Minding one’s Ps

If it is true that the key to successful rugby is the five Ps - possession, position, precision, pace and points – the Springboks may be in for a rough ride in the forthcoming Tri-Nations tournament.

Having over the years developed a method of keeping statistics on rugby matches to help me provide my telling insights and expert analysis (!) I’m afraid the Boks are lacking two of the Ps – possession and precision.

I thought it might be interesting to examine my little ticks, codes and numbers for the last four test matches and what they reveal is worrying although there are also some positives.

To deal with the negatives first. The Boks have consistently fallen down on the Ps that represent possession and precision.

One of the bedrock fundamentals is that you cannot play properly without the ball and the Boks have not only been somewhat off the mark in the primary phases but they have failed to retain the ball they have won or put it to accurate use.

My ball retention count – based on my own system of counting re-cycles when the ball is stopped and close passes in heavy traffic – reveals the Boks have been alarmingly lax when it comes to custody of the ball.

In four matches they on only eight occasions took the ball beyond three phases and in the last two they did so only once in each game. This contrasts poorly with the figures produced by the teams under Nick Mallett and makes one worried that this inability to hold the ball could be exposed by the All Blacks and the Wallabies.

It is a fact that the team in control of the ball sets all the posers and the team without it does all the tackling and becomes tired.

Ironically the blame (for want of a better word) for this failure to protect the ball through successive phases could be laid at the door of two of the Springboks’ better players – new flyhalf André Pretorius and Bob Skinstad.

Pretorius has revealed himself to be a brilliant passer of the ball, instinctive distributor and elusive runner, but this means he often moves the ball away from his forwards.

Having become accustomed to crash-balling in the channel South African forwards are simply not used to having to provide support wide out; hence a distinct lack of numbers at the break-down.

The fact that Skinstad is a passing, linking No8 who is looking to stand out rather than driving with his head down compounds the problem – although it must be said that the sometimes captain has striven to suppress his natural game.

In recent seasons, thanks to the pace of play in the southern hemisphere, the Springboks have also slipped into the habit of defending rucks and mauls with two or three players – only to be exposed by the like of England and France driving through the middle – and the habit continues to the detriment of securing the ball.

The other big negatives, although their lineout and scrummaging work is not at the standard it should be, are their receiving and controlling of kick-offs and the fact that they are still giving away far too many penalties even though in three of the games they were awarded more kicks than they conceded.

In the two tests against Wales the count was 15-14 and 18-13 for and against the Samoans it was 18-14 in their favour. Staggeringly against the Pumas in Springs the count was 19-8 againstthe Springboks. The referee in this game was Australia’s Wayne Erickson and I’m afraid one has to pose the question – what does that tell you?

Still, giving away an average of 15 penalties a game is too high, especially as most of them tended to be for tackled ball infringements.

The Boks scored 21 tries with eight against, but it was a worry that three of those came through lack of defence on the blindside.

Coach Straeuli must also be reasonably concerned that his best source of lineout possession, Victor Matfield, is not his most consistent lock and also that Bob Skinstad has become a primary source of lineout possession – not a bad thing, but it does deflect him from the job he was picked to do.

To many keeping stats means tallying up the points scorers and on this score (pun intended!) Pretorius has made an exceptional entrance into test match rugby.

In four games he has already scored 62 points; an average, if he were to keep it up, stay injury free and play in many more internationals, which could well see him top Naas Botha’s record of 312 points in 28 appearances.

In his budding career Pretorius has aimed 31 place-kicks at the posts and raised the flags 24 times, thus succeeding 77.4% of the time. He has also revealed himself to be a skilful kicker to touch although his tactical kicking game needs work. Fears that he might be exposed on defence have not been realised (albeit against weak opposition) and there is little doubt that he puts snap into the backline.

Of South Africa’s 21 tries, two went to fullbacks Brent Russell and Werner Greeff while outside backs such as Dean Hall (2), Stefan Terblanche (2), De Wet Barry (2), Adrian Jacobs (1) and Marius Joubert (1) accounted for another eight. How Percy Montgomery must wish he had made a different decision now that the Boks have a flyhalf who sends the ball down the line!

Straeuli is spot-on when he says new age players such as Pretorius, Russell, Jacobs, Joubert, Bolla Conradie,Joe van Niekerk, Quinton Davids, Faan Rautenbach, Daan Human and Danie Coetzee have done outstandingly and the upshot is that Springbok rugby in July 2002 looks a whole lot healthier than it did in January 2002.

The big test, however, will come in Wellington on July 20. Look into the careers of many Springbok coaches, pin-point that critical moment when things started to go wrong and you’ll find a common denominator – New Zealand.

Hopefully Straeuli will by then have added the missing Ps plus another – Prevail!