"Nowadays his team-mates call him “Eskom”, because if he gets to you he trips your lights." – JW Coetzee describing Bulls and probable Volume 1, Number 5 future Springbok star, Marco van Staden 6 September 2018 Register to receive your own free weekly newsletter at www.leopardnewsletters.co.za

SA Rugby to cut player pool aggressively

Next emerged a few weeks ago that SA Rugby was Keo reported that the administrator intends to looking to cut the country’s professional player pool implement a player draft system that will cut the by about 54%. The story was first in early August in professional player pool nearly in half, from around Afrikaans media, specifically the Rapport newspaper 990 to 460. “The unions, then, will only be able to and in Netwerk24.co.za. To date, no rebuttal has contract between 40-50 players a season. The been received from SA Rugby, leading pundits to player surplus will then be placed into a draft presume that the reports are true. system to be called upon when needed.

As SA Rugby magazine reported it, the plans were Alexander was quoted saying: “We’ve created a instigated by the fact that several top unions are in false market in this country. It’s simply not financial trouble. Apparently, SA Rugby believes that sustainable having 990 players trying to make a remodelling the contracting system is the only way living. We have the biggest number in the world. to keep the best players in South Africa. “In the new model all the best players will be The original article reported that there are 989 playing all the time. You won’t have the third and professional players in South Africa, resulting in fourth choice guys sitting in the store-room.” R480-million spent on salaries each year. “The new contracting system is aimed at reducing salary costs That may be the theory but World Cup winning by at least R75-million and the contracted player Springbok coach, Jake White, doesn’t buy it. In a pool to 459, which will include the national men’s column this week on All Out Rugby, he writes: “The and women’s sevens teams.” move to cut the pool of South Africa’s professional players in half is a big crossroads for our rugby. So far, however, the news seems to have been Some people are reading it as a positive, but if the overlooked by the punditry that makes its living off 450 players we want to keep are the ones that the game of rugby. Until last week, that is, when leave, then we’ll be in an even deeper hole than we columnist Mark are now.” He goes on to ask a number of extremely Keohane confirmed pertinent questions, among them: the story on his blog by running a report  Who is going to decide which 450 players citing the comments stay? of SA Rugby CEO,  What happens if our five best players go? Mark Alexander at the local launch of These are really important questions, the answers this year’s PRO14 to which may be the difference between success competition. and failure for the Springboks.

KEY TOPICS IN THIS NEWSLETTER REGULAR FEATURES  Building a better “Mousetrap”  Examining the Laws of the Game  A Rugby Statistics app for your smartphone  Law Discussion: Offside  Hope springs eternal for the Boks  Player Profile: The making of “Eskom”

Page 1 Building a better “Mousetrap”

Former New Zealand international, Ben Smith, has “Off a short 5-man lineout, the blind side penned a piece on RugbyPass that highlights what following the first phase crash is usually going to he’s calling the “latest craze in 2018 pro rugby – the hold a number of those tight five forwards 'Mousetrap' switch play”. resetting the defensive line. Mismatches can be made be moving play straight back towards the In general, Smith writes, that Southern Hemisphere touchline, using backs against the heavy-footed competitions this year have seen a significant big men.” It’s a fascinating analysis well worth the increase in the number of teams running variations read (and the watch – there’s video too). of switch plays. He lists the Highlanders, the Sharks, the Reds in and the Tasman Makos in Mitre 10, as deploying them with success.

In his analysis, he explains exactly how the switch concept operates: A switch strike is usually a two- phase setup, using a settling first phase (usually a simple crash runner) to set up the ‘axis’ or ‘pivot’ ruck in the middle of the field from which the side can ‘swing’ play back with a quick switch, often with elaborate second-phase play.

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A Rugby Statistics app for your smartphone

Most loyal rugby fans will have heard commentators commenting on or, sometimes, bemoaning the fact that the “stats” don’t tell the whole story. They’d be right because it’s only one way of analysing the game that we all love. Unfortunately, few have shared the source of the stats so, until now, we haven’t really been able to challenge their assertions.

But that has all changed now. There is an app that will give you all the stats you want – while the game is on the go as well as after the match when all the analysis happens. It’s also a reasonably mature app having first been released around 2014 and now in version 4.2. Check it out on Google Play or in Apple’s App Store. It’s definitely a winner. And if you come across other apps useful to the committed rugby fan, please let us know so that we can spread the word.

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Click on the image for more information Page 3 Examining the Law of the Game Law Discussion: Offside

Anyone who has played the game and later watched Many a Saturday afternoon has descended into a match in the company of non-players will have chaos as rival fans make accusations of offside play encountered the phenomenon of players being by players in the opposing team. And sometimes accused of foul play, even though what they did on they’re even right. the field was quite legal although, perhaps, not quite Usefully, SAreferees.com is running a fascinating completely above board. review of the offside law that may help to settle such altercations before they start. Perhaps the Your correspondent’s usual response to such most interesting thing about this analysis is that uninformed outbursts is that “this is rugby, it’s not fact that the law in question dates back 172 years Tiddly Winks”. However, a reading of the newly and is largely unchanged since then. simplified rugby laws may provide assist in making the response a tad more useful in future. In 1846, the Rules of Rugby School said: “A player is off his side if the ball has touched one of his side behind him. A player being off his side is to consider himself out of the game, and is not to touch the ball or in any way to intercept the play. Note: off his side - offside, not offsides.

The new simplified laws put it thus: “A player is offside in open play if that player is in front of a team-mate who is carrying the ball or who last played it. An offside player must not interfere with When trying to understand a law well enough to be play.” understood when pontificating about it, it’s always best to begin with the basic principle behind it. In And just in case you, like your correspondent, often need pretty pictures or, better still, a few the case of foul play, the principle is: “A player who exemplary video clips to help you fully understand commits foul play must either be cautioned or a law, you’re in luck because SAreferees.com has a temporarily suspended or sent off.” number of them to illustrate this particular offence. Quite, hello red or yellow card. Interestingly, even in the newly simplified rugby laws, there are well over 30 specific acts that a player may commit that could result in him (or her) either being cautioned or being shown a colourful card.

These range from the fairly innocuous: “A player must not intentionally infringe any law of the game” to the life-threateningly serious: “A player must not lift an opponent off the ground and drop or drive that player so that their head and/or upper body make contact with the ground.” Usefully, the review also covers the incidence of offside after a knock-on, when a player knocks on There is much more than we have space for but you and an offside team-mate is the next player to play can find more about this and about all the new laws the ball, often inadvertently. You can find the of the game that we all love here. review in all its glory here.

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Page 5 Disappointing PRO14 openers

Last weekend’s PRO14 fixtures were a disappointment for fans of the two South African teams involved. It began positively enough on Friday night, when despite being beaten, the Southern Kings put up a reasonably decent fight against Zebre, one of Italy’s premier club sides.

The final score was 32-16 despite the Kings having two players yellow-carded during the game. Overall, the reviews of this match were relatively positive and fans The same cannot be said for the performance of the were left with a feeling that the Kings could get better Cheetahs on Saturday. For the second week in a row, in the rounds to come. the team from Bloemfontein came off after 80 minutes without having scored at all. As it was in the encounter against Western Province at a water-logged Newlands, when they went down 32-0, so it was in Limerick when Munster put six tries past them to win 38-0.

One thing is certain, both the Cheetahs and the Kings will have to pull the finger out it they want to compete in the PRO14 this year. And the Kings need to look to their discipline, which cost them, at least, a losing bonus point.

Player Profile: The making of “Eskom”

One of the problems we have in South Africa is that many rugby players are lost to the system because they went to the wrong schools and, usually, that’s the end – at least, of the rugby part of their stories. But sometimes a player’s dogged determination plays ad part and he simply refuses to give up.

And even though he has only recently burst onto the scene, the story above already sums up the career of Marco van Staden, one, which many believe, has only just begun. All of the enthralling details can be found on JW Coetzee’s blog but here’s teaser.

It’s a story of hope, determination and a fascination with the game we all claim to love. It is a story that starts barefoot next to frost-covered rugby fields on ice cold Highveld mornings. “You have to understand that he absolutely loves rugby, he always has,” Debbie [his mother] explained.

Marco is a product of Hoërskool Bekker, a relatively small agricultural school spread pretty across the slopes of the picturesque Magaliesberg mountain range. It is an idyllic setting to grow up in, but hardly a place known for regularly dropping provincial rugby players off its production line.

But perhaps the most endearing part of the story is his nickname: Eskom. It’s what his Bulls teammates call him because, as they tell it, if he gets to you he trips your lights.

Page 6 Hope springs eternal for the Boks

After over a week of analysis, the natural optimism of Possibly the most interesting pre-game analysis that Springbok supporters is beginning to pop up in social came out this week was penned by the redoubtable media and general conversation. The general feeling Dan Retief. Taking a lesson from the way in which the seems to be that, while the Australians will not be modern-day All Blacks play the game, he suggests that push-overs, the Boks can’t possibly play as badly as the only way to beat them is for the Boks to they did last week [Kick-off is at 12pm Saturday – Ed]. rediscover their mongrel – my words, not his – and to be as relentless as the New Zealanders. I’m not convinced. In Argentina the Boks were out- thought and out-played and had no real answers to He writes: “The Boks used to be able to play this way. the tough questions posed. Even after halftime they Eighty minutes of “in-your-face” rugby – securing the kept being out-muscled at the break-down and the ball, powerful scrums and dominant lineouts, captain still fail to bring the attention of the referee to indomitable driving, crunching tackling and turning the fact that the Pumas were showing zero daylight the opposition. between the tackle and competition for the ball. Despite that, it has to be said that the second half “Perhaps it’s time to wind back the clock and performance was better than the first. Then again, it return to the way we used to play rather than could hardly have been worse. being obsessed with how they play?

At the time of writing, most of the commentary was “The question is whether we still possess that about the woeful state of South African rugby and the indomitable attitude and commitment and, the reasons for it. Some columnists focused on the question has to be asked, are our players fit players, calling for heads while others looked at the enough?” broader structure of the local game. Very good questions but let’s add another: are our But looking ahead to Brisbane this weekend, it players committed enough? behoves us to pay a little more attention to the team in front of us than we usually do when travelling down under. The Wallabies may have been walloped two weekends in a row by the All Blacks but they’re likely to be a much sterner test that the Argentinians were – and we know how well that all worked out.

That the Springboks have to improve on what they showed in Mendoza goes pretty much without saying but one of their assistant coaches, Matt Proudfoot, said it anyway while also welcoming Cheslin Kolbe to join the squad down under.

“We are excited to have Cheslin in the side; I think he deserves his chance in the group because I think he has really performed well (in France for Toulouse)," said Proudfoot. "I obviously know him well from my coaching days at the DHL Stormers, and he is type of player who can really create something out of nothing."

All of which may be perfectly true but one player is not necessarily going to make the kind of difference the fans expect, and demand. It’s going to take considerably more than that. Click on the image for more information

Page 7 The Currie Cup schedule this weekend

The Friday night fixture sees the Pumas travel to Durban to face the Sharks in what, for the visiting team is a must win game if they still harbour ambitions to make it to the play-off stages of the competition. The Pumas lie in fifth on the table and have a game in hand over the Bulls, who are only one point ahead of them. A win in Durban would go down extremely well in Nelspruit.

On Saturday, the travel to Kimberley and should be odds on favourite to beat the rather lacklustre Griquas on their home turf. But it’s no slam dunk because the team from Kimberley always seems to find another level when playing front of its home crowd. And at Ellis Park, the Lions host the Cheetahs in what should be a five pointer given that this is really the Bloemfontein franchise’s second string.

In the Currie Cup First Division, South Western Districts hosts the Griffons on Friday while, on Saturday, the Boland Cavaliers entertain the Border Bulldogs and EP Elephants welcome the Leopards. The Valke have a bye thanks to the Welwitschias’ withdrawal.

Click on the image for more information

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