Boks need to be more decisive

SPRINGBOK manage- ment will be relieved that they have 13 days to figure out how to dig the team out of the current hole it finds itself in.

The timely gap week comes at a stage of the Rugby Championship when South Africa looks to be treading in quicksand. After losing to Argentina in Salta on Saturday evening, the Boks now travel to Australasia to face their more traditional rivals.

The burning question is, though, will 13 days be enough for the Boks to turn their fortunes around? Is it too soon to panic?

Not if you begrudgingly caught a glance of the signs along the way. In the last year the Boks have suffered historic home losses to Argentina and Ireland, and were also beaten by Japan.

Just last week, the team scraped home in front of a partisan Nelspruit crowd at Mbombela Stadium.

The slide started under former coach Heyneke Meyer. There was a changing of the guard and Allister Coetzee was handed the reins in April. The former EP captain has felt the pressure from the outset, losing to the Irish in his first match.

He eventually managed a series win over Ireland in Port Elizabeth and then backed under-fire captain Adriaan Strauss whose credentials remain under scrutiny.

Coetzee has presided over five Bok matches so far and not one of those has produced a convincing Bok performance. It is early days, but there are far bigger fish lying in wait and that is the major concern.

The Wallabies are coming off heavy defeats to New Zealand and will be hurting. The All Blacks have been nothing short of sensational.

If the Boks are to be a factor Down Under they need to decide what game plan they are going to employ and stick with it. You simply cannot have the best of both worlds and play the attacking game with an out-of-sorts Elton Jantjies, and then try to switch to the kicking game of Morne Steyn, who appears past his sell-by date.

If they want to play the Lions-type running game, they need to persevere with it. There appears to be way too much indecision at the moment.