Mike Greenaway: Wanted, Boks Plan B

David Campese had been employed as skills coach at the Sharks for about two weeks when he commented, with some exasperation, that overhauling the skills levels of South African rugby players was a challenging task and one that will probably be achieved sooner if work began immediately at under-8 level.

Campo works with all age groups at the Sharks since emigrating to Durban in December so that his South African wife could be closer to her family.

He lives on a lush golf estate and is having a great time doing what he loves most - playing golf and imparting his rugby genius to willing students. He reached the conclusion that, from an early age, the locals have a very different approach to Aussie kids. It is a whole different mindset.

Aussie kids (probably Kiwis, too) learn about beating the opposition, running into space, and letting the ball do the work.

Japie kids, just like senior Japies, pick up the ball and try to run over the opposition. The biggest kid hogs the ball and he doesn't stop until pulled down by the rest.

This type of thing had worked fine for South Africans for decades, mostly because the massive Afrikaner farmers were bigger than most.

But this natural advantage died with the amateur era. Post-1995, professional rugby players have become much of a muchness in terms of physical size because they have similar gym programmes and diets, and the single greatest failing of South African rugby since emerging from isolation has been the failure to evolve the national playing style.

The relentless driving play of the forwards is not as effective as it used to be - they don't make the same yardage because defenders are up to the physical challenge.

The same goes for the set pieces and for the battering-ram style midfield backs; while the big-kicking flyhalves are now a liability because the opposition has the skill to counter-attack and keep the ball.

The effective tactic of recent years, forcing turnovers by means of helter-skelter defence, seems also to have run its course.

South African teams, especially the Springboks, have been exposed for having no Plan B when their traditional plan fails. The warning signs have been there for some time and some brave souls have tried to buck the trend.

Nick Mallett, Bok coach from 1998 to 2000, recognised that the effective but unenterprising pattern that won his team a world record-equalling 17 consecutive victories was on borrowed time and, in 2000, Mallett attempted to mould a new playing style unashamedly based on that of the Brumbies.

The Boks got one bit of it right - they could endlessly recyle the ball - but they did not have the skills to penetrate defences. They would keep the ball for ages but go nowhere.

Mallett's successor was Harry Viljoen, a maverick multi-millionaire businessman (and former Currie Cup player) and he set about turning the Boks into a freewheeling Barbarians outfit. In his first match in charge, against Argentina in Buenos Aires, he famously forbade five-eighth Percy Montgomery to kick the ball until the 60th minute (Monty managed it, in a miraculous feat).

But a year later, for a test at Twickenham against England, demoralised Viljoen picked a backline that was pedestrian and dull even by Bok standards and, after a terrible performance, he abandoned the game and took off for his yacht in the Med.

These days, Jake White often says he would play a more expansive game if he had the tools. He says the Springbok team is at the end of the player production line and, if it is coughing up donkeys instead of racehorses, what is he supposed to do?

This is mostly true, but there are some bright sparks, such as Brent Russell (a Christian Cullen clone) and tearaway flanker Luke Watson that White chooses not to select because their exciting play is too much of a departure from the norm.

But in South Africa the natives are getting restless. There is widespread recognition that the Boks do not have the game to win the World Cup, and the less innovation the Boks show, the more unpopular White becomes with a public desperate for change.

Two provinces, in fact, have decided to throw caution to the wind and have adopted a refreshing new approach in the Currie Cup. The Sharks and Western Province are fielding young teams and the players are being told to have a full go on attack. The stifling structure that suffocates the South African game has been lifted for these teams and the whole country is applauding.

These teams are using the Currie Cup to practise the new art of running the ball ahead of the Super 14. And nobody is applauding louder than David Campese.

* Mike Greenaway is chief rugby writer for the Natal Mercury.