Nice, but it was not the All Blacks

It was a day to remember and it soothed the pain after the loss to Scotland. The emphatic 21-11 win against England at Twickenham on Saturday by an embattled Springbok team was set up by the bludgeoning forward effort. The Boks were bravely led by an injured Victor Matfield, while Bismarck du Plessis, his brother Jannie, the lock Bakkies Botha, the flanker Juan Smith and the athletic Pierre Spies all featured prominently in the victory.

SuperSport put the victory in perspective when it stated that the Boks won this match as much for their superior kicking game as the way they fronted England in the scrums, disrupted them occasionally in the lineout and out-muscled them at the breakdowns.

“Of course what needs to be pointed out is that England are not the All Blacks, and the jittery hosts did not pose nearly the same threat that the main challengers to the Boks’ World Cup throne will next year.

“While the Boks should enjoy their victory – as victories have been rare against the big teams this year – they, like a play director who raves about the one night there is a full house and forgets about the other five nights when the venue is empty, also need to be realistic.

“They won at Twickenham because their forwards were so emphatically on top, but they cannot always rely on that dominance, and in the many games where opposition sides have fronted them this year they have looked lost and bereft of any plan,” said SuperSport.

Mike Catt, a former England fullback and flyhalf, said in the UK Independent on Sunday: “Despite their rough year they (the Boks) have showed us that they have the ability and the core of a side to re-emerge as a formidable force in time for the start of the World Cup next year.”

Catt is right of course, but he failed to pose an important question: do they have the right game plan?

Peter de Villiers, the coach, and Matfield, the captain, surely think so.

“This was a victory for our blueprint, it was all about us getting self-belief back in the game that we play,” said Matfield afterwards.

“It is a bit premature maybe to talk about this as a turn-around or a watershed, only next year will tell us that. But what we did show was that we don’t need to be following other teams and the way they play, we have our own way of playing.”

De Villiers said the match had shown that although not everyone was happy with the way the Boks were playing, it was still difficult for the opposition to stop them when the team got it right.

“If you do it the way the guys did it today, then it is very difficult to stop them,” said De Villiers.

“It’s all about believing in what you are doing. Although people know how we play and expect it and it might seem boring to a lot of people, if we keep doing it and we do it well maybe we can get dividends from it.”

Interestingly enough, the game plan worked against England because a relatively young side committed school-boy errors under pressure.

The Australians and New Zealand, even in situations where they were short of possession, were able to win matches because of their ability to counter-attack and put game breakers in scoring positions. They were also able to win matches because of South Africa’s tendency to present them with the ball through aimless kicking down-field.

New Zealand completed their third Grand Slam in five years during the weekend, and their average score during these three Grand Slams was 46-7. They scored almost four tries per match and conceded 0.58 tries per match, an indication of their superb game-plan.

South Africa are destined to retain De Villiers and his coaching staff of Dick Muir (backline coach) and Gary Gold (forward coach) and to use a technical committee to oversee and fine-tune their game plan.

While many would see this as a way forward, it seems an illogical idea.

Carel du Plessis, Rudolf Straeuli, Harry Viljoen, Rassie Erasmus and Heyneke Meyer will form part of the technical committee that will in all likelihood become De Villiers’s employer.

But who will devise the playing style and game plan of the Boks for next year, when  Du Plessis, Straeuli and Viljoen each had their own way of playing during their topsy-turvy tenures as coaches?

The Bok coaching staff and the senior players met on Wednesday after the loss to Scotland to iron out differences on the game plan, and ultimately the senior Boks prevailed on what plan was needed for the England team.

Will they rule the roost again next year?

Many rugby pundits were adamant that the senior Boks also effectively decided on the plan of action during 2010. South Africa won four matches during the Tri-Nations and Grand Slam campaigns and lost six. They scored 19 tries and conceded 27.

When confronted with criticism that the Boks could not register a Grand Slam, De Villiers countered with the idea that it would count for nothing if South Africa won the Grand Slam but lost the World Cup next year.

Perhaps the South African Rugby Union should give every member of the rugby public a complimentary ticket to tests between the Boks and the Wallabies or the All Blacks on South African soil, as these Tri-Nations encounters “count for nothing” and any tests played between Rugby World Cups are unimportant.

The international encounters in the build-up to the Rugby World Cup will be all-important next year for two reasons.

These matches are tests and every one of them needs to be won, for the Boks are the pride of the nation and the Rainbow Nation expects victory from the boys.

Secondly, the Boks need to mastermind a game plan that would demonstrate that they have evolved as a unit. The former Wallaby coach Eddie Jones recently said that the game has changed to such an extent that field-position is not the only thing that matters. It is vital that you manage your possession.

“New Zealand demonstrates this better than any other team. I believe South Africa will be in a similar position once Fourie du Preez is back,” he says.

Perhaps Jones should have added that New Zealand is not only superior in managing possession, but also in unlocking tight defences with incredibly gifted elusive runners who could sidestep or swerve past the first line of defence when counter-attacking.

That ability to break the deadlock with superb game-breakers could be a vital factor in the Rugby World Cup in 2011.

South Africa possess the personnel to inflict damage by counter-attacking and they have at least two generals who can assist them in managing possession well. These generals are Du Preez, and Morné Steyn.

But if these generals operate under instruction from wayward coaches who have lost the plot like they did so spectacularly during a disappointing campaign in 2010, South Africa are destined to lose their grip on the Webb Ellis Trophy they won so emphatically in 2007.