Once bitten, twice shy – Boks won’t be bossed at the breakdown again
THE Boks are expecting a fierce breakdown battle in this Saturday’s Test against England at Twickenham.
Plenty has happened since the Springboks last took on England in the third and final Test at a rain-drenched Newlands at the end of June.
However, the Boks haven’t forgotten how England managed to get the better of them on that occasion to claim a 25-10 victory.
In conditions that were better suited to England, they bossed the Springboks at the breakdown and prevented the home side from establishing any momentum to their play.
At the post-match press conference in Cape Town, Bok No 8 Duane Vermeulen carried a limp and admitted to being highly frustrated by a result that had undone so much of the good work completed in the two previous wins over England in Johannesburg and Bloemfontein.
Vermeulen missed the Rugby Championship due to his club commitments in Japan, but he has now returned to the Bok setup and suggested that the third and final Test against England had certainly served as a learning curve.
“The weather played a big part in how the game unfolded at Newlands,” Vermeulen told reporters in London. “England are used to playing in those conditions and they made things very hard for us.
“They put us under a lot of pressure at the breakdown. Our exits weren’t great. That’s some of the stuff we’ve worked on. If you don’t win your set piece, you’re going to struggle. That’s definitely an area that let us down in Cape Town.”
The good news for the Boks is that there is no rain predicted for London on Saturday, and the conditions should be better suited to the high-tempo game that South Africa enforced so well in the Rugby Championship.
One of the Springboks’ primary breakdown exponents, Malcolm Marx, will also continue in the No 2 jersey after missing the June series due to injury.
“England are looking to disrupt your breakdown and your set piece,” Marx commented on Tuesday. “They don’t allow you to get out of your half. I didn’t play against them in June, but I watched closely and I’ve done a lot of analysis on them since.”
– African News Agency (ANA) ONE OF the first things Rassie Erasmus uttered to the English media on the Springboks’ arrival in London on Monday was that he was “thin on the ground with regard to experienced scrumhalves” which begs the question: Whose fault is that?”
The fact is that the Springbok coach has made a rod for his own back by not giving meaningful game time to Embrose Papier and Ivan van Zyl during the England series and the Rugby Championship, although it can also be argued that Eramus felt his best chance of building a winning culture in the short term was to flog every minute he could out of Faf de Klerk.
It is a weak argument because we have also been hearing from the coach all season that he has to build depth ahead of the World Cup.
And he has tried various players in every position except scrumhalf, which suggests that he does not trust their abilities.
Now he has to pick one of them for one of the toughest Tests of the year, England at Twickenham, and whether it is Embrose Papier or Ivan van Zyl, you can’t blame them if they don’t hit the ground running.
Picking up bench splinters all year does that to you.
At least Van Zyl has been getting Currie Cup game time for the Bulls but it borders on criminal that Papier went from benching for the Boks behind De Klerk to benching for the Bulls behind
Van Zyl.
It would not happen in New Zealand, where the All Blacks come first and the provinces second.
It is an insult to Papier that he was embarrassed in this manner by the Bulls.
Or course Van Zyl and Papier have been through this in Super Rugby too, and it is also interesting that the games in which John Mitchell picked Papier were against New Zealand opposition.
This is probably because he is the more physical of the two. He is small … but dynamite comes in small packages. Originally from Clanwilliam in the Cape, as a schoolboy he was bought by the Bulls and he finished at Hoërskool Garsfontein.
Van Zyl, two years older than Papier, is Pretoria born and bred, and he came through the Affies and Bulls age group system.
Van Zyl started the year behind Rudy Paige and Piet van Zyl but when they became surplus to requirements, the duel between him and Papier began.
Fourie du Preez, the scrumhalf legend that has clearly inspired Van Zyl’s style of play, told a Sunday newspaper early this season that Van Zyl was the way to go, with that endorsement no doubt carrying weight in Pretoria.
And he is a tactically astute scrumhalf, with his calculated box kicking modelled on that of his hero. For this reason we should not be surprised that Erasmus goes with Van Zyl on Saturday.
It would be a conservative decision based on the Northern Hemisphere conditions, but is it the right one?
Mitchell picked Papier against the Kiwis because he is physical, very fast around the field, has a snappy pass and suited the rugby Mitchell wanted to play.
Mitchell, England’s defence coach on Saturday, would likely be pleased if Papier is not picked.
Papier played two years SA Schools rugby and then for two years was the SA Under-20 scrumhalf. With the SA Under-20 side he was the catalyst in a brilliant backline featuring Curwin Bosch, Damian Willemse and Manie Libbock.
He has the pedigree and he should now be backed at senior level.