Comparing Super Rugby with Test rugby is not comparing apples with apples

SPRINGBOK coach Allister Coetzee has spoken about the confidence booster that an unexpected Lions win in this morning’s Super Rugby final in Wellington would give his team ahead of the Rugby Championship – but for him personally, such a result could well be bitter-sweet.

Of course, Coetzee is right in what he says. A Lions win would be huge for South African rugby. I fully expected the Hurricanes to win – obviously this is being written before the game – as flying to New Zealand to play in a final is a massive ask. There is good reason why, before today at least, no South African side had ever won a play-off game on New Zealand soil.

However, the fact that the odds were stacked against the Lions would only have added to the gains for South Africa and the Boks if the unexpected did indeed happen.

A Lions win in a play-off game in New Zealand would send out a strong message that the Springboks could be capable of bucking the recent trend by beating the All Blacks. Coetzee evoked the memory of the successful World Cup campaign that he was part of in 2007 when he spoke about the confidence that a Super Rugby title can inspire. The Bulls and Sharks played in that year’s final, and the momen- tum picked up was carried into the World Cup.

There are also key members of Coetzee’s team who play for the Lions and would have their confidence massively boosted by a win over a New Zealand team in a high-pressured away final. Indeed, after watching the Lions play in recent weeks, I’d even add to the Lions contingent in the current Bok starting team.

For a start, I’d give strong consideration to the claims of Rohan Janse van Rensburg at inside centre. He looks the business as a strong centre who can take it to the line and has hand skills. Lions hooker Malcolm Marx also looks a potentially better and more influ- ential player at this point than Bok captain Adriaan Strauss.

But the fact that it is starting to become easy to find Lions alternatives to Coetzee’s choices in the Bok team is part of the reason why I suspect that deep down a Lions win won’t be all just positive for Coetzee. As indicated by one of the questions he had to answer this week, the success of the Lions playing the way they do might also make his life a bit more complicated and pressured. There is a lot of support for Lions coach Johan Ackermann.

I’m not the only person who traces the Lions success back to the Kiwi influence that was introduced when John Mitchell and Carlos Spencer worked with Ackermann five seasons ago, but it is still true that Ackermann is the man who has carried it through.

There were some who felt that losing a series to the England Saxons when he was in charge of the South African A side might prove a backward step for Ackermann, but you also have to be realistic about what was expected of him. Ackermann had a few days to work with a scratch team. The Saxons were a much more established unit. At this point the popularity of Ackermann shouldn’t be a concern to Coetzee, but were Ackermann to win the Super Rugby trophy, something that Coetzee never managed to do, it could well start to become a talking point if Coetzee’s Boks struggle in the Rugby Championship.

And if the Boks fail to the background of criticism of their game-plan – there wasn’t anything exciting about them against Ireland except for the second half at Ellis Park where the Lions were credited – there will be many who will start questioning not only why the Boks aren’t following the Lions template, but also why the Lions coaches aren’t coaching the Boks. It’s all nonsense of course, for comparing Super Rugby with Test rugby is not comparing apples with apples.

There are still some players who excel for the Lions, their skipper Warren Whiteley being one and Elton Jantjies another, who have yet to really convince at the higher level. Some players may be good Super Rugby players but not necessarily world-beaters beyond that.

But having a lot of Lions players in the team, and having the public expecting to see those players to play and perform like they do in Lions clothing, may not be helpful if the team isn’t performing.

The Boks won the World Cup in 1995 with a team dominated by Transvaal players, but they were coached by a man, Kitch Christie, who had mentored them at provincial level.

When Ian McIntosh was in charge of the same players he wasn’t successful and admitted that there was nothing more difficult than “coaching another man’s team”.

Coetzee is still some way from being coach of another man’s team, but he should be aware that while Lions success would be good for the country, it could have a negative spinoff for himself personally by intensifying the pressure not only to get his team to win, but to do so in the style that has become the Lions’ trademark.