Meyer relies on his trusted foreign legion
SA tends to discard their top players too early
SELECTING players based abroad doesn’t just present Springbok coach Heyneke Meyer the best possible opportunity of increasing his win-loss ratio, in time it will also make South African players a less attractive proposition for cash-laden foreign clubs.
Meyer is increasingly leaning on his formidable foreign legion and although there are wider benefits he is guided by one simple principle. “You have to play your best team.”
It will of course also serve his paymasters’ interests if SA’s A-list players, if they continue being selected for the Springboks, are in future considered risky investments by clubs north of the equator.
Meyer, however, is single minded in his objective. “A lot of these guys play in Europe where the next World Cup will be. They will know the conditions. I’m, however, not suggesting for one minute that players should go play overseas. I prefer that the guys play in South Africa, but this is a global sport,” he said.
He had no difficulty illustrating the point. “If there is a 50/50 choice, I will always go with the locally based player. Even 60/40. I think a guy like Bakkies [Botha] is still playing outstanding rugby, but we’ve got a guy like Eben [Etzebeth] who is developing nicely and Flip [van der Merwe] is playing very good rugby.
“In certain positions we are well covered, but one can’t let six or seven guys go at the same time and start afresh.”
However, casting the selection net wide doesn’t come without complication. Just this week Morne Steyn, Bryan Habana and Juandre Kruger had to report for duty at their French clubs before embarking on the long journey to reunite with their compatriots Down Under.
Their clubs have to carry that cost as national associations incur that expense only at the start and at the end of competition.
The International Rugby Board (IRB) has decreed that players be released in three windows for competition and the same number for training camps a year.
The Japanese season clashes with the international windows and while national coaches can enforce the IRB’s regulation in securing the services of a player, they are reluctant to alienate their talent.
South Africa’s top players will simply stop playing for the national team and who can blame them if their earnings potential of R3.5-million a year here can be tripled elsewhere? Moreover, they are pampered with accommodation and transport and by playing abroad they also fall into a less suffocating tax bracket.
Meyer knows too that by retaining experience he runs the risk of repeating the mistakes of his predecessor Peter de Villiers, who took a vastly experienced, and perhaps as a result inflexible team, to the last World Cup.
“That is the art of coaching. You have to be able to integrate youth and experience. We make the mistake in this country of casting players aside when they reach 31. Merlene Ottey won Olympic (silvers) aged 36 and Carl Lewis (gold) at 34.
“If you condition a player of 35, 36 properly he is going to be better than the 33-year-old you play week in and week out.”
That of course begs the question whether he will consider former Bok lineout kingpin Victor Matfield. “Not at this stage. If you look at Fourie [du Preez] I could see at the first practice that he was at his best because he is fitter and stronger than ever, his injuries have healed and he is playing a quick tempoed game.
“At the World Cup you have to win all seven games. You are probably going to have a different captain in three of those and you are going to need an experienced player for that.
“We have enough youthful players, but to win the World Cup we need some experience. I just want to take the best possible squad to the World Cup.”
We have enough youthful players, but to win the World Cup we need some experience