Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Meyer holds on to his aces
Le Roux will be impact player and Lambie a Steyn back-up
IT’S A RARE moment when the always eager to please Heyneke Meyer visibly loses patience, but there was a brief moment when the Springbok coach’s irritation flared during a press conference building up to the final match of the Incoming Tours Series last week.
After having spent five minutes talking about how pleased he was that he had been able to spread his selection net across the three matches against second tier opposition, Meyer was asked a question that completely cut across what he had just been saying.
It went something like: “Heyneke, aren’t you a bit disappointed that you haven’t been able to spread your net as widely as perhaps you’d hoped to?”
To which Meyer responded with a rare sharp tone to his voice: “Perhaps I haven’t expressed myself properly…”
There were those who felt that Meyer hadn’t gone far enough in trying out different combinations across the matches against Italy, Scotland and Samoa.
Lappies Labuschagne, the excellent Cheetahs flank, didn’t get to play any matches. There were some who felt he should have. Gio Aplon wasn’t tried either at fullback or wing even though he was in the extended squad. Lwazi Mvovo, who played on the last end-of-year tour, also didn’t get a look in.
And Patrick Lambie, after being promised a start in the second match against Scotland alongside Ruan Pienaar, ended up sitting on the bench in all three games.
But the last mentioned change of plan was guided by how well the Boks did in their first outing against Italy, and it wasn’t as if Meyer didn’t give Lambie a chance. He came onto the field in all three Tests.
If something happens to Morne Steyn over the month and a half that remains until the kick-off to the Rugby Championship, it’s not as if Lambie hasn’t played.
The accusation that he didn’t give enough opportunities to newcomers or experiment enough doesn’t stand up to close scrutiny: There were seven new caps introduced in the first two Tests and those were backed by five other players who only made their debuts in 2012.
Of the team that started against Scotland in Nelspruit, eight had fewer than 25 caps.
That’s a massive change from just two years ago, when most of the first-choice players in the big games boasted more than 50 caps. And it’s an indication that Meyer is starting to find the confidence to step away from the ultra- conservative selection mantra that guided him in his tough first year in charge.
He knew he had to build a new team and could only do that successfully with newcomers being introduced around experience. It was the reason behind his controversial but unsuccessful decision to try and talk veteran Victor Matfield out of retirement to lead the team in the first year.
Meyer was criticised by many for his apparent reluctance to look at players in his first season that he didn’t know or who hadn’t bulked up on experience before his arrival, but then 2012 was a tough baptism for a coach who only came into the frame late in the selection process for De Villiers’ replacement.
Gert Smal would have been the Springbok coach had he not asked for too much money, which was attached to his reluctance to move his children out of their school in Dublin.
But the three matches played so far did at least see Meyer back up the promise he made at the end of the last end-of-year tour, where his team had been conservative in what, at that point, was a battle to just survive the year so that 2013 could be used as an opportunity to build on the platform that was created.
His key combinations are more settled, the newcomers he tried last year and the players who are new to him are all more comfortable with him and what he wants, and neither his selections nor his game-plan have been shown to be even remotely conservative.
More importantly, the team is building a winning habit.
Make no mistake, even though the incoming series was finished on an emphatic note last week at Loftus with the big win over Samoa, the big tests for the Meyer way lie ahead.
Samoa have been smashed by South Africa before without it amounting to much with regard to where the victory leads to.
And there will be debate over how prepared Meyer will be to field players like the mercurial Willie le Roux in matches against top opposition like the Wallabies and All Blacks until such time as those games arrive.
When he selected Le Roux into the side as a fullback for the Durban Test, he told me that he was mainly looking at him as an impact sub for the long-term.
But then that was also in the same conversation that he said Lambie would start in the second Test, so perhaps he’s changed his mind on that too.
He would certainly have reason to after Le Roux’s impressive performances on attack, although in both the games against Scotland and Samoa he also made mistakes when the game was tight that showed us why Le Roux only came into the Meyer frame a few weeks before the squad was selected.
What Le Roux undeniably has done is show the benefits of having an attacking minded fullback, in much the same way as Gysie Pienaar did when he replaced the more defensively orientated Pierre Edwards back in 1980.
That selection 33 years ago transformed a Bok team led by Morne du Plessis that was criticised for being too dour against the South American Jaguars into one that scored nine tries across the first two Tests against the British Lions, with Pienaar being the catalyst for the turn-around.
And it’s not as if Meyer has available an allrounder such as the solidly built Johan Heunis, who was as strong on attack as he was under the high ball and eventually replaced Pienaar, available to him.
Zane Kirchner never played in the series because he’s only just come back from injury, but he’s not the same style of player as Le Roux.
Indeed, Pat Lambie, with his better attacking abilities and experience of the flyhalf channel, may be more of a like-forlike replacement for Le Roux than Kirchner is.
While the Boks finished like a runaway train against Samoa and started strongly against Italy, perhaps the most profitable period when it comes to showing the way forward came in the 40 minutes where they struggled against Scotland.
It showed just how indispensable Francois Louw is, and also surely secured Heinrich Brüssow his right to be considered Louw’s back-up.