Blast from the past

Bryan Habana and Jaque Fourie’s tries as a result of the Springboks playing a running game against the Wallabies coincided with a thought-provoking communiqué I received from a sage, silver-haired former Bok.

Dave Stewart, who played 11 Tests for South Africa in the 60s at flyhalf, centre and fullback, including all five on the triumphant tour of the UK and France in 1960/61, used to write an insightful column for The Cape Times (when that passionate rugby man Neville Leck was the sports editor) many years ago and was not only a proponent of the running game but often put forward incisive suggestions on how to play attacking rugby.

As a young reporter I used to love bumping into him at functions or at the business he ran with former Springbok soccer player Eric Logan, Logan’s Sports, just around the corner from both The Argus (where I worked under my mentor A.C. Parker) and The Cape Times (where I ended up being Sports Editor), and listen to his views on “total rugby,” – even though that’s not what he called it.

Dave, now 74, had clearly not shared the generally held view that the end justified the means, even if that meant kicking the beads off the latex, and put forward a few suggestions to curb the boot-first approach which has recently been so prevalent.

He wrote: “I have been involved in rugby in some form or another for more than 60 years and have watched the game being slowly destroyed by the mindless kicking that robs us, who love the game, of the original ethic of skilful passing, handling and scoring tries.

“All the modern laws – 10m back from lineouts, 5m back from scrums, forwards remaining bound until the ball is out - have been created to give the backs room to move but have succeeded only in creating a monster at flyhalf who uses up this space.

Dave pointed out that on a given Saturday he had watched three games (two age-group schools encounters followed by the Currie Cup match between Western Province and the Lions) and that “all these games were ruined by incessant kicking. We all complain about this but no one that I know of is doing anything positive to improve the situation.

“Here is my offering:

1. Any ball caught on the full from a kick anywhere in the field of play may be kicked directly into touch gaining ground and you get the lineout throw in as well. I would like to suggest that for kicks that have bounced (grubbers etc) you could kick touch and gain ground but not get the throw in. This would stop the mindless kicking out of hand, from scrumhalves and flyhalves particularly.

The laws for kicking from a pass etc. would remain but I would suggest that my proposal would make players think very carefully before kicking and backs would become better passers and retainers of possession and players would cover back more to assist and get counter moves going.

2. I would revert to the way we used to play with centres playing left and right and not inside and outside. If an outside centre gets involved in a maul or ruck he has to try to get back to his position on the outside and very often you see a Jaque Fourie (outside centre) staying at the maul and leaving his duties to one of the forwards. How often don't we see a beautiful turnover ball won and find the backline consisting mainly of forwards? If the centres played left and right their positional play would improve dramatically.

I think this could apply to open-side and blind-side flankers as well - the poor blind-side flank is very often the slower player and has to make a considerable amount of ground to get to the breakdowns.

Going back to the centres - they very often find themselves playing left and right from broken play anyway.

3. The number of dropped goal attempts are mostly taken where there is space for the whole backline to play. How about a deduction of one (1) point for every drop-goal attempt that goes astray. (I don't think we'll get that one past Naas!).

4. A last thought - could we remind forwards that when they appear in broken play or in the backline that they most times would be a lot more valuable if they passed and not just barged forward like Tiaan Liebenberg did on Saturday and Bismarck du Plessis and Juan Smith do regularly for the Boks?

“Hopefully these comments will remind players that this is a running and passing game and that through playing this way we will see the Habanas of this game getting the chances they deserve.”

Dave’s note arrived just days before the Perth test just as I was writing a column expressing the wish that the Springboks would have a go at the Wallabies (“Send Aussies packing in Perth”) and shortly after another on how South Africa had always been under the microscope for kicking too much (“The more things change”) and underscored my thoughts that while an excellent, and winning, kicking game was one thing it wasn’t the only thing.

And Dave is so right… many of the law changes introduced to give the backs more time and space have in fact resulted in the opposite with kickers using the extra seconds to steady themselves to boot the ball and No 8s picking up and driving into the additional space around the scrums rather than allowing the backs to have a go – until Jaque Fourie and Bryan Habana were worked over for tries from set-piece moves at Subiaco.

Winning rugby? Let’s change that to thinking rugby.