Boks’ ‘Kiss’ of death

There were plenty of wisecracks when Harry Viljoen appointed Australian Les Kiss as the Springboks’ defensive coach, but after the impressive victory over the Wallabies the joke has been turned on South Africa’s opponents.

Although the Springboks still have a lot of work to do in their quest to become a truly formidable team statistics show that they have at least got one thing right – their defence.

So take a bow Les Kiss. While Braam van Straaten, the Springboks’ other great hero in their Loftus victory, did not even attend the pre-test training camp in Plettenberg Bay the input of Kiss at least seems to be paying off.

It says much for the defensive organisation of Bob Skinstad and his men that they have been able to keep both the All Blacks and the Wallabies from scoring a try in their first two Tri-Nations tests.

The New Zealanders were able to crack open the French and the Wallabies, in spite of also being up against it in the forwards against the British Lions, managed to conjure up some tries.

But against the Springboks, try as the might, there was no way through.

This defensive record becomes even more impressive when one considers that the French, too, were unable to score a try in their second test against the Boks in Durban. No mean feat that… three tests against three of our Big Four opponents (England being the other) and not a try conceded.

Although the test against the Italians is pretty much irrelevant the record shows that the Boks have scored 11 tries with only three against in five tests in 2001. Two were conceded in the first test of the year against the French at Ellis Park and the other against Italy.

A concern, though, is that while the Springboks are stopping tries they are not themselves scoring them. They got eight against the Italians but in the four key internationals (France x 2, NZ and Australia) were able to score only three.

Ironically this may have something to do with the kicking coaching they received from Michael Byrne, one of Viljoen’s other Australian imports.

On at least two occasions – once when Breyton Paulse tried a grubber close to the line against the All Blacks at Newlands and the other when Butch James opted for a diagonal kick to Dean Hall at Loftus – tries might have been scored had the ball been kept to hand. In addition one got the impression that were other times the players were experimenting with kicks rather than using them as a last option.

The pressure is therefore on the third “cobber” in Viljoen’s staff – backline expert Tim Lane – to get the Boks making better use of the impressive first-phase ball being won by the pack.

And one of the first ways must surely be to allow Butch James to be more his own man – an unusually combative flyhalf who modeled his style on Henry Honiball rather than an awkard, botched clone of Stephen Larkham.

Slowly, however, it’s coming together. Bob Skinstad has been impressive as captain, Lukas van Biljon the fire that was lacking, André Vos inspiring in the way he has responded to his own letdown to fight for his place in the side, and Mark Andrews, Joost van der Westhuizen and André Venter everything that senior players should be.

Harry Viljoen has made his mistakes but he has also shown that he is man willing to learn from them.

Finally, lest we forget, a big vote of thanks for his contribution to a former Stellenbosch scrumhalf called Brian Biebuyck. He’s not a coach nor a member of management; he’s the lawyer who got Cobus Visagie off his drugs rap!