Boks can’t play like the Lions

It didn’t quite work out last year so there’s no fallback recipe that it will be the goto option this year. And yes we are talking again about the renewed pleas that the Springboks must start playing like the Lions.

It will never happen, so make peace with it.

Bok coach Allister Coetzee and Lions counterpart Johan Ackermann have their own areas of expertise, but the biggest handicap Coetzee has is that he didn’t have four years to build cohesion and team culture the way Ackermann had moulding the Lions into something special. Indeed a brotherhood.

Last year one and all were at odds trying to explain why ace Lions performers like flyhalf Elton Jantjies, centre Lionel Mapoe and scrumhalf Faf de Klerk didn’t have quite the same impact with the Boks as they did with the Lions. It’s quite simple actually. The Boks don’t play the way the Lions do and never will. But also – and people must start seeing the logic in this – Super Rugby is miles apart from international rugby.

And when you take some players out of their comfort zone and well-drilled patterns obviously won’t have the same impact when the tempo of the game are considered differently and when defence is being structured in different ways.

I heard an interesting statistic last week – 45% of the Lions tries are being orchestrated down the left-hand side of play where probably the biggest finisher this year in Super Rugby left wing Courtnall Skosan’s great finishing touches have been well exploited.

But the fact is that the Boks don’t employ a high-tempo approach the way the Lions do. And it goes deeper than just that.

The Lions are only allowed to play like that because of the grinding work that has been done up front through the likes of bulldozing hooker Malcolm Marx, props Jacques van Rooyen and Ruan Dreyer as well as the one guy who has been taking big knocks to get over the much treasured advantage line, blindside flanker Ruan Ackermann.

And now we get back to the controversial issue of why the Boks will never play like the Lions.

It’s purely because the Lions are always looking to exploit space like the Chiefs, Hurricanes or Crusaders, while the Boks are intent on bulldozing their way over a player who is often bigger and more streetwise.

I rest my case.