Why letting the Super Rugby teams play like the Springboks isn’t a good idea

On the eve of this year’s Super Rugby campaign, Stormers coach John Dobson was typically forthright in an interview with a specialist publication about how his charges were going to play in 2020.

“We can’t play this Faf de Klerk box-kick stuff. We will empty Newlands.”

Dobson is far too sophisticated as a rugby thinker not to elaborate on that statement, but it nonetheless neatly summarised yet again the ideological debate that has defined discourse on South African rugby for years.

Up until Rassie Erasmus’ appointment as SA Rugby’s director of rugby in late 2017, the local game was suffering an identity crisis.

New Zealand were setting the standard, prompting local Super Rugby franchises to adopt a more expansive, attacking brand of rugby.

But it was only the admirable Lions – who admittedly had been working on their template for years – who achieved a measure of success in reaching three consecutive finals between 2016 and 2018.

Attractive rugby has never been South Africa’s forte.

Instead, Erasmus illustrated again how the traditional virtues of the country’s game – a big, skillful pack of forwards; relentless and accurate defence and ruthless counterattacking – remain very much fashionable.

It’s only natural then that the question gets asked: Should Super Rugby franchises copy the Springboks’ template?

After all, centralisation has been a theme of sorts over the past few seasons, particularly in terms of conditioning, national alignment camps and national coaching staff providing inputs at franchises when requested.

Yet to expect the Lions, for example, to suddenly change their DNA is not only foolhardy, it’s probably quite shortsighted too.

“When people talk about a national game-plan, I sometimes shake my head,” says Rudy Joubert, former Springbok assistant coach and Bulls head coach.

“The problem when we argue that Super Rugby team must play like the Springboks is that we get a fundamental principle wrong: we confuse basic rugby facts with a playing philosophy.

“When we think about Rassie’s Boks, we immediately think dominant pack, a dominant scrum and lineout and suffocating defence. As a result, we associate it with their game-plan. But those things aren’t “ways of playing”. They are basic principles for playing winning rugby.

“Even the most attacking, expansive team won’t make any headway if they don’t have a solid platform to work from and solid platforms come from solid play up front.”

The past two weekends of Super Rugby action have been influential in stirring the debate.

Sean Everitt’s Sharks were outstanding in disposing of the Highlanders in Dunedin, channelling some robust tackling to force mistakes on their opponents and then pounce on the counterattack through their incisive attackers.

Yet they were outplayed the next week by the Hurricanes after trying to be more proactive on attack.

Meanwhile, there’s an expectation that the Stormers, with their legion of Springbok fowards and key Erasmus men, should simply be the Springboks in Thor kit.

It wasn’t lost on some then that the Cape franchise kept a struggling Lions team in the frame at Ellis Park through what was perceived to be loose attacking play.

Was it really the case though?

“I didn’t watch the Sharks in Wellington, but the Stormers game was an interesting case study,” says Joubert, who nowadays mentors the Valke.

“Some argue the Stormers didn’t keep it tight enough against the Lions. That was hardly the problem. This was not a case of adopting the wrong game-plan. I sat and watched and thought to myself: ‘What the heck are the Stormers trying to do?’ They looked like headless chickens at time. This was a classic case of a team not having ANY game-plan.”

Dobson confirmed as much in his own brutally honest way this week.

Recently, Kennedy Tsimba, the former Zimbabwe, Bulls, Cheetahs and Cats pivot, admitted that he’d been inspired to take up coaching full-time again due to his admiration for the work Erasmus and new Bok coach Jacques Nienaber have done.

But the 46-year-old, who coaches  St Alban’s College in Pretoria and is a kicking and defence consultant in the Varsity Cup with Tuks, doesn’t believe a national game-plan is quite viable.

“It’s a tough one,” says Tsimba.

“If you want your Super Rugby franchises to play in a more uniform type of way, it could probably be a case of a middle-ground type of understanding. The problem is that teams’ playing strategies are influenced by the players you have at your disposal.”

That’s a hugely important consideration.

A Lions loose trio of Marnus Schoeman, Vince Tshituka and Len Massyn, with respect, can’t be expected to produce the same feats as a Stormers combination of Siya Kolisi, Pieter-Steph du Toit and Juarno Augustus.

However, there could be room for synergy in specific aspects, most notably defence.

“Yes, that’s the type of thing you could ‘centralise’. The finer details would need to be considered as a team that defends outside-in (high linespeed press) are teams that have a good kicking game and look to defend with in opponents half, whereas a team that looks to move the ball in hand in their half would work with a more passive style defence as there’s less error risk defensively due to the area they may have to cover,” said Tsimba.

“I think over a period of time the New Zealand teams have got the balance right in making the IDs of the All Blacks and their Super Rugby franchises more of the same.

“It does help to start it from junior ranks as that influences the culture and I think better collaboration between the relevant coaches would also help in making the playing style a cultural norm.”

Joubert agrees, but emphasises the importance of allowing franchise independent thought.

“South African rugby has become better in terms of sitting around a table and sharing ideas. It can still be improved,” he says.

“But I need to stress that franchises must be allowed to still develop their own game-plans. You need a variety of intellectual capital. I can’t deny that the Springbok template works. But what happens on the day when you’re not on the front foot? Then you need a Plan B.

“And Plan Bs and Cs are cultivated when different coaches can come up with different solutions.”