Innholdsfortegnelse for November 2021 i SA RUGBY

If the Springboks are to remain the No 1 team in the world for an extended period, South Africa’s entry into the United Rugby Championship needs to reap the anticipated rewards. Although the four South African teams endured a challenging start to the competition, it stands to reason that it will take some time for the local franchises to adjust to a new competition with different opponents and law interpretations. However, once the SA sides are back at home and can welcome the return of their Springbok stars, it should be a far more competitive affair. Indeed, as our cover suggests, some early pain should lead to long-term gain for South African rugby at the start of a groundbreaking move into northern hemisphere competition. In this issue, we chat to…

JORDAN HENDRIKSE ‘You don’t turn your back on family,’ said the Lions flyhalf, who showed his support for brother Jaden after his injury while on Springbok duty. SBU NKOSI ‘Only when the sun burns out, will we stop trying our best. Siyazi silwelani [We know what we are fighting for],’ said the Springbok flyer with fellow wing Makazole Mapimpi. DYLAN RICHARDSON ‘Looking forward to the next couple of weeks on tour!’ said the Sharks flank with teammates Thaakir Abrahams and Rynhardt Jonker during a dav out in Ireland. TREVOR NYAKANE ‘Great effort from the boys. Love being part of this team,’ said the Springbok prop with fellow front rankers Ox Nche, Bongi Mbonambi and scrum coach Daan Human, after the team’s heroic victory against the All Blacks on Australia’s Gold…

Chris Boyd is in his fourth season as Northampton’s director of rugby, achieving positions of fourth, eighth and fifth in his previous Gallagher Premiership campaigns as well as a Premiership Rugby Cup triumph in 2019. The 63-year-old New Zealander has Scottish ancestry and an impressive coaching CV that includes stints in South Africa, Tonga and, of course, his home country, where he memorably steered the Hurricanes to their first Super Rugby title in 2016. He played fullback for Tawa seniors straight out of school and ran the ball from everywhere. His father Gordon died of a brain haemorrhage at the age of 48 when Chris was in his late teens. Married to Linda and a father of four, Boyd has coached Saints into playing a hugely entertaining brand of attacking…

Like so many other Blitzboks hopefuls, Ronald Brown had been recruited to the South African Sevens Academy in Stellenbosch in November 2018 and was hoping to make enough of an impression to earn promotion from the junior ranks to the senior team. But warning bells began to ring when chest pains, which he at first thought were innocuous, progressively worsened, so much so that he struggled to sleep. ‘You think things are happening for you, you’re going forward in life and then it all comes crashing down,’ Brown tells SA Rugby magazine. ‘I couldn’t sleep at night, so I started to take Panado for the pain, but as time went on it got worse. I hid it from everyone and continued training and kept on taking pills because we were…

Anyone even vaguely in the orbit of the recent British & Irish Lions tour will recall Jaque Fourie’s wonder try against them in 2009. It popped up often as a scene-setter, spooling in and out from the highlights reel as a reminder of Fourie’s power – and South Africa’s muscular playing style. Fourie is long since retired, but his value remains, the local Lions having appointed him as defence coach in early September. Smart thinking. The midfielder was acclaimed for his attacking prowess, but anyone who played against Fourie had a struggle getting past him. Big and strapping, there was nothing subtle about his tackling technique, which he embellished with his role as a communicator. Those either side of him could always depend on his advice and instruction. Fourie knew…

The launch of the United Rugby Championship heralded a new beginning for South African rugby in Europe where they will battle clubs such as Edinburgh, as old as the game itself and determined to proudly defend their heritage. Founded in 1872 during a multi-club trial for national honours, Edinburgh represents a rugby city that is home to Scotland’s base at Murrayfield. The club turned professional in 1996 under the name Edinburgh Rugby, and after two seasons merged with Border Reivers to form Edinburgh Reivers, competing in the European Cup and Welsh Rugby Union Challenge Trophy until Scottish Rugby and the Welsh Rugby Union joined forces to create the Celtic League in 2001. This competition morphed into the Prol2 in 2011 and then the Prol4 in 2017, forerunning the URC Edinburgh…

There are a few things to consider when assessing the Springboks’ performances in Australia and the gameplan they employed when facing the Wallabies and the All Blacks. When formulating your gameplan, you have to consider your traditional strengths and the skills of the players within your squad. You also have to take the strengths and abilities of your opponents into account. The Boks were always going to favour a specific gameplan for the two-game showdown against the All Blacks at the back end of the Rugby Championship. The coaches implemented a strategy to enhance South Africa’s strengths and negate those of New Zealand. The players bought into the plan, yet failed to execute it to telling effect in the first Test against New Zealand in Townsville. The Boks created opportunities…

In the first couple of rounds of the newly formed United Rugby Championship, South Africa’s ‘Big Four’ franchises were taking an absolute pounding. Much excitement and speculation had followed the announcement that the top four South African teams would play a tournament in the northern hemisphere. After years of Super Rugby and many formats of this once-exciting competition, most people, including myself, thought it was time for change and for SA teams to venture north. Our wish was granted. The south has always been the rugby powerhouse of the world, with most of the best rugby players on this planet born somewhere south of the equator. A few of them weren’t born in the country of their adopted national rugby team, but you get my drift. For years we have…

This is the competition that will change the game! That is the bold assertion of Michael Yormark, the ambitious president of Roc Nation Sports, when referring to the flashy United Rugby Championship that has welcomed South Africa’s four leading franchises into northern hemisphere competition. Such a shift in this new domestic direction has also coincided with a widespread view – some may call it a jibe – that the Springboks are already effectively a ‘northern hemisphere’ team based on a gameplan that is centred around forward play, the kicking battle and stern defence. Ironically, on the same weekend the new URC season kicked off towards the end of September, the Springboks unapologetically reverted to a style of play that has been labelled simply as South Africa’s ‘DNA’, with the Boks…

Supplied by RUGBY COACH WEEKLY 1 vs 1 skills zone for basic tackling Get your players to make one-on-one, high-intensity tackles by giving them the confidence to do so by teaching them the correct technique. You can use this as a breakout from the main session and as a chance for player-led coaching for older teams. SET UP Four cones, one ball, tackle suit (optional), players in pairs. KEY POINTS > Identify the target. > Emphasise the pre-tackle profile: Sink hips: upper body leaning into tackle; low body position on entry; hands up. > Emphasise contact order: Lead arm to make contact (right-hand tackle – right arm first, to stop attacking momentum/left-hand tackle – left arm first): head positioned behind legs or to the side; wrap other arm around; make…

Which team is the greatest in the history of Super Rugby? Was it the 2009 Bulls powered by Victor Matfield and Fourie du Preez, the all-star Stormers side that contested the 2010 final, the Sharks outfit that coasted into the 2007 decider or the 2017 Lions who tripped at the final hurdle? Or how about Joeli Vidiri’s Auckland Blues of the mid-1990s, Sam Whitelock’s 2018 Crusaders or the masterful 2011 Reds steered by halfbacks Will Genia and Quade Cooper? The envy of northern hemsiphere rugby for the better part of two decades after the game turned professional, Super Rugby produced most of the talent that went on to win a World Cup between 1996 and 2019. CAST YOUR VOTE SARugbymag.co.za readers have tackled the opportunity to participate in a unique…

By the time the shortened 2021 World Rugby Sevens Series had rolled around, Brawn was well and truly ready to play his part, especially considering he was an uncapped Blitzbok because the side competed under the Team SA brand at the Olympics. ‘Until you’re capped, you don’t get to practice in a Blitzboks jersey. And that was motivation after the Olympics. I wanted to be a Blitzbok, I wanted to train in that Blitzboks jersey, not just in the academy training kit,’ he says. ‘I wouldn’t say getting my first cap at the Vancouver Sevens was more special than playing at the Olympics, but just the fact I can now say I am a Blitzbok is massive.’ With a new lease on life, Brawn flourished for the Blitzboks during the…

When the Springboks and England take to the field at Twickenham on 20 November, it will be 750 days since the teams last met, in the 2019 World Cup final in Yokohama. Eddie Jones’ men will be desperate to avenge that 32-12 defeat, with many of them having also suffered a painful 2-1 series loss with the British & Irish Lions in South Africa earlier this year. Beating the Lions was the world champions’ top priority in 2021, but having relinquished their Rugby Championship crown, they now need a successful end-of-year tour - and a win against England, in particular - to salvage their season. The Boks have beaten their big northern hemisphere rivals in 26 out of 43 Tests, with two draws and 15 defeats, but only lead the…

My question to Jake White was this: ‘In the past, the criticism of Johan Goosen, rightly or wrongly, was that he was mentally fragile, a complex and difficult character to manage and could soar with the wind at his back but bailed into the wind when it got a bit tougher. What has been your experience of that criticism of him?’ White’s response: ‘I find him the exact opposition. I find him a team guy, 100% and keen to learn. Look, I have been a coach who has managed players like Frans Steyn, who are exceptional players but very strong-minded. It’s how you manage a player. He tikes to challenge you as a coach and he knows what he wants because he has all the skills in the world. ‘Look…

The Boks are nothing if not a tight-knit and well-settled unit. Most of the squad are World Cup winners from 2019, and that experience certainly played a massive part in enabling them to overcome the British & Irish Lions. However, that series undoubtedly took an emotional and physical toll on the players involved, and it was one of the issues at the heart of the Springboks’ lacklustre Rugby Championship campaign. Due to travel and quarantine restrictions, it was nigh on impossible for any players to be added to the Bok squad in Australia, but as the coaching staff begin to look ahead and assess their backline stocks, the names of Cornal Hendricks and Johan Goosen must be increasingly difficult to ignore. It’s impossible to gauge just what barometer the recently…

If the Springboks’ newfound ability to consistently push the All Blacks proves anything, it is that they still don’t have the consistency between World Cups to the point that they have a strangely symmetrical record of winning it once every 12 years. In an indication of how these clashes have played out in the clinch, to borrow a boxing phrase, the seven matches contested since October 2017 by the two heavyweights have been decided by two points on no fewer than five occasions. The other two are a 16-16 draw in the 2019 Rugby Championship and that 23-13 win in the World Cup opener the same year. Repeatedly giving the team regarded as the best in the world the hurry-up like that, as the Boks have happily taken to doing,…

On paper, the Stormers and Manie Libbok should be a match made in heaven. On the one hand, you have a player desperate for regular game time in his perceived best position at flyhalf. On the other, you have a team that has consistently struggled over the past decade to find a No 10 who can match their ambition to play attacking rugby. The 24-year-old was announced as one of nine new recruits for the inaugural United Rugby Championship tournament, signing a three-year-deal when moving from the Sharks. Having started at the Bulls, the only consistency about Libbok’s professional career has been its inconsistency. Perhaps falling prey to the ‘utility back’ tag that comes with players who have a natural attacking talent, Libbok had been used at flyhalf, fullback and…