BOKS ADMIT BREAKDOWN TACTICS VITAL
Forwards coach pinpoints exactly where the team have been going badly wrong
THERE was a refreshing change in attitude from the Springbok camp yesterday when forwards coach Matt Proudfoot admitted that the team had failed in contact areas against Italy last week.
Despite poor results all season, and on this tour in particular, much of the rhetoric coming from the Bok camp has been about missed opportunities and silly mistakes, rather than systematic problems.
But yesterday, Proudfoot admitted that the breakdown and the team’s contact skills were not good enough against Italy.
Those deficiencies went some way to the Boks losing 2018 in Florence as they slumped to their seventh defeat in 11 tests this season.
Considering the Boks have been decimated through injury in the openside position during the year, it is no wonder that the breakdown has suffered.
Any side would struggle to replace the injured Francois Louw, Marcell Coetzee and Siya Kolisi and also not be able to call on Schalk Burger and Heinrich Brussow.
Nizaam Carr struggled at the breakdown against Italy, and it will not get easier against Wales on Saturday with British and Irish Lions skipper Sam Warburton bearing down on every second ruck.
Against England two weeks ago, the Boks went into the match without a recognised openside flank with a specific battle plan in mind.
The outcome was a 37-21 defeat.
“We had a breakdown plan against England for that challenge but we were not as good as we would have liked across the park in our execution,” Proudfoot said.
“But for 30 minutes in that game we were pretty clinical, so we have gone back and looked at that and also at what we did against Australia when we played against two fetchers [David Pocock and Michael Hooper].
“Warburton is a world-class player who really thinks about his attack at either the first or second breakdown.
“We have looked at our strategies for that and what we have learnt from the Italian match is that they hit rucks with an attacker plus two players.
“In the southern hemisphere, it is normally an attacker plus one, and that difference really stunted our quick ball progression last week,” Proudfoot said.
“So that was an aspect we focused on at training: how to generate quicker and more effective ball.
“The breakdown is not only the fetcher’s role, he might take the first one but there are 90 more in a match that the rest of the team have to take care of.
“We’ve worked on the ball carrier in contact, the effectiveness of the arriving players and the order in which they arrive at the breakdown.”
A possible curve ball to the loose forward selection this weekend is that Willem Alberts is nursing a neck injury.
But Proudfoot believes that the Boks will cope if Alberts is ruled out, even though he was critical of the team’s physicality against Italy.
Possible replacements on Saturday could include Jean-Luc du Preez, Uzair Cassiem and Oupa Mohoje.