Why the Smal era is ending

They kept asking during the cricket season who, given the media and television scrutiny targeted at them, would want to be an umpire. Now that the rugby season is upon us we can ask who in his right mind would want to be a Super 12 coach.

When Kevin Putt vacated the Sharks job a couple of weeks ago we heard that he had been verbally abused, that he had been threatened, and that even his children had copped flak from fellow pupils who obviously knew a hell of a lot more about rugby than young kids did in my day.

It is completely ridiculous, just as the booing of the gentlemanly Gert Smal at Newlands on Saturday as he made his way from his perch in the stand down to the change-room after the game was idiotic and moronic.

It really did turn ugly. Stormers officials told me afterwards that security had to be dispatched to fetch Smal as it was already getting quite hairy for him inside the box where he sits to watch the game. Apparently fans were shouting abuse at him and thumping on the window.

As someone who still has fresh memories of what Smal did to Gary Knight in 1986, I shudder to think of what might have happened had one of those cowards laid a hand on him and Smal had forgotten he was a gentleman and thumped them back.

I know as a journalist I don’t pay my own money to watch the rugby. And I do understand the point that the reaction against Smal was a sign that the fans were passionate about the team.

But personal threats and face to face verbal abuse is taking it too far, and only reflects badly on the culture of those who do it. Smal told me during a run of poor results two years ago that he could not go out to eat in a restuarant for fear of having to take abuse from other patrons.

Sorry, am I missing something here? Is it just that I have been a reporter for so long that I have now forgotten what it is like to be a supporter and thus really feel bitterness when the team you have paid good money to come watch ends up losing?

The Stormers were well beaten on Saturday, but who really expected any other result once Schalk Burger had joined Joe van Niekerk and a host of other players on the sidelines (check my predictions from before the game).

The Cape side fielded a completely rejigged second row with a makeshift back-row against the best side in the competition who were smarting after being caught off-guard a week earlier.

Their chances of winning were never good, and they were halved when Burger was ruled out. The Crusaders played a game that was light years quicker than anything any South African team is capable of, and I agreed afterwards with former top referee and respected rugby commentator Paul Dobson who remarked on the brilliance of the visiting performance.

It was a sporting event where the better, more skilled team won. He may have got some things wrong this season, but Smal did not deserve the treatment dished out. Indeed, it may be that it is the knowledge of how badly the Stormers fans take it when their team loses that has prevented Smal, who is technically very sound, from being the successful coach he might have been.

My big criticism of Smal has been that he is too conservative. I mean that in the rugby selection sense rather than the political one. Many have ridiculed the suggestion that Jean de Villiers should play flyhalf, but those who do seem to forget Jake White was prepared to do it at very short notice for an important test match last year and that Nick Mallett, in an interview with me, was also in favour of the switch.

The argument was that De Villiers is the sort of gifted, instinctive footballer who can easily make the switch to the position, just like Stephen Larkham did several years ago in Australia.

And before everyone gets excited because “De Villiers is a wing and you don’t move a wing to flyhalf” let’s not forget that the position where he first played at top level, and which he says is his preference, was actually inside centre.

Inside centre, and you can ask two of the Crusaders heroes of Saturday, Dan Carter and Aaron Mauger this, can easily become flyhalf.

My view that De Villiers should play flyhalf is because he would engage opposing defences and thus ignite the star players outside him.

Gaffie du Toit was never able to do this. Chris Rossouw, the man who replaced him, has never performed well at Super 12 level and was also coming back into rugby after a long injury-enforced absence.

It was patently obvious from an early stage of the season that the Stormers’ big problem was at flyhalf, and this is why after seven games in the Super 12 they have yet to grab a bonus point for scoring four tries.

And this is why a bold move such as moving De Villiers to flyhalf was called for. It would have been a risk to play De Villiers at flyhalf at short notice, but has been obvious that the Stormers need to risk something in order to succeed. It may be his unwillingness to risk that prevents Smal from taking his team to the next level.

If not flyhalf, De Villiers should definitely have played in the midfield. De Villiers did well there against the Highlanders, but Smal returned to Marius Joubert in the belief that the class of the Springbok would come through in the end.

As it turns out, Joubert does now seem to be heading back to form. But it is happening at a time when the Stormers are out of the Super 12 race. As this column said several weeks ago, the fine balancing act a coach has to make between the “form is temporary and class is permanent” saying and the other that goes “you are only as good as your last game” could ultimately cost him his job.

The outrage directed at Smal was the result of the high pre-season expectation. There was a fine line between success and failure in some of the overseas matches, but the Stormers, with all that class, were supposed to win many of these games easily.

The Stormers’ chance of success has now gone and I fancy that Smal is now into his last four games as coach. Professional sport is a cruel, unforgiving world, and would-be coaches of the future must be aware of what comes with the territory.