The most debilitating aspect of SA sport: Fear of failure.

When you think of South African national sporting teams, the most obvious synonyms that would come to mind would be rigid and regimented.

Specifically their rugby and cricket teams, although both teams have been successful in relative terms (both featuring with monotonous regularity in the top three of their respective international rankings) whilst by the same they token have struggled to reach and maintain the number one rankings.
How many times have we seen the Proteas blast through their pool rounds during an ICC event, often being one of the favourites to take the trophy only to fail when it comes to the knock out round.

Similarly the Springboks would fail to impress against opponents by not having the ability to strike the killer blow necessary to put the game away.

After reading a recent article on Cricinfo by Firdose Moonda and seeing what influence Gary Kirsten has had over the Proteas and their results to achieve the number one test ranking of the ICC, the processes that he put into place made for some interesting reading.

Gary Kirsten.

His focus initially was not to coach batting, bowling and fielding, but rather the psychological aspects and management of the players themselves.
From his perspective South African sport has always had an almost militaristic approach, with rigid processes that stifles creative thinking.

He took away the compulsory team dinner prior to a match, he allowed players time off to disperse whilst on tour, he allowed each player to decide for himself how much time he needed to put into training, his aim is for every player to accept accountability for his actions and to realize the consequences of not performing.

In other words, he has removed the Schoolmaster approach by aiming for players to be individualistic within a team, capable of individual thought and action.

Springboks.

Looking at the Springbok team it seems that players have never had the freedom or desire to express themselves, or as Pieter de Villiers himself explained to the SA sporting committee in 2011 prior to the Rugby World Cup “The players have a fear of failure”

It has been with regularity that they would not be able to find an extra gear, or provide an individualistic moment of brilliance that would take them over the line, effectively showing no alternate plan to break down defences for that one vital score.

The last moment of individual brilliance from memory was the chip and chase of Enrico January in 2008 when he chased down his own kick and went in for the try to beat the All Blacks at home.

Think back to the knock out matches the Proteas lost due to an ingrained inflexibility to adapt their batting order to a certain match situation.

The reality in my view is that sport is taken seriously in South Africa, but perhaps too seriously. When the object of sport is to remain focused more on the result than the process it debilitates players, it creates fear of failure, it creates tense minds and therefor doesn’t allow individuals to risk.

Sometimes risk is a necessary commodity to win, I am not talking of risking everything, even stock brokers take calculated risks, but without risk you will only be playing within your potential.

Playing within your potential will ensure you beat teams with less potential than yours, but teams of equal potential must risk to gain rewards, and that is where creative thinking, instinct and vision comes into play.

South African sportsmen have been playing without it for far too long.

Well Peter de Villiers also didn't "coach the team". He also took a few risks in his game plan in his first tri nations. It worked for the first game in Hamilton, then after that it fell apart. He then had to revert back to the traditional game plan because the administrators and fans wouldn't tolerate losses like that and he was already in a pinch with the way he was selected - Immediate fear right there.

The coaches are scared, the players are scared and they are scared because of what we as fans demand. We demand win all the time, but if we are going to chance our rugby approach, we are probably going to lose a lot at the beginning.

No tell me, which coach will be willing to deal with that.

The All Blacks are fine with playing like this, because they played this way for such a long time. It is already in their rugby culture to attack. Ours are just to defend and hope our kicker can win it for us.

Look at our historical two top clubs. Stormers/WP (traditionally our free running club) and Bulls Northen Transvaal. They both play defensively now. The only way our approach is going to change is depending on one of our other power house - the Sharks. They are now our most attacking club and if they do the best of the SA sides in the next few years it will force the National side to adept to that playing style.

Interesting piece Biltong. You may well have something there.

But when I look around world rugby at the moment, I get a sense that coaches, particularly those in their early days, seem to also have this debilitating fear of failure. So what approach do they choose: the conservative, low percentage safety option. Look at France. When did they last play with flair against a good side? They seem capable of bringing it out against teams like Italy but as soon as a big battle looms up, they go into their shell and expect Dusatoir to win the game by making 50 tackles. How can a classy winger like PSA instill such conservatism in his players?

Robinson for Scotland, Kidney for Ireland, Johnson for England and now it seems Lancaster, Deans for Australia, Meyer for SA and even Gatland for Wales all seem to have identified a narrow range of options of winning and gone for a do or die approach to play in that way and strangle the opposition with defence into submission.

There are different ways of playing the game and that should be celebrated. But at the moment, world rugby seems stifled by this mentality that defence wins you matches. It's bogus thinking. Defence keeps you in games but attack (whether it be in the forwards or the backs) wins you games.

Kia do you not think coaches sell their players short by beleiving that they don't have enough ability?

So the fear stems from a belief that risk will only provide one result, failure.

Fern, I don't think the All Blacks are the only ones that can do this.

When you look at the era of Nick Mallet, we played exciting rugby with our back then, think back to when Carel du Plessis was coach, yes he had a poor record, but mainly due to the kicking woes we had against the Lions at the time, outscoring them in tries, in fact one match we outscored them 3 tries to nil but lost because we didn't get one kick over.

PDV tried, but the return match against Australia we thumped them by 50 or so points with running rugby, he should have persisted.

Look at the Cheetahs attacking ability (not their defence), look at the balanced manner in which the sharks use their forwards and backs with skillfull interplay.

So what if we lose a few matches, at least we know then where we are going, currently the fear is stopping progress.

Yes I do mate. I think it's a bit like the rock group mentality. It seems rock groups today have to be the next best thing straight away. They don't have time to develop and grow.

The same applies to test rugby. You need some flexibility and allow for your team to develop. Combinations and selections need time to gel. Too often you hear coaches are set targets of 3 out of 4 wins instead of moving towards a performance they can be satisfied with. Look at Deans. He went for a defensive wall against the ABs thinking that was his best chance. But he still lost both and there was nothing at all to take out of that performance in terms of attack. But imagine if they'd lost and the Aussie forwards had taken the game to the ABs and the backs had looked sharp on attack.

It seems everyone is preparing for a World Cup tight performance where you cut down your error rate and try to apply pressure to the opposition. It's frustrating to see teams like Ireland and South Africa play within themselves. I'm not talking about a pendulum swing in the other direction and chuck the ball around willy nilly but a bit of variety would certainly not go amiss.

Yes, I agree, I don't want SA to go willy nilly, try to run the ball from all over the park, but some innovation and individual flair will go a long way.

In a tight match it is often the individual brilliance that unlocks defences because it is unpredictable.

You watch Zane Kirchner and Jean de Villiers, the defender has no doubt as to what is going to happen, he doesn't have to hesitate at all, he can just commit to the tackle.

But what makes it worse is the fact that they harldy ever straighten the line either, they simply run teir whole backline out of space.

Mallet also reverted to the traditional game for the 1999 WC. When things get tough that is the first thing our coaches do.

2 out of six isn't that good and when things got tough for PDV he reverted to our traditional game.

Cheetahs attacking ability is they whole reason that their defensive structure is so bad. Stormers defensive structure is the whole reason their attacking is so bad. We need something in between, and that is exactly what the Sharks gives us, (probably because of the NZ influence of their coach).

Edit: Carel's record was too bad, he didn't even get a chance to revert

Yes, I agree there must be balance, but calculated risks doesn't mean defensive structures necessarily has to be compromised though.

Besides, varying play is not something you have to do 30 times in a game, you only need to do it a few times, even against tough opponents we lose by small margins, if one or two comes off, we win, but by not venturing at all, we lose many of those tough close matches.

At least its better than the most debilitating aspect of Irish sport: Fear of Success.

red_stag wrote:At least its better than the most debilitating aspect of Irish sport: Fear of Success.

Isn't it pretty much the same thing?

True enough Stag. I've never seen a team who covets the underdog tag as much as Ireland. Being labelled the favourite to win seems to terrify them.

The ABs have shown that you can have a defensive structure as well as an attacking one. It's not a case of choosing one over the other. The problem is when a coach seems to say we need to go out there and contain them. The emphasis on defence seems to transfer over to attack. Thre doesn't seem to be a message of being aggressive on defence and fighting for that ball and then getting your hands on the ball and using it to take the game to the opposition.

kiakahaaotearoa wrote:True enough Stag. I've never seen a team who covets the underdog tag as much as Ireland. Being labelled the favourite to win seems to terrify them.

I know. Its maddening isn't it. I think Leinster are the first Irish rugby team I have seen who don't thrive on the underdogs status. Munster may have been the benchmark and won multiple European Cups and gone and won all those top class rugby games; BUT there was no team better at playing up the opposition than Munster.

Which goes back to the coach instilling belief in their players and giving them freedom to adapt their play to the circumstances they face. Of course you need to follow a gameplan and be looking for specific areas that you've tried out in training. But it shouldn't be a rigid gameplan with no room for manoeuvre. I remember writing a thread a few months ago about are teams selling themselves short? I still think most teams are. World rugby seems to have gone into an attacking lull and too much emphasis is being placed on defence.

Biltong, I'm no expert on SA rugby (I'm grateful to you and other SA fans on here for insight) but I certainly see the characteristics you describe. I've watched some Curry cup games recently and seen more balanced games plans than I've seen from the National team. I've seen nothing from Meyer to suggest that he will foster the creativity and vision perhaps needed.

Saying that, France, England, Wales and Australia all seem to have lost spontaneity as their defensive games have improved. IMO only NZ are playing a power/creative balanced game - helped by some outstanding current players.

Offload, that has been the case for as long as I care to remember, I was watching some Vodacom this year on friday evenings if there was no super rugby match played in SA, the players get quick ball, they go wide, they express themselves, the same with the currie Cup teams.

The most interesting match this last weekend was the Bulls vs the sharks, the bulls managed to stay in touch with the sharks who were scoring tries and the Bulls were kicking their usual game.

In the last 20 minutes the Bulls scored 3 tries, not with their kicking pressure game but with counter attack and running the ball at turnover situations, They eventually won rather comfortably.

But yes, it can only be fear that inhibits our national coaches.

Fear of failure in all walks of life is one of the biggest barriers to success. I know that in my business - if I could get teams to change that one charateristic we'd all achieve a lot more. A lot easier siad than done....

Agreed, making a paradigm shift mentally is difficult, yet it starts with change.

If you see what Gary Kristen said it starts with changing things off the field first.

If you allow players the freedom to make decisions off the field or at training you encourage them to think for themselves.

If it is regimented off the the field and on the training ground, change will never come on the field of play.

Obviously with freedom of action comes responsibility and accountability, some players might mentally not have the capacity where as others will thrive under it.

It is the same in the workplace, if you do all the thinking for your staff, have too many control measurements in place you strangle not only their ability to think for themselves but also their ambition.

FerN wrote:Well Peter de Villiers also didn't "coach the team". He also took a few risks in his game plan in his first tri nations. It worked for the first game in Hamilton, then after that it fell apart. He then had to revert back to the traditional game plan because the administrators and fans wouldn't tolerate losses like that and he was already in a pinch with the way he was selected - Immediate fear right there.

The coaches are scared, the players are scared and they are scared because of what we as fans demand. We demand win all the time, but if we are going to chance our rugby approach, we are probably going to lose a lot at the beginning.

Declan Kidney did the same for Ireland. He was brave for a game or two but a loss and it was back to square one and Irish fans are exactly expecting wins like SA fans would.

Every team goes out on the field with a fear of failure, for some teams it is what stops them from doing silly things, for other teams it shakes them to the point of freezing.

England have suffered the same "disease" for years now. Its stifled the Premiership play for as long as I can remember...

You can still express yourself though within those limits. You shouldn't be careless, but you shouldn't be too careful either. A bold option can very well be the right one. Dagg, Beale, Cooper etc get licence to do this. Sure sometimes they can get put on the back foot but man when it comes off (and they are good enough to ensure this happens most of the time) it's an inspiration to their team and results in go forward ball and confidence spreading throughout the side.

I feel the OP is still just a little bit sore about the draw with the Pumas. He shouldn't worry too much. The Boks were without a number of their power players due to injury. Once they are back the Boks will start to fire again.

Its not the fear of failure he should worry about more the lack of depth in the squad.

I think you'll find EG4E he was like that when they won. He's been waiting a long time for a Bok team to have a more varied attack and it doesn't look as though it'll come in any hurry under Meyer. Well maybe now the draw has changed things slightly. A loss against Australia and the tide will turn much more quickly.

Seems to me PdV was a better Springbok coach than Meyer has been thus far. Sadly it seems in retrospect that the groundless optimism around Meyers future matches only the shall well say "dismay and pessimism" than greeted PdV. At least PdV was entertaining!

At least you have people thinking biltong.
I would go the complete opposite track. Announce to the world change is here with SA rugby.
Why don't SARFU chase the best of the available attacking coaches of NZ? Because of some stupid pride thing.
You get Henry, Smith in there and within two to three years SA will be the envy of the rugby world.

SA have the talent but they have carrots stuck so far up their a%&*sses that they can't see it. Tough talking is needed. No ifs and buts. S A rugby should be and could be el primo no. 1.

Stop beating around the bush and sort it.

englandglory4ever wrote:I feel the OP is still just a little bit sore about the draw with the Pumas. He shouldn't worry too much. The Boks were without a number of their power players due to injury. Once they are back the Boks will start to fire again.

Its not the fear of failure he should worry about more the lack of depth in the squad.

Mate I have been lamenting Meyer's selections and gameplan since June.

Hope to see goosen in NZ. Best talent I've seen out of SA in 20 years. Genuine class.

Biltong:

Firstly I'm staggered that you've actually quoted P Villy with a genuine respect for what he has said.

Secondly perhaps the Boks should take a leaf out of Scotland's book and embrace failure. We embrace failure all the time, it gives us a healthy perspective on the world

I think pretty much every international team except for NZ plays a fear of failure defensive game.

funnyExiledScot wrote:Biltong:

Firstly I'm staggered that you've actually quoted P Villy with a genuine respect for what he has said.

Secondly perhaps the Boks should take a leaf out of Scotland's book and embrace failure. We embrace failure all the time, it gives us a healthy perspective on the world

FES, mate I don't disrespect the Man, I just didn't think he was a great coach.

anotherworldofpain wrote:Seems to me PdV was a better Springbok coach than Meyer has been thus far. Sadly it seems in retrospect that the groundless optimism around Meyers future matches only the shall well say "dismay and pessimism" than greeted PdV. At least PdV was entertaining!

To be fair PDV had a forward pack the envy of the world, world class 9 and centre combo as well as a host of back up talent. Never mind all the experience and confidence it brings. With the squad at his disposal only a 80% win rate would've been acceptable. He was a joke of a coach and i'd hate to think how things would be going if he found himself in Meyer's position.

Interesting perspective on the Springboks from a South African.

I would always have seen the Springboks as getting the most out of themselves when it really mattered.................having won 2 out of the 5 RWC's they competed in, comared to 2/7 for NZ and Aus.

And the 2 they won were when they were an inferior team to the All Blacks, so all in all, 40% is pretty good.............

John Cregan wrote:Interesting perspective on the Springboks from a South African.

I would always have seen the Springboks as getting the most out of themselves when it really mattered.................having won 2 out of the 5 RWC's they competed in, comared to 2/7 for NZ and Aus.

And the 2 they won were when they were an inferior team to the All Blacks, so all in all, 40% is pretty good.............

John, I have always believed and still do the RWC means more to Springboks than anything else. They have a singlemindedness when it comes to a tournament where in a matter of 7 matches they can be called world champions. It is a short period of time they need to focus their enenrgy and talent.

The rest of the time there are too many influences on SA rugby.

MMaaxx wrote:

anotherworldofpain wrote:Seems to me PdV was a better Springbok coach than Meyer has been thus far. Sadly it seems in retrospect that the groundless optimism around Meyers future matches only the shall well say "dismay and pessimism" than greeted PdV. At least PdV was entertaining!

To be fair PDV had a forward pack the envy of the world, world class 9 and centre combo as well as a host of back up talent. Never mind all the experience and confidence it brings. With the squad at his disposal only a 80% win rate would've been acceptable. He was a joke of a coach and i'd hate to think how things would be going if he found himself in Meyer's position.

That argument can go on and on. That forward pack was Straulli's doing and he is probably one of the most hated coaches we have, because we didn't win and the whole "Kamp Staaldraad" incident. And probably only Victor was without peer. Bakkies too in my opinion, but a lot of you guys will disagree with me on that.

In my opinion Heyneke should have gotten in over PDV the first time round, but I think PDV got way too much flack over his tenure. And in his first few games PDV/Muir/Gold had much more set-piece back-line moves that looked dangerous than that this current coaching panel pulled out so far. I don't think we have seen one with the new panel yet? Or am I mistaken Biltong?

In my opinion, SA's biggest problem is that there is no national agreement for all the franchises to play a set style of rugby. No continuity from playing in the S15 to the RC is probably quite a big problem for the national coach.

Yes, Fern, I haven't seen anything new.

FerN wrote:In my opinion, SA's biggest problem is that there is no national agreement for all the franchises to play a set style of rugby. No continuity from playing in the S15 to the RC is probably quite a big problem for the national coach.

Epiphany? Not sure what else to say, but this statement stuck out for me.

ebop wrote:

FerN wrote:In my opinion, SA's biggest problem is that there is no national agreement for all the franchises to play a set style of rugby. No continuity from playing in the S15 to the RC is probably quite a big problem for the national coach.

Epiphany? Not sure what else to say, but this statement stuck out for me.

Sorry I had to google Epiphany to understand what it means (Afrikaans guy here) and I am still not really sure what you meant in that sentence because the word is related to some Christian festival that I wasn't aware of.

Edit: I finally understand, google define can only help you out so much.

ebop wrote:

FerN wrote:In my opinion, SA's biggest problem is that there is no national agreement for all the franchises to play a set style of rugby. No continuity from playing in the S15 to the RC is probably quite a big problem for the national coach.

Epiphany? Not sure what else to say, but this statement stuck out for me.

Me too. Probably because it works in NZ. I don't think its necessarily the way for SA but it does place an enormous responsibility on getting selection across the various styles right.

At the moment the policy seems to be...pick bulls or stormers types first. Then pick individuals who stand out (jp p goosen etc).

By now picking goosen its confusing. What will the gameplan be there? Encouragement in the running game, or try to recreate a m steyn clone?

Just watching the Boland Kaveliers vs the Leopards and they have so many backline moves it really looks like it is not two SA teams playing. Okay the defense was very shaky for both sides, but they are running it so well. Strange to see the difference in play 2 to 3 divisions lower. Actually 4ish as it is the CC first division.

Fern, did you watch Griquas vs Lions lst night.

Griquas played a brilliant game, controlling posession and varying their attack the whole time.

Willie le Roux in particular was brilliant, he popped up at half back, then first reciever and fullback

No I didn't watch, but I can tell you one thing. I am not that good with the superbru thing

I got that one wrong as well, don't feel too bad.

Biltong wrote:I got that one wrong as well, don't feel too bad.

I don't think I got anything right yet. How does that other country's people even know about the other teams.

I put a list up of the results of last year and provided them some general tippings on a thread a few weeks ago, not sure whether anyone is using it though.

I see I got a few right, but I got just as much points for not choosing the first week :/

Maybe I should peak in it too. Maybe I just should back Province so much. Heart over head..

You get a default that goes to home match wins if you forget to pick, but only a few games, there after you get nothing if you don't pick

Just watched the Griquas game. Missed the Lions last two tries though as I was cleaning up after my dogs. But the Griquas looked really good. Willie looked really good. He plays fullback for the Cheetahs in Superrugby and also looked at home at that level.