Let’s just think a bit

The experimental law variations were panned by two Vodacom Bulls player after the weekend round of the Super 14, and as I was at the game they played in, I would be the last to disagree.

The match between the Bulls and the Stormers certainly did become an exercise in tedium, particularly in the second half, when the Stormers, who were being awarded most of the free-kicks which dominated the game, started to tire and became more conservative in their approach.

You need to be super-fit to play the game these days, and new coach Rassie Erasmus’ decision to forego an extra warm-up match or two remains a matter for debate. He contends that the opposed contact sessions against Stellenbosch and UCT were sufficient, but that is not the same as playing a game against top opposition.

Erasmus does have a point when he says that the injuries that were keeping some of his players out reduced the relevance of an extra warm-up game in terms of getting combinations together before the real thing. Again though, it is match fitness that is the main concern, and time will only tell whether the Stormers will benefit later from their slow start by having fresher legs than their opponents in rounds five and six.

In the Newlands opener it was the Stormers who played all the rugby in the first half, and the Bulls committed themselves to defence. In so doing, the champions exposed a possible major flaw in the ELVs in that they appeared to favour the spoiling team. Knowing that the Stormers would be unable to kick for goal, the Bulls infringed with impunity at the breakdown.

I use the word “possible” though as a qualifier because it may be that the real problem at Newlands was referee Willie Roos’ failure to be stronger in stamping his authority on the game. A Bulls player should certainly have been carded when a Stormers push-over attempt at a scrum was thwarted by as callous a bit of gamesmanship as you can get.

The Bulls were very effectively allowed to slow the game down, and maybe it was a combination of both Roos and the ELVs that did this. While it has been written that the game showed that the ELVs don’t favour the Bulls because they take much of the structure out of the game, they were also helped by them on this occasion too.

It did not make for pretty viewing from the stands or the press box, and once the Bulls had established their narrow lead there was always going to be only one winner. There was nothing exciting about it, nothing unpredictable, and definitely nothing fast flowing or entertaining.

The other local game I watched in Durban the previous night wasn’t much better. Sharks coach Dick Muir has already admitted that his men kicked too much against the Western Force. But at least they did have the excuse of playing on a humid night with a slippery ball.

In both games what struck me was the lack of creative thinking of some of the players on the field, and we would have to agree with Springbok coach Peter de Villiers’s view that decision-making, or lack of it, is one of the biggest problem areas in South African rugby.

In the Stormers/Bulls game the visitors repeatedly opted for the dumb option, and while they won the game, it did not justify some of the inane things that were done by both teams when they had ball in hand.

The Stormers seemed incapable of doing anything intelligent with their free kicks. Maybe the message to South African players should be that as they are going to have to live with the ELVs for at least the duration of the Super 14, rather than complain about it they might as well start thinking of creative ways to get around the problems they face.

Hopefully in the coming weeks, once the various teams have become more used to the ELVs and know better what to expect, we will see them confronting the challenge in an imaginative way. Rugby supporters throughout the southern hemisphere should demand it.