OFF THE FIELD

What should we be coaching the Boks of tomorrow?

Thursday 20th July 2006

A coach's comment

It is tragic that in the year we celebrate a century of Springbok rugby our beloved Boks reached a low point last Saturday with a historic loss to Australia. We appear to be in another of our now almost biannual downward spirals and an age-old debate has resurfaced. Various stakeholders, most notably Joel Stransky in the June edition of Rugby World South Africa, are getting on the bandwagon and claiming that the problem starts at schools, the boys are not being coached the basics, etc, etc.

As a schoolboy coach I cannot help but consider the merits of this argument. There can be no doubt that schoolboy rugby in this country is very strong. We have literally thousands of talented players and arguably the most competitive schoolboy rugby environment in the world. We have websites like this one dedicated the subject, the results are published weekly in national publications and there are two weekly national rankings. Supersport gives blanket coverage the Easter Schools Festivals and to Craven Week and even SABC covers the odd FNB Classic Clash. No other rugby nation in the world places as much emphasis on the schoolboy game.

As a consequence of this publicity schools are taking their rugby very seriously as rugby results have become their main “shop window “ as it were. Old Boys of traditional rugby schools gauge the overall success of their alma mater on their rugby results and the results cause heated debate in pubs and work places the length and breadth of the country.

All this is great for the boys and for the game but the key question is are the boys, the future of South African rugby, been coached to play the correct type of rugby to make South Africa a successful rugby nation?

I believe most schoolboy coaches want to play open and expansive rugby but to a large extent they are dictated to by what they and the boys see week-in and week-out on television. The majority of South Africa’s senior teams are fixated with the crash-ball, numbers game often attributed to Ian McIntosh. They are able to compete in most fixtures for 60 minutes by driving at the gain line and kicking their penalties but when they realise that the opposition are ahead by virtue of the fact that they are scoring tries, our teams are unable to respond with tries of their own. The rolling maul and the intercept have become our main means of try scoring at Super 14 and Test level. After yet another loss we bemoan the lack of skills and decision-making ability of our players and their inability to play with ball in hand.

It is in this area where I believe schoolboy coaches need to take responsibility. Apart from being taught the basics of catching, passing, defending and of forward play, the boys need to be made aware from an early age that there are other, more exciting means of crossing the advantage line and breaching the opposition defence than merely crashing into defenders and hoping to eventually create an overlap. In addition they must be taught the skills to execute these means and given the licence to try these “alternative” tactics in a match situation.

There can be no doubt that winning is important but the development of players who have individual skills, be it passing into space in front of the man a la Stephen Larkham or the ability to beat a man one-on-one a la Brent Russell must be a priority of all schoolboy coaches. In terms of the team, coaches must attempt to ensure that all players are equipped with the ability to see and attack space. Moving the ball to that space, timing the passes to get the ball there at the precise moment required and bringing runners into play at the correct angle to break the line are what is paramount if we are to produce players who can create and score tries.

The bigger picture, which is South African rugby, can only be aided if we as schoolboy coaches all adopt this approach. Players who have these skills and who can make good decisions under pressure are what South African rugby needs!

It is difficult not to agree with Mr. Stransky and co. but be assured that we as schoolboy coaches are all trying our best. There are mitigating circumstances though in that boys and coaches tend to emulate their heroes and their heroes for the most part are leading them up the garden path.

By Graeme Wepener

PS: The watered-down Currie Cup has come in for a lot of stick but coaches could do a lot worse than watch the way the young Western Province team are playing for a blueprint of how to play the expansive game.