, his perspective in the media auditorium in the bowels of the Irish stadium was essentially ‘nothing to see here, now please shuffle along quietly’.
History, after all, remains his trump card in this era of inconsistency, a sequence where his longest winning streak in charge remains three victories (it’s happened on two occasions) before another defeat laced with ample ifs, buts and maybes materialises, as was the case at Aviva Stadium.
In fairness, the history that Nienaber now repeatedly leans on is wholly impressive, the Springboks exorcising the ghosts of the early part of the Rassie Erasmus era to go and win the 2019 World Cup with Nienaber as the then-defence coach.
It’s quite the uplifting yarn and it was quickly referenced by the now-head coach when asked if losing an Autumn Nations Series game to Ireland had any relevance regarding what might transpire when the two countries go head-to-head again at the World Cup. “No, I don’t think so. I think you learn a lot of it is good preparation and obviously, it builds momentum or it doesn’t build momentum,” he reasoned.
“Ireland will go into the next games with a lot of momentum, but in 20-18 we lost 50 per cent of our games and you still win a World Cup. So when you lose your first pool match, history would say you can’t win a World Cup if you lose your first pool match. If you lose your first British and Irish Lions game you can’t win a series, but it is a myth.
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“But obviously, it [winning] builds confidence, it builds momentum, it creates the opportunity to maybe be creative in terms of the development of your game, development of team selection if you build momentum. So that’s the bad thing, it takes that away so you almost have to consolidate again, you have got to get back in winning ways to try and build momentum again.”
That won’t come easy next weekend. France in Marseille certainly isn’t the gimme that the Springboks will likely enjoy versus Italy in game three of their four-match November tour and it will be curious what the reaction will be in South Africa if the result next Saturday goes against Nienaber and co and his record become ten losses in 24.
When their go-to reliables don’t work efficiently, their alternatives are rather bare. “Our lineouts can be better, our maul was stopped from the word go and then our scrum can do much better,” admitted skipper Siya Kolisi, jumping into the post-game conversation in Dublin unprompted during one Nienaber lull. “Normally we dominate in those instances and that is what Ireland were really good at, they came prepared, they knew our maul which is one of our key things.”
Nienaber agreed. “They use their rolling maul quite well. They have scored against us, they scored against France, big teams, they scored against New Zealand twice, they have got a good rolling maul and they got an opportunity and they nailed it and we got a couple of opportunities that we didn’t nail. That pretty much shows that’s why they are No1 in the world, if they get a chance they capitalise.
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“The reality is we played Ireland, who are No1 in the world, away from home and we lost by three points and we had a couple of opportunities that we didn’t use and they did. That is the reality. For us, we must take the learnings out of it and we have got one week and then we play France. We need to learn quickly, improve on the things we must improve. Some things will take time, some things won’t, but we need to make sure we fix the fixable things.”
One of those unfixable things is sadly likely to be Lood de Jager’s shoulder. He has an unfortunate history with it and while the extent of his latest setback won’t be determined until further medical assessment, his availability for the remainder of the tour is doubtful.
Im afraid this is typical from the saffas. The boks have to be the most over rated team on the planet. They are the only ones who think they are 'so good'. Ireland did not play well, lots of mistakes etc and some with execution but they still were better than the boks. The 'world cup holders' love to say after they lost that it's no issue etc etc, this is par for the course. Unfortunately, saffas are almost brought up to be arrogant and their over confidence has often been their downfall and indeed it may well happy again soon. Their are some talented players in the bok squad, not many that cut international quality, but definitely a few that do. Lukanyo Am is excellent, Marx, Bongi Mbonambi and Kwagga smith come to mind. No one else really appears to cut the mustard. Many saffas will be screaming in outrage etc but im afraid the boks are grossly overated. The coaches Nienaber is an awful coach and indeed should never have been made coach of a junior school C team never mind the springboks. This comes down to Rassie erasmus. While he seems to be a passionate guy, Im afraid he is an awful director of rugby and coach. Yes I said it. The reality is that the boks won the world cup 2019 . England had an awful game. Not sure what was up but had they played even half way decently they would have given the boks who played terribly almost throughout the tournament with perhaps the final as the one game when they were a fair amount better then their opponents instead of scraping through. You see south african sports writers notably supersport coming with pure drivel about Ireland scraping through and boks kicker made them lose. Er bulldust. Yes, total bulldust. The kicker did of course have a big impact but bottom line, the boks could not attack a huge Supreme pizza special lying on the table in front of them warm and delicious...They cannot attack to save their lives. So their only attribute as a team then is their defense which at times has been excellent and then again fairly often, er not quite so excellent. Hire some Irish/Kiwi even British coaches to teach you how to attack and you would be making a huge leap forward. Get rid of this ridiculous and fraudulent claim about your dna being running straight at the opposition like morons without any forethought or brainmatter being required. Rugby includes brains and tactics. Afrikaaners took over the coaching of the boks and unfortunately, that stubborn afrikaaner rugby mentality of dont use your brain use your head as a battering ram has stuck so that even Siya kholisi talks about this being their dna which is absolute nonsense. The cheetahs and the Stormers play amazing running attacking rugby just like the crusaders. Nothing wrong with Afrikaaners in case you think I am biased against them, they can be lovely, salt of the earth folk, strong tough as hell etc. Unfortunately, also very stubborn and unable to see the trees for the forest. If the boks makes these changes then they really will be able to win more often then not and perhaps be considered as good as the allblacks on average. I somehow doubt though that the people in charge will make these changes including to the culture which is really necessary. So overated Im afraid will be the one constant. Oh and just in case you think I am a Northerner etc against Saffas. Im a Saffar myself but cant stand the lack of accountability and arrogance so pervasive amongst us. We can be so much better.