Playing wait and see

It’s been a strange pre-season as it has been hard to gauge the mood ahead of a new rugby year that represents the start of the next four-year cycle. In some instances it has also been hard to make up one's mind about the issues everyone has wanted opinions on.

In my last column I gave new Springbok coach Heyneke Meyer an endorsement on the basis that he was one of the big three rugby brains in the country, the others being Rassie Erasmus and Brendan Venter (let’s pretend for the sake of this argument that Nick Mallett really is English and exclude the two Kiwis from consideration).

However while he undeniably has the pedigree, the experience and a history of winning trophies, plus is possibly more innovative than the initial first choice, Gert Smal, the one thing that Meyer does not have which Smal does is recent top-level coaching experience.

Some people say that doesn’t matter. But the argument that coaching is like riding a bike, meaning that once you learn how to do it you never lose that ability, doesn’t hold. The game changes all the time, trends change all the time, and there are probably a few top teams in world rugby who have changed the fundamentals of their game strategy three times since Meyer last coached at the coal-face in 2007. Six months is a long time to be away from coaching these days.

The most important issue though is confidence. When you have stopped doing what you used to do every day and take a break of a few years, your old confidence must take a while to re-assert itself when you return.

There were several completely understandable reasons why Meyer did not come across as particularly confident at the announcement press conference, but as that is the only time he has appeared in public since his appointment, you can’t blame me if I suggest it didn’t help me make up my mind about him.

This is not knocking Meyer. Rather it is just an acknowledgement that while overall my attitude towards him is positive, I do have reservations – and can’t help feeling that the best policy right now is to hold off on making a call on whether he is going to be a success. We will be better placed to judge once we know what direction he is taking and for that we need to see the management team he assembles and also his team selection.

If there is any truth in the rumour that he offered Victor Matfield the captaincy and the chance to play again, it would be disturbing, for that ship surely sailed long ago. When Meyer’s predecessor stuck with the old guard it was argued that he did so because he didn’t back his own coaching ability. But surely that isn’t the case with Meyer. Or is it? Again it comes down to a question of confidence.

So I am reserving judgement on Meyer’s ability to take the Boks forward until later in the year, once we have seen more. What I am quite sure of though, is that Meyer’s departure from the Bulls could hurt South African rugby in the same way that Rassie Erasmus’ unfortunate exit from the Stormers will.

With the recent golden era of the Bulls now behind the Pretoria union, Meyer was set to play an important role in building a new dynasty and a new culture of success. That the Blue Bulls Board has less confidence of that happening with Meyer not in the picture was advertised by their understandable reluctance to let Meyer go.

And they must be further disquieted at the prospect that he might take some key Bulls management members with him to the Boks. The success of South African rugby does depend on the strength of the top unions in terms of bringing through players acquainted with a culture of excellence, and the good season enjoyed by the Bulls and Sharks in 2007 played an important part in that year’s World Cup triumph.

Even though some critics will point out they didn’t win any trophies apart from the one they received for topping the SA conference in last year’s Super Rugby tournament, Western Province were also building towards a culture of success before Erasmus quit because of the interference of elected officials.

Will they be able to continue that without Erasmus? They may be okay in the short term, but even that I am not going to bet on. The current situation, with Allister Coetzee being tasked with coaching the team and at the same time doing what Erasmus used to do by looking after succession planning and contracting issues, is not ideal. The big test will come when the Stormers hit a crisis point during Super Rugby.

Both the Stormers and Bulls have what you would call okay starts to the year in their pre-season games (though I did think the Bulls were particularly impressive against the Cheetahs in Polokwane). But it will be the period stretching from the next few months to a year that will tell us what impact the departure of Meyer and Erasmus from their respective unions will have. And the same holds true of Meyer’s future as Bok coach.