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Willemse's brilliance can't save the Boks from the boring tag

(Photo by Warren Little/Getty Images)

The Springboks crushed England into submission with a demoralising 27-13 win at Twickenham but the manner in which they constructed their win was largely the same for the most part.

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Relying on the brilliance of flyhalf Damian Willemse to break open the Test won’t be enough to break the ‘boring’ tag for the Boks, as much as some want them to shed that tag.

The Boks played their waiting game of applying defensive pressure whilst offering zero impetus on attack once again. It was effective against England and delivered the desired outcome on the day.

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But their narrow approach to the game cannot be disputed: from their first 20 possessions in the game over the first 30 minutes of game clock, just one reached four phases.

The rest were two phases or less, nine lasted just one phase, as they promptly kicked the ball away, attempted another maul or scrum, or surprisingly, turned it over, even though they weren’t trying to do much.

They managed just 17 total passes from those first 20 possessions, one every 105 seconds, with a total of 16 phases strung together and 11 kicks. It took 11 possessions to get more than two phases out of them after 17 minutes of game clock.

The game lumbered away for this duration, with only England attempting, very poorly mind, to play any ball-in-hand attack. Viewers had to listen to more words from Angus Gardner’s mouth than they saw passes from players in green jerseys.

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The Springboks simply do not want the ball and that’s okay. They are a defensive-minded team and play a pressure game based on hammering your opponent physically. They possess back rowers with superhuman strength who can be immovable at the ruck.

To feed this strength, it requires giving your opponent the ball frequently, so that’s what they do. But this approach comes unequivocally with the boring tag, nicely gift-wrapped and placed front and centre.

The first play from a set-piece that offered ball to the backs, a scrum in the 30th minute, was a direct carry up main street by Damian de Allende after a pass from the base by Faf de Klerk.

The seven phase sequence that followed featured seven passes of one-out rugby off De Klerk before a well executed drop goal between the sticks by Willemse to give South Africa a 6-3 lead.

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After 31 minutes of action, the Springboks had not played with the ball and England, who were utterly dismal with ball-in-hand, were still in the game after a couple of fluffed penalties by Owen Farrell.

Then came the knockout blow, allowed to unfold as England continued to play their unpolished shape. Marcus Smith, standing so deep he was basically on Whitton Road, shovelled a splitter pass between the pod out to Farrell, who similarly floated another lame duck out the back to Manu Tuilagi for a gain line loss.

Two phases later after the team had unravelled altogether Smith hoisted to the sky in desperation an awful bomb, deep and uncontested, with tired forwards standing in front of him.

Willemse was the chief architect on a magical piece of counter-attack, stepping Freddie Steward cold and breaking away downfield to break the spirits of England.

Kurt-Lee Arendse finished the long-range effort with blistering pace down the right side and punished Smith directly for his aimless kick.

At 11-3 the game was effectively over despite being just 33 minutes old. South Africa had to produce just one play of brilliance to sink Eddie Jones’ ship.

We had seen what England had to offer. They lacked precision, timing, polished organisation, basically everything you need to play efficient rugby. They were a disorganised mess by the third phase, which offered no trouble for South Africa’s high line rush.

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After the Boks had landed the killer blow, trickery on the next exit saw the Springboks break out of their own 22 with another piece of creative play from Willemse finding an offload for Arendse.

England could not handle the Springboks at high tempo, but it took over half an hour to get there and it was brief. That they can turn it on for a few minutes does not make the Springboks a high-flying entertainer’s dream.

The Venus flytrap approach is by its very nature a bore, waiting for the fly to make a mistake. It’s the defensive boxer who finds the sucker-punch after soaking up the blows.

That was the Springboks at Twickenham. Patient, gritty, disciplined in their process but ever-so tedius and draining.

From the moment Arendse swan-dived over they were never in danger against an abject England side, smartly constructing a bigger lead, but aided by luck at times with Etzebeth’s earthworm try playing the ball whilst still in the process of getting up off the ground.

Their last points came in the 57th minute after winning another scrum penalty, and a red card in the 60th gave England a one man advantage for the final quarter for a consolation try.

They made just 66 passes in total, a reversal of the expansive game seen against Italy, that was just a tease. But a win is a win of course.

And with that final victory on Twickenham soil another 8-5 season became etched in Bok history, another one at 61.5 per cent.

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Comments

40 Comments
S
Styx 716 days ago

Ben Smith ?The only thing that saved England from getting absolutely smashed was the red card - Who do you write for - the bosses at world rugby? Please tell me how if South Africa is so boring , why everybody is watching any game involving the Springboks ?

K
Kenneth 716 days ago

Bennie man please talk about how your all blacks that plays exciting rugby draw with England while SA with there boring game beat England...Please explain that?

J
Jan-Charl 722 days ago

Springbok rugby is more entertaining than Ben Smith's writing

J
Jacques 723 days ago

How on earth does Ben Smith still have a job as a rugby writer at a fairly reputable platform? I assume they pay him for whatever you call this. It can only be for the clicks, because engagement = money. But he's clearly just an anti-SA troll, and not even a very good one at that. In the short-term, this might generate some outrage clicks, but in the long run this is the best way to sink your brand as a credible rugby site.

C
Chris 723 days ago

Still beats drawing with stupid cross kicks all day 😂👍 and AB’s only had 64% win rate so what’s his point? The fact is we have two game plans that we can turn on at any time and they won’t know what’s coming!

K
Kenward K. 723 days ago

Mourinho [Springboks] vs Guardiola [All Blacks]. For me, it will always be Guardiola [inspired by Cruyff] and the All Blacks; but there's always a space in my heart for Mourinho and the Springboks.

F
Flankly 723 days ago

I have English friends that find NFL football boring, and American friends that find cricket boring. Seventy million Americans attend MLB games each year, and presumably think baseball is not boring. Some people like to watch slo-mo curling stones inching towards a target, oval track car racing, or biathlons with shooting and skiing. We are all entitled to find certain rugby teams boring. I thought the 2003 English team were a predictable (and very successful) yawn, for example. So, Ben, you are welcome to not get excited by the Bok game. But it's not cool to think that everyone else in the world shares your preferences.

S
Silk 723 days ago

Ben Smith. I refuse to comment on this nonsense you wrote.

M
Michael Röbbins (academic and writer extraordinair 723 days ago

Specious premise, sophomoric prose with the argumentative power of a fundamentalist doctrinaire QAnon follower, all done with the performative grace of a bumbling, unskillful cuckold: who could it be? Oh yeah, it’s Monday morning and SA won over the weekend, so Bennie Excrement time. Obviously the product of a syphilitic mind, this article has too many fallacious elements and lacunae galore. Simply, if BS thought that the game was “boring” on Saturday, all he demonstrates is that his wee little mind, too tiny wit, and non-existent imagination possess the potentiality of consuming stimuli on the level of a sea urchin in heat.

J
Jacque 724 days ago

I knew on Saturday evening this was coming. I could'nt wait for it actually.
Firstly, what did BEN SMITH write when the ALL BLACK THREW AWAY A 19 POINT LEAD IN 7MIN????

Does Ben Smith even know that its only the SCOREBOARD that matters? It must be so difficult to accept that when the BOKS play like they did against England they RARELY get beat.

Chin up mate, we'll fly the flag for the Southern Hemisphere in France 23.

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JW 3 hours ago
'Passionate reunion of France and New Zealand shows Fabien Galthie is wrong to rest his stars'

Ok, managed to read the full article..

... New Zealand’s has only 14 and the professional season is all over within four months. In France, club governance is the responsibility of an independent organisation [the Ligue Nationale de Rugby or LNR] which is entirely separate from the host union [the Fédération Française de Rugby or FFR]. Down south New Zealand Rugby runs the provincial and the national game.

That is the National Provincial Championship, a competition of 14 representative union based teams run through the SH international window and only semi professional (paid only during it's running). It is run by NZR and goes for two and a half months.


Super Rugby is a competition involving 12 fully professional teams, of which 5 are of New Zealand eligibility, and another joint administered team of Pacific Island eligibility, with NZR involvement. It was a 18 week competition this year, so involved (randomly chosen I believe) extra return fixtures (2 or 3 home and away derbys), and is run by Super Rugby Pacific's own independent Board (or organisation). The teams may or may not be independently run and owned (note, this does not necessarily mean what you think of as 'privately owned').


LNR was setup by FFR and the French Government to administer the professional game in France. In New Zealand, the Players Association and Super Rugby franchises agreed last month to not setup their own governance structure for professional rugby and re-aligned themselves with New Zealand Rugby. They had been proposing to do something like the English model, I'm not sure how closely that would have been aligned to the French system but it did not sound like it would have French union executive representation on it like the LNR does.

In the shaky isles the professional pyramid tapers to a point with the almighty All Blacks. In France the feeling for country is no more important than the sense of fierce local identity spawned at myriad clubs concentrated in the southwest. Progress is achieved by a nonchalant shrug and the wide sweep of nuanced negotiation, rather than driven from the top by a single intense focus.

Yes, it is pretty much a 'representative' selection system at every level, but these union's are having to fight for their existence against the regime that is NZR, and are currently going through their own battle, just as France has recently as I understand it. A single focus, ala the French game, might not be the best outcome for rugby as a whole.


For pure theatre, it is a wonderful article so far. I prefer 'Ntamack New Zealand 2022' though.

The young Crusader still struggles to solve the puzzle posed by the shorter, more compact tight-heads at this level but he had no problem at all with Colombe.

It was interesting to listen to Manny during an interview on Maul or Nothing, he citied that after a bit of banter with the All Black's he no longer wanted one of their jersey's after the game. One of those talks was an eye to eye chat with Tamaiti Williams, there appear to be nothing between the lock and prop, just a lot of give and take. I thought TW angled in and caused Taylor to pop a few times, and that NZ were lucky to be rewarded.

f you have a forward of 6ft 8ins and 145kg, and he is not at all disturbed by a dysfunctional set-piece, you are in business.

He talked about the clarity of the leadership that helped alleviate any need for anxiety at the predicaments unfolding before him. The same cannot be said for New Zealand when they had 5 minutes left to retrieve a match winning penalty, I don't believe. Did the team in black have much of a plan at any point in the game? I don't really call an autonomous 10 vehicle they had as innovative. I think Razor needs to go back to the dealer and get a new game driver on that one.

Vaa’i is no match for his power on the ground. Even in reverse, Meafou is like a tractor motoring backwards in low gear, trampling all in its path.

Vaa'i actually stops him in his tracks. He gets what could have been a dubious 'tackle' on him?

A high-level offence will often try to identify and exploit big forwards who can be slower to reload, and therefore vulnerable to two quick plays run at them consecutively.

Yes he was just standing on his haunches wasn't he? He mentioned that in the interview, saying that not only did you just get up and back into the line to find the opposition was already set and running at you they also hit harder than anything he'd experienced in the Top 14. He was referring to New Zealands ultra-physical, burst-based Super style of course, which he was more than a bit surprised about. I don't blame him for being caught out.


He still sent the obstruction back to the repair yard though!

What wouldn’t the New Zealand rugby public give to see the likes of Mauvaka and Meafou up front..

Common now Nick, don't go there! Meafou showed his Toulouse shirt and promptly got his citizenship, New Zealand can't have him, surely?!?


As I have said before with these subjects, really enjoy your enthusiasm for their contribution on the field and I'd love to see more of their shapes running out for Vern Cotter and the like styled teams.

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