Boks won’t ‘zoom in’ on Barrett
Coach Allister Coetzee says the Springboks would be ‘‘stupid to focus just on Beauden’’ Barrett at the expense of the rest of the ‘‘best team in world rugby’’.
The first-year test head coach arrived in Christchurch on Monday insisting South Africa’s task of beating the All Blacks on Saturday was not a potential plane crash in the making.
With just one win in three Rugby Championship matches and the Springboks have every right to be defensive.
Especially with former South African coach Nick Mallett accusing this year’s team as strictly B division.
But Coetzee and experienced backrower Warren Whiteley aren’t throwing in the towel before Saturday’s AMI Stadium test against an All Blacks side on a 14-match winning streak.
Despite mounting fears among South African media that the Boks are destined for cellar dweller status, Coetzee was confident of immediate improvement.
Going out simply to keep the score down had ‘‘never been within the DNA’’ of a Springbok side, he claimed.
‘‘We’re going out there, not just to compete. We’re going to play a hard test on Saturday.’’
Asked how the Boks could shackle Barrett, the All Blacks’ backline star this season, Coetzee said: ‘‘Just not focus on Beauden Barrett, focus on the whole team.
‘‘It’s difficult to just to focus on one player. He’s really on song, he’s confident, everything he does he does well and turns into gold.
‘‘But pressure is the name of the game and you’ve got to make sure the pressure’s not to try and zoom in on Beauden, but to get the set piece right, to scrum well, put the lineout under pressure and hopefully that pressure will feed out to nine [halfback] and onto Beauden as well.
‘‘There are going to be contests all over the park on Saturday. For us, it wold be stupid to focus just on Beauden.
Coetzee said the All Blacks were full of game breakers and skillful confident players but he said the Springboks would be focusing on their own game during preparations this week.
The Springboks have lost their last two games on the road, 26-24 to the Pumas in Argentina and 23-17 to Australia - who snapped a sixgame losing streak - in Brisbane last Saturday.
That prompted one South Africa rugby critic to write that the Boks were like a ‘‘jumbo jet with one engine’’ at risk of ‘‘a catastrophic plane crash’’ in Christchurch this weekend.
Coetzee said ‘‘people are entitled to their opinion’’ but felt his side had shown improvement since their loss in Argentina and ‘‘created so much opportunity’’ to win the Brisbane test.
‘‘The last test I was involved with with the Springboks in Brisbane, we got [beaten] 49 nought.’’
Coetzee said the Boks’ lineouts and scrums were strong against the Wallabies, but they gave away ‘‘a couple of unnecessary soft penalties’’ through being offside and that ‘‘our discipline let us down’’.
He also felt his team was not clinical enough inside the Australians’ 10m area.
‘‘We got close three times ... ten metres, five metres from the tryline. [It’s] just the last ruck where we’re not clinical. In terms of the contact situation, it’s a work in progress, but I’m positive about it.’’
Coetzee claimed the Springboks had a happy camp with an ‘‘evolving culture’’, but it took time to get to the same level as the All Blacks, who had ‘‘the best systems in the world’’ and benefited from continuity.
The Springboks have won just once in this year’s Rugby Championship, 30-23 at home to Argentina in the opening round.
They risk ending the competition with three away losses for the first time since the series was expanded to four teams in 2012.
Whiteley, the Lions’ Super Rugby team captain, said getting frustrated ‘‘is probably the wrong thing to do at this moment’’.
‘‘If I had to be honest, there are probably glimpses of that, but you can’t get frustrated.
‘‘It will take time, it’s just the honest truth.’’