CHASING GREATNESS
Method in Jacques' madness
IN 2003, the year after SA Under21 World Cup-winning captain Clyde Rathbone moved to Australia, Laurie Fisher, then the Brumbies Academy coach, was asked why the Baby Bok skipper wasn’t in the team.
“Well mate, he’s a good player, strong defender and strong runner, but he can’t pass water,” was Fisher’s succinct appraisal.
It raised a laugh, but it also underlined a fundamental point about the general gulf in skills between Australian players and their SA counterparts.
Of course there are exceptions, but largely Australia look to upskill their players while South Africa’s depth of talent and seemingly endless production of great athletes means that players are easily discarded instead of nurtured.
Waratahs flank Jacques Potgieter is a classic case, and Wilhelm Steenkamp and Sias Ebersohn at the Force are also massively improved players.
Potgieter, though — as a Springbok — is the most highprofile success story.
Initially he made an impact at the Bulls as an imposing ballcarrier who would willingly run down blind alleys all day if the coach asked him to.
But few remember Potgieter ever passing a ball during his time at the Bulls. He tackled ferociously but inaccurately, which cost his team numerous penalties.
It is also claimed that he had some off-the-field issues, enjoying the Pretoria night life a little too much and eventually falling out of favour at Loftus.
It’s unclear how much actual coaching Potgieter was given outside of running maps and knowing when to take the ball at the lineout.
If he was, it never really showed.
Which makes his re-emergence at the Waratahs more curious. Clearly he can be taught because he is suddenly a battering ram with a brain.
Sure, the Waratahs recognise that Potgieter has great physicality and it would be a dereliction of duty for coach Michael Cheika not to use that, but they’ve added layers to his play.
He can pass, even deftly, and he can run into space instead of the nearest tackler. In other words, he has engaged his brain in a culture where questioning of methods is not only tolerated but encouraged.
Jake White discovered this when he coached the Brumbies, and he embraced it.
“Australians challenge you, and there is nothing wrong with that because it triggers debate,” White said in an interview last year.
“It also makes you, as a coach, look at things differently.
“If I say to an Australian player ‘run through that wall’, he’s going to ask me why or how he should run through it, and he will question whether it is the right decision.”
A B Zondagh, son of former Western Province coach Alan, is a believer in skills training, and as a coach at the Sharks Academy it is one of the biggest challenges he faces every day.
“In Potgieter’s case, it’s just
He was always able to pass a ball and step and evade, but he was never instructed to do that while he was here. He was told he had to run over the first player he saw
the emphasis the Waratahs have placed on the skills he might always have had,” Zondagh said.
“He was always able to pass a ball and step and evade, but he was never instructed to do that while he was here. He was told he had to run over the first player he saw to hurt him.
“That’s not usually the first thought of an Australian player. If the time comes and he has to run into someone, he will.
“Quade Cooper is a great player, but if you look at his body of work he has made many mistakes and some of them in big games. If he had been South African he would have been discarded long ago.
“In Australia they work with him and try to hone his great skills and equip him to make the right decisions. How many Quade Coopers have probably fallen through the cracks in SA and been pushed out of the game because they made some mistakes?”
The South African way has worked well for years, but the lack of skills is frustrating.
Great athletes with excellent physical attributes take SA far in the game, but how much better would it be if we could see the same improvement across the board that is displayed by Potgieter thanks to the Australian culture?