Super Rugby is a marathon, not a sprint, says ex-Bok coach Meyer

IF ANY South African side is to win this year’s Super Rugby competition then they will have to treat it like a marathon and not a sprint, says former Springbok coach Heyneke Meyer,

Meyer led the Bulls to their first of three Super Rugby titles in 2007, and built a formidable side that were able to win back-to-back trophies under the tutelage of his close friend Frans Ludeke.

Much of how the Bulls played and went about dominating all teams in the competition to become the only South African side to win the coveted titles in the professional era was largely due to the team running its own race.

“Super Rugby is not what it used to be, in the past you had

pictured.

11 to 12 games and were done by May. Things have changed now and teams need to plan ahead. There are just too many games to be trying to sprint through the competition,” Meyer said.

However, any successful team’s ability to sustain and maintain a steady pace through the marathon will require stamina, which comes down to conditioning.

Meyer believes the cornerstone to any team having a chance at the championship will come down to how conditioned they are to last the entire tournament.“Conditioning is very important and I never had that at the Springboks because you never have time with the guys. This is an area where the Hurricanes got it right. Conditioning is more important than game plan. Game plans are more or less the same – it is just about game breakers. If you don’t get your conditioning right in the pre-season, and in the competition, then that is when the injuries come,” said Meyer. But Meyer’s biggest bugbear is that teams are not conditioned to deal with how long the ball stays in play, and he believes this is where New Zealand teams seem to have an edge. “When South African teams were number one in the world, the ‘ball in play’ during those times – including the 1995 World Cup – is still much less than games today.

“People always talk about how fit the side was, when one takes into account the play-off games including extra time with 10 minutes each way, But in those games the ball was in play for 25 minutes. We’ve always had big, strong forwards who dominated and in 2007 we (Bulls) were super, super fit.

“But the game has moved on from then. In those 25 minute games we could manage with maul, and overpower opposition teams. Suddenly we’ve hit games of 42 to 44 minutes of ball-in-play, and that is where South African teams are struggling. In the eight Tests I was in charge, against the All Blacks we were always ahead at half-time. If one looks at last year’s Super Rugby we were always in the games, and in the last 15 minutes they just blew us away.”

Meyer rightfully emphasised the impact a lack of conditioning has on the prevalence of injuries, and so too fatigue at the business end of the competition, with Super Rugby now running for five months instead of four. He says that with the right conditioning, players must be fitter and faster to keep up with the constant evolution of the game.

Success in Super Rugby also comes with inflated management teams, something Meyer got heavily criticised for in the “building years” leading to the Bulls’ last-gasp 2007 Super Rugby triumph in Durban against the Sharks.

Meyer’s management team was far larger than any other in the country, with a lot of focus on skills and making sure every aspect of the game was covered. He brought in specialists like defence coach John McFarland, skills and backline coach Todd Louden and kicking coach Vlok Cilliers, and made Johann van Graan the attack coach. He also used former wrestlers to help with the breakdown.

What this specialised management team did for Meyer was to afford him enough time to devise gameplans and work on the mental aspect of the players.

“People often complained that we shouldn’t be too big. The problem is once we start travelling we play on Saturday and fly on Sunday and Monday, then it is time for us to review the previous game, look at the game ahead, come up with game-plans and go through all of the detail. In the olden days you could have one or two coaches, but there is no ways we can do that now. There is no way one coach can do the study that specialists can do. It is not just about the video work, but it is about skills as well. I truly believe that your management team makes a huge difference, especially coaching wise.”

That coveted trophy may be seven months away, but for a coach to get his hands on it will require a sustained effort on and off the field from both management and players, while there can be no compromise when it comes to being fitter and faster for longer. Any team which gets that right, and studies Meyer’s blueprint for the Bulls success, should be the first to the tape at the end of the marathon.