Viljoen’s vision contains a vital flaw

First up, let me put it on the record. If Harry Viljoen were to prove me wrong and turn the Springboks into the most exciting, most successful rugby side in the world I will charge into print, right here on the SuperSport Zone, and acknowledge that he was right all along.

That said, allow my to put forward my contention that his approach to transforming the Springboks is essentially flawed.

Viljoen, like his predecessor Nick Mallett, is trying to alter the way the Springboks play by concentrating on the backs.

Like Mallett, in fact to a greater extent, he has sung the praises of the type of game that has evolved at the ACT Brumbies but which, significantly, is not that apparent in the greater guise of the Wallabies.

However, I believe this approach is unnecessary. The real problem with South African rugby is that our forward play has gone from being dominant to merely functional.

Whereas once the Boks were feared for their size, strength and speed and tended to intimidate opponents, this advantage has evaporated.

It is a process that started a long time ago. Willie John McBride’s supreme 1974 Lions were the first to stand up to and roll back the Springboks’ perceived head-start in the pack and the dose was repeated by Billy Beaumont’s 1980 team. When England beat the Springboks in Bloemfontein earlier this year it was patently obvious that Martin Johnson and company had little or no respect for the Bok pack.

In the isolation years the rest of the world, led by particularly England, continued to concentrate on the efficiencies of the forwards while South Africa marked time; unaware that the gap was being narrowed.

In the professional era the process was accelerated as teams realised that the only way to be competitive was to fight on an equal footing in the forwards and the result is that most teams these days are as heavy, as strong, as tall, as quick, as skilful and as tough as the Boks.

That is why Viljoen should be concentrating on the performance of South Africa’s forwards in an effort to provide a better platform for the backs.

This is not to say that he is wrong to spend time choreographing new and exciting things for the Bok backs to do… just that he seems to have the cart ahead of the horses at the moment.

Of course the ACT Brumbies are exhilarating. Of course they play a game that has taken ball retention and continuity to a new plane. But the essential difference between them and the Springboks, and this extends to the Wallabies too, is that they had to develop their way of playing.

Unlike South Africa the Australians do not have an abundance of rugby players and therefore do not possess a profusion of forwards to play a more structured game.

Brumbies rugby evolved to address limitations at forward; in short they conceded that they could not compete properly in the primary phases and a form of rugby evolved to take this into account. Their game is therefore based on a concession of weakness.

At national level it is a little different. With a bigger pool to work with, forwards with the right physical attributes have been identified and put into intensive programmes to ensure they can compete. Today the Wallabies stand back for no-one in the forwards.

South Africa does not have the problems of Australia. It has many outstanding young players – just look at the line-up of the under 23s – but what has gone wrong is that these players are not being properly developed.

Thanks to political realities development in South Africa means finding black players – unlike Australia, New Zealand and England where it equates to making better players of those already in the loop. Why, for instance, has the frontrow forward crisis not been addressed. Why do we not have a national scheme to find them and develop them?

But that is another issue. My fear is that Viljoen’s efforts at changing the national team will succeed only in taking the Springboks even further from the basic fundamentals of South Africa’s natural game. And if the experiment fails… what then? Viljoen, a wealthy man, could simply walk away leaving the next coach to overcome an even bigger deficit.

In fact, if Sarfu really wanted to do some good, coaches such as Viljoen and Markgraaff should have been put in charge of the under 17s, the under 21s and the under 23s to allow for experimentation and transformation from the bottom up rather than the top down.

But that won’t happen and it is the Springboks who have come under Viljoen’s innovative influence. My instinct says that his pattern is too laden with risk to be successful against a really good team – especially one with powerful and efficient forwards – but my belief in the commitment of the men who wear the green-and-gold makes me wish I were wrong.

Hopefully in three weeks, when Wales, England and the Barbarians have been slain, I’ll pull across the keyboard and type out a column in praise of Viljoen’s vision. I certainly hope so.