Importance of captaincy is underestimated

The past few weeks of Super 14 action may have vindicated Springbok coach Jake White’s view that the first person you select into any team is the captain.

White sparked a controversy two years ago when, just a matter of weeks after being appointed coach, he made the announcement that John Smit would lead his Springboks into action in the new season.

The critics felt it was an unjustified decision because at the time, Gary Botha for the Bulls and Schalk Brits for the Cats were in superb form in what was then the Super 12 and Smit, coming off an injury, was not doing anything quite as spectacular for the Sharks.

The chorus at the time went something like this: “You must choose your best player for each position and then you name your captain out of the team that you have put together using this criterion of selection”.

The alternatives that were suggested included Victor Matfield, who was seen of course as a sure selection. If for some reason Matfield couldn’t do the job, then surely White would be able to find someone else from within his team of best players in each position.

I don’t know what it is, but much though I admire Matfield as a player, and to my mind he is not only the best in his position in this country, but also the world, he has never convinced me as a captain.

Maybe it is because of the memory of a match that took place at Loftus between the Bulls and the Stormers back in 2003. Matfield led a side then coached by Rudy Joubert that won almost 80% of possession and dominated territory throughout the game – and yet they lost the match!

There were several poor decisions taken during the course of that game that cost the Bulls victory, but it was mainly the man who wasn’t there that showed up Matfield. When Heyneke Meyer was back in charge of the Blue Bulls in the Currie Cup, Anton Leonard was installed as the captain.

A natural leader, Leonard never really looked back, and neither did the Bulls or Blue Bulls, until last year’s Currie Cup final saw them pitted against a Cheetahs side that was magnificently led by the instantly recognizable (as a captain) Naka Drotske.

The Bulls, for my money, have not been convincing in their home matches this season, and this is maybe ominous as they do tend to be a different team in Pretoria than they are overseas (or sometimes even down the N3 when they play in Durban).

Matfield has not been at the helm for many of the games because he has been injured, so this is not a criticism of him. What it is, is an acknowledgement of the immense value that Leonard, and before that Joost van der Westhuizen, brought to the Bulls as a leader.

Down in the Cape everyone is looking under every carpet for a scapegoat for the Stormers’ poor home form so far in the new season. It is not a new phenomenon though, for the Stormers were even worse in 2005.

Yet you don’t have to go back too far to see when last the Stormers excelled in the Super 12. It was just two years ago, when they made the semi-finals. A lot of the star players of that team are still around, and have even matured since 2004.

So what is going wrong with the Stormers? Maybe the question is much easier to answer than some are making out. There is no Corne Krige. Or, for that matter, there is no Bob Skinstad. Those were the two players that led the Stormers through their better years in the Super 12, dating back to 1999, when they ended second on the log under Skinstad’s leadership.

Krige was at the helm in 2004, and his calmness under pressure was what saw the Stormers out of many a tight situation. Those who doubt that might recall the great come-from-behind win over the Highlanders at Newlands at the start of that season. The Stormers were down 22-0, and yet they came back to win comfortably in the end.

A few years before that, Krige was at the Stormers helm when they came back from an equally one-sided scoreline in the first half to hammer the Waratahs in the second. The victory was achieved by a Stormers team decimated by injury and with Neil de Kock pressed into action on the wing. I remember Selborne Boome telling me after one of those games about how Krige had kept them together by just being calm and refusing to panic.

These days it is the other way around. The Stormers can be leading quite comfortably, like they were when they were 23-0 up against the Blues last year, and then still lose the game.

De Wet Barry, appointed as Stormers captain for the season, is a decent guy and he obviously has the respect of his peers. But his captaincy record with the Stormers is woeful. Schalk Burger was tried last year with a poor result, while Neil de Kock never saw the light of day as a leader because Bolla Conradie was always too good a player to keep out.

In their most recent match, Jean de Villiers obviously did something right as he brought his team back from 18-3 down to a position where they should have won it. But the point is they didn’t win, and the team made crucial mistakes when it mattered. De Villiers is new to captaincy, so let’s leave a judgement call until later, yet the experience of the Stormers recently, where they have lost three games which they led going into the last 10 minutes, does suggest they are missing Krige more than most would be prepared to admit.

Maybe at the Bulls, Matfield will grow into the captaincy. But at the Stormers there has just been too much swopping and changing since Krige.

The Cheetahs lost Drotske to retirement at the end of last season. Juan Smith appeared to have established himself before this last weekend as a new captain, but when he was injured, the importance of on-field leadership was again underlined as the Cheetahs appeared to lose the plot in the second half.

And so to New Zealand and the fine Sharks win over the Highlanders. Was it just coincidence that the Sharks finally learned how to win on the day that someone called John Smit was back as the captain? Possibly not.