Supersport’s senior rugby correspondent Gavin Rich joined from London for a Q&A session ahead of the clash with England at Twickenham on Saturday.
Q: Hi Gavin, what do you think the chances are of Peter de Villiers getting fired? You said before the tour that any mishap either on or off the pitch on this tour might cost him his job.
A: I think he is one 80 minute poor performance from being fired. If the Boks lose at Twickenham, I would say he is certainly gone. Even if they win, this is something they need to look at – the Boks aren’t growing their game at all and have regressed significantly not only in this past year, but from where they started after 2007.
Q: Reading the Supersport blogs, I can see that many people are very angry with PDV because of the lost to Scotland. Many want PDV to be fired. What are your comments on that.
A: I can understand the frustration. But there is of course the other option, which for some reason was not followed.
Q: What was the point of taking hargreaves, daniels, jantjies, lambie and co. on tour if they are getting hardly any time to play?
A: Those players will probably get to play against the Barbarians. Not sure the assistant coaches are as blameworthy as everyone thinks – they don’t have as much say as people think and Div takes player advice before he takes from them.
Q: I love the boks but my confidence in PDV is shattered and I am not the only one. Didnâ€t Jake White offer his services?
A: Jake did offer his services but Saru would never go back there and I don’t think the players would be happy with that. He has made himself unpopular with them over the past .
Q: So do you think the Boks will dare playing an expansive running game against England – something similar as the New Zealanders has done this year? (If we can…?)
A: The way the English journos are describing it the biggest winter chill since the end of the Ice Age and the biggest rain storm since the great flood is headed this way this weekend so don’t think we would be able to even if we wanted to.
Q: Why are we not asking for help from our sucsessful domestic coaches like Plumtree whom has mastered the attacking game with the Sharks. Secondly why are the team not acknowledging the fact that our old “bundu bashing†style is outdated for modern day rugby- Why are they still not keeping ball in hand?
A: Hoy, you askiing all the questions I would ask. Answer to the first one is that Plumtree, like the other coaches who WERE asked to help out back in September/October, would probably refuse to work with Div. As for the bundu bashing style, it is what the players know, and they have the main say on the game that is employed. As for keeping ball in hand, they didn’t seem capable of holding onto it at Murrayfield so the answer to that is probably that in wet weather they would struggle to do that even if it was their intention.
Q: Comparing the mess produced by the Bok game to any of the other games, and considering SARU will probably not fire the coaching staff, I have lost all hope. What do you think? Is there light in the tunnel? (before the WC finals)
A: Fourie du Preez etc will improve the Bok chances and who knows, maybe at a World Cup all the other teams will go into their shells and not be able to play the possession orientated game they are employing now. If that happens we do have a chance for we are still quite adept at winning games where we don’t really do any playing (Ireland and Wales). But Saru will have to assess the coaching situation when the Boks get back – if they don’t do that they are insulting the intelligence of the rugby public.
Q: This weekends fixture would have been the ideal fixture to blood some new players. Someone like Pat Lambie and Keegan Daniel have limited time before next years world cup and are exactly the types of players needed to try a ball in hand approach as opposed to kicking ball away all the time. Your thoughts? Suppose PDV is trying to hold onto his job with this weekends fixture.
A: You hit the nail on the head there – this tour is all about Div protecting his job, not about growing the Boks for the World Cup. I am not sure I blame him for that – Saru needed to take some sort of decisive action before the tour started. By that I mean either change the coach or bring in extra expertise. They didn’t do it, so the failures of this tour are as much theirs as Div’s, if not more so.
Q: Big question on all our minds – how safe are the coaches†jobs at the moment?
A: Not very.
Q: Your opinion on the boring game plan the boks are playing and the execution of this game plan? I am not satisfied with either?
A: Neither am I but they probably weren’t boring enough in Murrayfield given the weather conditions. We have to be fair – the conditions aren’t suited to Barbarians style rugby at the moment.
Q: Do you think there is another coach that could pull a rabbit out the hat for us and mount a serious challenge to retain the World Cup? (provided PDV and staff are given the boot).
A: Emphatically yes. There is a lot of talent in this team, they just need a strong coach with a good tactical brain to give them direction and introduce the professionalism they are used to at provincial and franchise level.
Q: What has happened to the team’’s handling skills? Iâ€m sure they would be more confident to keep the ball in hand if they didnâ€t drop it 9 times out of 10. Do you think this is the root cause to the problem of aimless kicking?
A: It might be part of it – a crisis in confidence. But the handling might also be symptomatic of the malaise I alluded to earlier, which is that they are not 100% sold on one approach and tend to fall between different styles.
Q: What sort of atmosphere is there in the bok camp without a guy like john smit? it seems like it is a blue bull camp from a leadership perspective?
A: I wouldn’t challenge that observation.
Q: What’s your sense of the mood in the Bok camp? Do you think these guys (coaching staff and players) realise how disappointed/stunned/angry we as fans are? I don’t normally get emotional about sport but to lose against SCOTLAND? Last straw for me!
A: There were some very angry, disappointed and frustrated members of the Bok management on Saturday night and Sunday morning. The looks some of them wore at the airport for our flight from Edinburgh to London would not have been out of place at a funeral…or in the closing sequence of the Haka. PdeV gives me the impression he really doesn’t think there is anything wrong and that somehow it is all just going to come right.