Focusing on Bill no longer good enough

The All Blacks' victory in the Rugby World Cup may be a bitter pill for some South Africans to swallow, but it certainly offered some vital questions to the Springboks as we prepare to head into another four-year cycle ahead of England 2015.

In a few weeks, the brain trust of the South African Rugby Union will get together and start the process of appointing a new Springbok coach. We as the public will start to get emotional, backing our own provincial biases and a decision will eventually be made – one that no doubt won’t be universally accepted.

A number of South Africans will wait for the coach’s downfall, and we’ll predictably hear the battle cry of preparing for the World Cup. But as this World Cup has shown, four years can mean nothing when you have unpredictable factors – like the bounce of a ball, a referee or anything else that can ruin the dream in a split second.

The Springboks were definitely a force at this year’s Rugby World Cup, but in the cold light of day, as New Zealand celebrates a trophy they have waited 24 years for, it meant very little. Whatever we may remember about Bryce Lawrence, the Boks still had enough chances to win the game, and their inability to do this meant four years of work went down the drain. The big showdown with the All Blacks never materialised, and the Kiwis were left to collect the spoils.

What the All Blacks did show in this World Cup is that unlike the Boks, a consistency of success was their masterstroke in this competition. Winning is a habit, as they say, and while the All Blacks looked rattled in several matches, they were never bowed. Every single time, they found a way to come back and win a game.

While they may have had the rub of the green on Sunday night, and the French might feel aggrieved, the Kiwis ground out a win. For once, the team that usually tries to play the pretty stuff, went back to basics and found a way to win.

This underlined their class. It underlined how much they had grown since 2007 and it underlined their philosophy of getting the job done.

We may not have the skill-set to match the Kiwis with free-flowing rugby, but we certainly don’t lack a will to win. We don’t lack the ammunition but often we lack the focus, determination and preparation that is so crucial at this level of test match rugby.

So often we get swept aside in saying “the focus is on the World Cup” – as we did in 2010 when the Boks were woeful. We allow a loss to Scotland to become okay in an end-of-year tour, a home and away loss to the Wallabies to be shrugged off.

The Boks love talking about the World Cup being a seven-week tournament where the team that gets it right for that time becomes World Champions.

But in these last two months the All Blacks have upped that bar. While we used to joke they were the best team between World Cups, now it is no longer good enough for the Springboks to be the team that clicks at World Cups.

There are so many positives that consistency could bring – notwithstanding the obvious commercial and marketing opportunities. The nation-building factor would become so much easier because everyone wants to be a winner.

The new Bok coach will have so many expectations on his shoulders, but while we need to give him the opportunity to grow into the role, he needs to be honest enough not to hide behind a four-year cycle and an overgrown obsession with the World Cup.

Springbok rugby needs to find its consistency again. The All Blacks have moved the bar higher with their World Cup victory.

It is now up to the Boks to show how they are going to respond.