The entire coaching staff must be held accountable
WE have grown used to Allister Coetzee’s tiresome platitudes after heavy Springbok defeats over the past two years, but to be fair to the coach he does not work alone.
Much has been said about the recruitment of the rugby brains of defence coach Brendan Venter and attack coach Franco Smith, and they remain shrewd rugby men despite the 57-0 defeat, but let’s not crucify Coetzee alone.
Venter, a proud rugby man who has engineered some shock victories in his time, notably a Currie Cup victory for the Sharks against Western Province at Newlands that was based on clever strategy, but in North Harbour last week, the Boks leaked eight tries.
Venter will be privately devastated by that, but from the coaching box you can’t expect him to make tackles for Raymond Rhule, who missed nine, surely a figure that will cost him his place? Is Sbu Nkosi of the Sharks ready to step up to the international stage?
It has long been a criticism of South African rugby that we tend to wait too long before blooding youngsters who are clearly going to have international futures.
The whole back three was poor on defence. How much influence does Venter have on selection? He will be hurting but to reiterate, he can’t make the tackles for the players.
Now is not the time to push the panic buttons, as that tiresome cliché goes, but maybe Venter should start looking at form players such as Nkosi and Kobus van Wyk?
At flyhalf, every Test Elton Jantjies plays he does good and bad things. I am unconvinced the Boks can win a World Cup with him as the dictator, in the mould of a Dan Carter or Beaudon Barrett. But at the moment he is the best we have, given that Handre Pollard needs some serious game time (thankfully he has been released to play for the Bulls against the Sharks this weekend), and Curwin Bosch is getting there, but personally I do not think he is ready just yet.
It might have broken him if he had been the 10 last week against the All Blacks – there was nothing one single player could have done to stop that avalanche of Black attacks or change the game on attack.
Which brings us to Smith. How does he feel about his backline failing to score a a single try? Why were the Boks kicking so much long ball into the deep where the All Blacks could initiate dangerous counters?
That is not how Smith coaches the Cheetahs to play in Super Rugby. They would have kept the ball and had a go, and that surely would have been better than last week when the ball was hoofed down to the Kiwi predators with the invitation to