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The big picture risk totally lost on the Springboks' honchos
By Ben Smith
Sour grapes over refereeing calls by Director of Rugby Rassie Erasmus has highlighted just how lost the Springboks are tactically as they come to grips with a game philosophy that simply has not delivered long-term greatness.
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Drowning in the micro details of uncontrollable events on a rugby field, where interpretations will always vary, is like the rat who furiously runs on a spinning wheel but gets nowhere.
During this unproductive spiral of nitpicking which happens seemingly after every loss, the Springboks’ current top brass have failed to understand the biggest strategic risk of them all: That their own style of play leads to these outcomes which we have seen play out time and time again.
By design, they have set themselves up to fail constantly, unbeknownst to themselves.
It is the ‘big picture’ risk that has flown over their heads while studying the ruck interpretations or psychological profile of their next referee.
In one of his spilt milk tweets, Erasmus lamented the ‘small margins’ that can decide a rugby test. Yes, but this is largely because of your own doing. It doesn’t have to be by small margins.
The All Blacks smashed Wales 55-23 a few weeks ago. It wasn’t decided by small margins, the contest was over well before the game was. No one refereeing call in the game mattered.
This was the same Welsh team that toured South Africa in July, that nearly tipped over the Boks in the first Test despite being down three players, and the team that won for the first time on South African soil in the second.
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When Ireland themselves beat New Zealand on home soil in July, they did so by nine points in the second test and 10 points in the decider.
They did so by relentlessly pursuing tries and successfully putting the game out of reach for the All Blacks, with enough room to weather any storms along the way.
When you reduce a game of rugby to stoppages, scrums and mauls, kick the ball away excessively, and put the ball in the hands of the opposition constantly, you start to lose control of a number of outcomes.
If you don’t want the ball, you are at the whim of the referee or opposition to give it back to you, if you can’t get it back yourself.
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Playing a slow grind of a game also chews away so much clock that neither side can really get going, thus keeping scores close all the way to the end.
If you then need to rely on a referee to blow the whistle in your favour when it matters, there is a large degree to which the result is now out of your hands.
The Springboks had a great defence at their peak, but no matter how many hits you make behind the gain line or how many rucks are pressured, it doesn’t get rewarded with points.
When you show limited to no desire to break down a defence with ball-in-hand and score tries, relying mainly on penalty goals, you don’t put the game out of reach.
The Springboks rarely bury an opponent, nor do they get buried, under Erasmus or Jacques Nienaber.
This is the deal they make by playing a very limited brand of rugby centred around hardline defence, mauling and set-piece.
They won’t suffer blow out losses as a result, but the flip side also means the opponent is nearly always in the hunt. As we have seen, lower-ranked opponents have triumphed regularly over the World Cup holders.
When the seventh-ranked Wallabies came off three straight floggings at the hands of the All Blacks last year, they were able to snatch a win on the Gold Coast with a last-gasp Quade Cooper penalty.
A rebuilding England side that had one of their worst-ever Six Nations earlier in the year, snatched a late 27-26 win last year at Twickenham with a last-gasp Marcus Smith penalty.
Neither of those beatable opponents were put to bed early.
This is the major strategic flaw that seems lost on Erasmus when he takes to Twitter to cope with the latest tight loss.
The way these games are decided is largely by your own doing, except you seemingly haven’t figured out the key risk of your overall approach yet.
Ironically, applying the letter of the law to every situation wouldn’t help as it would result in more penalties against the Springboks.
Sure, some more would go their way, but just as many would go against them leaving them in no better place than now. Fundamentally, nothing else changes.
That’s because calls go both ways, and there are just as many instances of penalisable offences by South Africa that go unpunished.
They would lose the ball frequently on attack as the cleaners fly off feet constantly, sealing off the ball with sloppy execution or from desperate side entries from illegal positions.
But Erasmus doesn’t want that. He wants more calls to fall South Africa’s way. He’s not interested in the calls that go against his opponent. We don’t see those.
He needs those calls as the entire Springboks entire house of cards relies on them, and when it doesn’t work they have an easy scapegoat to blame for the loss, despite at times opting by choice, to play one of the worst styles of rugby seen by humankind.
It mustn’t be forgotten that this isn’t how South African teams of old played, who did bury opponents by large score lines with great attacking play, even from deep inside their own half. Bryan Habana didn’t score 67 Test tries for no reason.
This era hasn’t built a world-class attack. They haven’t taken the game to new heights. Their backline stars are too often caged up and left to starve without enough quality ball to truly shine. They haven’t adapted and have been reluctant to turnover the team with new players since 2019.
Ask yourselves, what would Scott Robertson be able to do with the most efficient lineout in the world and the likes of Cheslin Kolbe and Lukhanyo Am out wide?
Would he win more than 60 per cent of Tests? Would he win more than three from 11 against the other top five Test-playing nations in this World Cup cycle?
At some point you have to wake up and smell the roses, as over the long run you can’t escape the averages. A rough call might cost you a Test, but it won’t cost you six or seven.
In a zero-sum game of wins and losses, it’s a yardstick clear as daylight to tell you where you are.
And this is what it is saying: this is as far as this style of playing the game gets you. That it doesn’t get you more wins is nobody’s fault but your own.
This was proved an excremental article, right on schedule, after today's performance. Nice work Benny S, keep 'em coming!
Forgot, Ben only has articles published when he can slag our team and country. No articles for another 9 months 😂
Ben, to be honest and consequent, would be good to hear your views on the Boks after the England game. Wasn’t our best performance and am sure you will find much to criticize. This game without a number of guys due to playing outside Test window. Imagine the story you would think up if this happened to the ABs. Game went much like the AB game of last week, and we got a red with 20 mins to go. BUT we got tight, manned up and close out the game. ABs should learn a bit from this.
Such a stupid article. "It doesn't have to be small margins...look how the All Blacks beat Wales by a big margin"...seriously? That's the level of analysis and writing that Rugbypass puts out? NZ also lost to Argentina and the boks smashed them...what is your point? That coaches prefer to win by big margins? Yeah Ben, I think we all know that. Test rugby is often decided by small margins though, Ireland beat SA by 3 points and we now know that their try should have been called back as an Irish player had kicked the ball out of the ruck. Small margins.
Gra, love your views. I must admit I have been a bit surprised with the change in playing style, but think this as much to do with Willemse as well as Rassie/Nienaber starting to tinker. I also agree that losing a year and immediately facing the Lions meant we lost time to change personnel and playing style, and we use this end of year tour to challenge ourselves and play a more expansive game. To be honest, results are not that crucial now while we work on things. Am missing though is huge. Saturday is going to be tough and maybe with the team we have a bridge too far. England have hope as they played with the ABs in the last 15 mins last week. To be honest the ABs played really well and at least they know they have 60 good minutes in them. I wonder if their key guys are not getting too long in the tooth and start to lose athleticism?
The way the game has evolved places more emphasise on extreme athleticism than ever before. 10/15 years ago, ageing legends were still able to heavily influence games with nous and guile (think Matfield, Brad Thorne, George Smith etc.) It doesn't happen that way anymore... of course a guy like Sexton is still super relevant but he does almost exclusively get himself primed for big games. Huge risk factor for IRE this is... as good as the Irish pack is, they are 3-9 points worse off against true tier 1 opposition when Sexton doesn't play. For their sake I hope he can string 5 massive games in a row together which is required at RWC. His hamstrings might say otherwise.
One feels ABs too have issues coming with Whitelock... what a legend of the game but we saw how K Read fell off a cliff when he reached mid 30's and how that impacted the overall ABs game. Even the GOAT's can't keep up at some point and there have been one or two tell's in Whitelock's game that suggest he isn't the player he was a year ago. Will be interesting to see if his athleticism holds for another year. If anyone deserves to go out in style it is Whitelock... proper warrior. But AB pack (and specifically lineout) has very different look and feel without a prime Whitelock...
Ah shame Ben Smith is wrong again the Springboks obliterated Italy and their backline fired quite nicely. They showed against France they can adapt the way that play. The All Blacks are pretty one dimensional Riki Ione is the only player that can make things happen otherwise pretty predictable backline. Their defence got cut open by England 3 tries in 10 min. I would rather have a strong defence as SA has than leak tries line the All Blacks did. I think SA is sitting nicely one year out from the World Cup. The much vetted French pack were made to like puppies. Where in an international game do you see the communication system go dead. All Blacks played Japan and barely won.
Ben, for once I totally agree with you. For way too long we have been fed and believed the narrative that we only have the tight forwards and this is our only strength. It is to be honest amazing we have won 3 World Cups and a few other series( namely Lions tours) with only utilizing the strengths we have at forward. Our reality is we have about 400 plus top players abroad and of these most are tight forwards and loose forwards. One only needs to look at make up of Scotland side and their franchise sides to see an example of this. We have started, and here Kolbe, Willemse, Arendse and others like Farsi and Stedman Gans are examples, to show the genetic pool bubbling under of serious steppers and exciting backs which we slowly start to tap in to alongside Etzebeth and Marx and co.
So Ben, thank you for giving us verbals, and hopefully this will ignite us to play with more adventure. We can see what our URC sides( refer mainly to Stormers and lions) have done in the first year with massively diluted squads playing an exciting ball in hand game and taking on the top Irish, Scottish and Welsh franchises. We keep having a pathway from the top schools through Varsity cup and academies to feed into the system, and hopefully we don’t keep losing talent to northern hemisphere sides. Thanks Ben.
Great points made. As much as many don’t like to admit, South Africa are a year short on their RWC prep cycle due to missing all of 2020. Upon return in ‘21 a severely undercooked South African side took 16 forwards and physically submitted the B&I Lions. Arm wrestle to the end but ultimately South African forwards prevailed. Then, while the rest (NZ, AUS, Eng etc) were playing grab ass with each other through ‘22 & ‘23, trying to figure out what their actual identity is (still not convinced NZ or Eng are any closer to finding themselves), the South Africans were quietly tinkering/tweaking/ experimenting safe in the knowledge that their core is, and always has been, well served. Sure they’re now adding a layer of talented young backs into the mix, but the truth is 9 times out of 10 the gnarliest pack of forwards wins the RWC. The closer we get to next year’s show piece, the realisation sinks in for all those who’ve happily bashed the Boks that Etsebeth, Marx & their mates are coming in hot. Not saying Boks will win or are even close to being favourites, but I guarantee the Boks will be an unadulterated nightmare to deal with next year.
For the first time I TOTALLY ARGEE WITH YOU BEN. As a DIE- HARD Bok supporter, it's sometimes a tough watch seeing them NOT performing to their ability. Honestly i'm not sure what the plan is anymore.
& I totally agree- play the card you are dealt. You can't blame the ref all the time.
I disagree , teams are getting closer to each other and therefore defense will become more important and you would see more tight score lines, this is where these non-uniformed decisions will have a big impact going forward.
Ben does have a point - we have unbelievable backline talent in SA that is being wasted in the Bok setup. We briefly showed attacking flare in 2018 when Swys was the attack coach, but he wasn’t replaced when he stepped down. The Boks could be the best team in the world consistently if we addressed this one remaining hole in our game. That aside, I’ve read enough Ben Smith articles to know his prejudice against the Springboks renders him incapable of making a balanced argument.
You can practically hear Bennie salivating to have a half legitimate reason to bag the Springboks and South Africa once again.
I have raised his borderline xenophobia before, but apparently the Rugbypass moderators feel that comment baiting is more important than journalistic integrity. Hence, and I know in the bigger scheme of things it is possibly an empty gesture, I will be cancelling my subscription as of today. @Ben Smith - Thank you for destroying any and all reading pleasure I got from what otherwise is one of the better rugby sites.
I cancelled mine as well, can no longer tolerate his hatred for Saffas
Rugbypass "principal" in class: I need someone to write another essay on the fall of the Springboks - Ben in front of the class "pick me, pick me"... (Awkward silence follows as principal seeks any other willing participant - finds no one), Ok Ben, you can write the essay (again).....:)
Ben, many of your points are valid. However you are also missing the bigger picture. World rugby is more competitive than it has ever been. Great test matches between highly competitive sides are often decided by a few points. No-one wants inaccurate refereeing
decisions to incorrectly determine the result of a great test match. That is unfortunately what is happening today. We can and need to do better.
Exactly! we do not need TMO blunders like we had against RSA vs France.
Well said Ross