“We have a week to fix things and to use the time to do that. It is still early in the series, but we need to start stepping up.” Sevens Springbok and former World Sevens Player of the Year, Werner Kok

Volume 19, Number 2 30 January 2019 Register to receive your own free weekly newsletter at www.leopardnewsletters.co.za

Six Nations Offers Lessons for Japan

This weekend will see the 2019 Six Nations kick off. Any tournament involving Europe’s rugby superpowers will be of interest to the coaches of any team hoping to lift the Web Ellis Cup come early November.

South African fans might scoff at this thought given that the only European opposition in our pool at the World Cup this year is Italy. But it’s only a bit less than four years ago that Japan beat the mighty Springboks at a World Cup in England. Lest we forget. So, what can we expect from the Six Nations in Getting back to the thesis of this piece, you can be 2019? Well, as in any World Cup year, it’s all about sure that Rassie’s analysts and strategists will be testing new players and combinations as well as keeping a wary eye on the Six Nations because, if trying small elements of grand strategies. The goal is South Africa make it to the knock-out rounds, we’re to test the theories and ideas without giving away the likely to face Ireland or Scotland in the quarter-finals. broader strategy for the World Cup. All the Furthermore, England or France may well lie ahead contenders will be doing that and all their probably in the semi-final or, perish the thought, the final. competitors will be watching them do it. And it begins on Friday when France takes on Wales in Paris (10pm). Saturday sees Scotland host Italy at Murrayfield and, later, Ireland entertain England at the home of Irish rugby in Dublin. That last match-up is likely to attract the most strategic eyeballs, even though it’s still very early in the season and neither England and Ireland are at full strength.

All six teams also appear to be starting the tournament under-manned but that’s less of a problem because the focus for all of them this year will be to build toward September and Japan.

KEY TOPICS IN THIS NEWSLETTER

Utterly Abysmal Defence from Blitzbokke Varsity Cup is Back on Monday Night Great PRO14 Results a Welcome Change Schoolboys: Recruitment or development? Baby Bok selection? No thanks, mate! As the Anticipation Builds...

Page 1 Utterly Abysmal Defence from Blitzbokke Great PRO14 Results a Welcome Change

It started so well, three wins on the trot on the first day As expected, the Cheetahs got a bonus point win to make it comfortably into the Cup quarter-finals at against Zebre to keep them in the hunt for a the Wellington Sevens. But then it began to go wrong. theoretical shot of the play-off rounds again. The home side took the foot off the pedal at 33-7 after 50 The first half against Samoa exposed the defensive minutes and began to leak tries as their defence let frailties but despite that a brilliant second half got them down again, allowing the Italians to also get a them into a semi-final against Fiji, where the wheels four-try bonus point. fell completely off the bus. The defensive frailties exposed by Samoa were exploited by Fiji and the Blitzbokke were never in the game. In fact, it was reminiscent of those first few disastrous years on the Sevens circuit when they lost far more than they won.

The bronze medal play-off against New Zealand was no better. They were first to score after being camped in the kiwi red zone for the first three minutes of the match but that merely seemed to wake up the home team. It was one-way traffic from there as the Blitzbokke were utterly thrashed again, for the second time in as many games. Those defensive frailties will have the teams above the Bloemfontein team on the table rubbing their The Blitzbokke retained their series title last year hands in anticipation. But for the Cheetahs to have a largely as a result of solid defence and good discipline. realistic chance of the play-offs, they will have to Both those aspects are completely missing from their beat the Kings this weekend in Bloemfontein. game this season but they will have to find them before or immediately after crossing the Tasman or That will be no mean feat as the Port Elizabeth side they’ll be destroyed again the fourth round of the managed to squeak a win against Edinburgh last series in Sydney this weekend. weekend and only narrowly lost to the Cheetahs the week before. Fortunately, the Blitzbokke themselves are aware of the urgent need to address the issues. Werner Kok: It must be said that the refereeing this weekend was “We have a week to fix things and to use the time to appalling, again, with this referee [It was Daniel do that. It is still early in the series, but we need to Jones - Ed] penalising the Kings for illegal start stepping up.” scrummaging by the Scots – setting the scrum with shoulders below their hips. Even the normally reticent SuperSport commentators remarked on it, repeatedly.

Cheetahs have to win with a bonus point to draw level with the Cardiff Blues and to close the gap on the Ospreys and Connacht to only two points. Then it will be a straight shoot-out between the four for the third play-off spot in the conference.

But none of that will mean anything to the Kings. They’ll be on a high after defeating Edinburgh against the odds and will want to avenge the last gasp Cheetahs win of two weeks ago. Could be interesting.

Page 2 Page 3 Baby Bok selection? No thanks, mate! Varsity Cup is Back on Monday Night

There’s a piece on AllOutRugby that bemoans the loss One of the best things to happen to South African of promising lock, Paul Willemse, who has been rugby over the past few years has been the FNB named in the French squad for the Six Nations. And Varsity Cup. We’ve already had a few outstanding sure, it’s sad, but seriously? Look at the Springbok players make their way from there into the Springbok squad in recent months: we have so many capable team – Aphiwe Dyantyi springs readily to mind but locks that we play some of them as loose forwards. there have been others.

Fortunately, the competition is back from Monday and the powers that be have done away with the idiotic power play rule. However, some other innovations will be retained, including the Free Catch Rule, the Defending Nine rule, the Red Card rule, the Point of Origin (POR) rule (which gives an extra two points for tries originating inside the attacking team’s own half) and the White Card (only in semi-finals and finals).

FNB Varsity Cup Manager Xhanti-Lomzi Nesi: "Our aim is always to put in place rules that improve the game of rugby and implement laws that assist South African Rugby and World Rugby in making the sport A similar thing happened to Josh Strauss – who now safer, more easily understandable and interesting to plays for Scotland – and CJ Stander – a fixture in last watch. year’s triumphant Six Nations winning team, Ireland. There have been others in the past and will be more in "The Power Play has been discontinued as our the future. technical results found it did not contribute as anticipated to game flow and game management." According to the article, Willemse got lucky via a Nesi also believes that the return to a standardised loophole in the eligibility rules. Good on him. He scoring system, will make matches more easily spotted an opportunity and he took it. Didn’t Pieter de followable for spectators. Villiers (the tighthead prop, not the idiot coach) do the same thing? FNB Varsity kicks-off on 4 February 2019, with FNB UJ taking on FNB NWU, FNB Maties hosting The piece delves into the mechanics of how it is that FNB Wits, FNB UCT plays FNB UWC in the new Willemse wriggled through a tiny loophole that’s now derby and FNB UP-Tuks will want to get closed and seems to wonder what needs to be done to their season off right with a win over FNB CUT. close any other loopholes there may be. Why? A rugby player has a limited time to make a name for himself (or herself) and set up life after their playing days are over.

The bottom line is that there are only 22 places in any Springbok match-day team and if an opportunity beckons for fringe players, they can, and should, take that opportunity. To try and stop them is not only short- sighted, it’s downright selfish.

Page 4 Page 5 Schoolboys: Recruitment or development? USA promise and the Six Nations

One of our favourite analysts has written a thought- provoking piece addressing the above question. @FrontRowGrunt (aka Tank Lanning) tracks the genesis of his thought process back to an interesting comment by Springbok captain, Siya Kolisi: “If you want to talk about transformation, you have got to start there (at a school level). Imagine I hadn’t gone to an English school. I wouldn’t have eaten properly, I wouldn’t have grown properly and I wouldn’t have had the preparation that the other boys did.”

There’s an entertaining column by Lawrence Nolan that is published regularly on PlanetRugby. This week, it deals with a topic we touched on last week – the USA’s Major League Rugby - and the subject of our first page this week – the Six Nations.

Nolan reckons that MLR is looking good. “After the false start of a handful of years ago, and after last year’s lukewarm edition, the USA has itself a nice- looking pro rugby league. There are nine teams, they That, fundamentally, illustrates the folly of selecting are looking well-coached, there’s plenty of local players by means of a quota system without first talent in them and it’s close. building (or at least supplementing) the necessary structures at schoolboy level. “Not one game was decided by more than a score this past weekend – indeed, only one was settled by more But it’s not just rugby: consider the case of Mfuneko than a conversion, and that featured try bonus-points Ngam who played three cricket Tests for South Africa for both teams.” but had his career curtailed by stress fractures in his legs, possibly due to dietary deficiencies as a youth. But he fails to mention that the plans for next year include adding another three teams to the mix, taking Tank reckons the most important part of Kolisi’s the total up to 12. Still, to give Nolan his due, he does statement relates to nutrition, conditioning and mention a lot of detail that we skipped over last week training. As he writes: “Transformation via the top- so the column is worth a gander. down quota approach is the easy way out because it is simple to monitor. And perhaps more importantly in His thoughts on the Six Nations seem equally on the our teetering society, a platform from which simple mark: “The squads and teams released this week have political points can be scored. generally been predictable, aside from France, whose unpredictability is as predictable as Ireland’s starting “The much more difficult approach – one that requires XV.” planning, a well thought-out strategy, and resources – is the one that starts from the bottom. And schools would need to form a vital cog in such a plan...” The full article is well worth a read.

Page 6 As the Super Rugby Anticipation Builds...

It’s always amusing to watch the pundits in the weeks And in an interesting anecdote, Springbok loose forward, before a new season of a major rugby tournament Duane Vermeulen, has revealed why he signed for the kicks off. One headline that caught the eye just after Bulls instead of returning to the . the last issue went into the machine was this: Did Bulls win the off-season? Meanwhile, the Bulls' first opponents when the tournament kicks off on Friday 15 February, the Stormers, have injury woes too: Eben Etzebeth is unlikely to be ready in time. He suffered a foot injury during the during the Springboks’ end-of-year tour.

Stormers head coach Robbie Fleck also revealed other injuries: “Ramone Samuels, Johan du Toit and EW Viljoen are still out. Viljoen has got a stress fracture, he had to have an operation and he will only likely return in March so it’s not too bad.”

"Unofficially, the Bulls’ Captain America strip won the superhero jersey contest, and the off-season acquisition of Schalk Brits, Duane Vermeulen and Cornal Hendricks drew a 'Wow!' from Lions’ coach Swys de Bruin."

It’s certainly an interesting look at things but, as any long-term rugby fan will tell you, one or two players don’t make a huge difference to a squad of 22. But this Meanwhile, the warm-up matches are continuing with week the Bulls received some really bad news: the next batch set for Newlands this Sunday. Billed as Springbok RG Snyman is expected to miss the first #SuperHeroSunday, the event will see South Africa’s two months of the new Super Rugby after picking up four Super Rugby franchises run out in their superhero an injury while playing club rugby in Japan. The derby kit to play a double-header: the Emirates Lions -based franchise will also be without hooker will play the Cell C at 2pm, after which the DHL Jaco Visagie (ankle injury) for six weeks. Stormers will tackle the Vodacom Bulls.

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Page 7 For your weekend viewing pleasure

After the disaster in Hamilton last weekend, we hesitate to mention it but have to, for obvious reasons: round four of the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series is in Sydney this weekend. The Blitzbokke face Tonga well before sparrow fart at 1:50am, Argentina at a more reasonable 7:18am and Australia at 11:23am.

And as mentioned elsewhere in this issue, there is only one PRO14 fixture this weekend: the home derby between the Cheetahs and the Kings (4pm) on Saturday. There are also to the three Six Nations fixtures on Friday night and Saturday and the American MLR continues with matches on Saturday and Sunday – yes, at weird hours. There's also #SuperHeroSunday at Newlands on Sunday.

Varsity Cup kicks off on Monday with the University of taking on the North-West Pukke, Maties hosting Wits, UCT Ikeys playing UWC in the new Cape Town derby and UP-Tuks facing CUT. Check the fixture list for kick-off times.

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