Of all the coaches in the world, the last one any other coach would swap places with this week – or possibly any other week, come to think of it – is Heyneke Meyer. The embattled Springboks’ coach gave his first press conference since his apology to his nation following their defeat to Japan on Saturday, and looked like what he is, a man under pressure that must be bordering on intolerable.
During the course of a 35-minute press conference alongside his hooker Adriaan Strauss, every question bar two were directed at the Springboks’ coach. About the only thing going for Meyer is that the Springboks are not in London or Cardiff this week, but instead have retreated to their Birmingham bunker in advance of Saturday’s must-win meeting with Samoa, and so held their press day in the Birmingham Conference Centre across the road from their hotel. This meant there were scarcely 15 or so journalists in attendance, nearly all of whom were familiar to Meyer as part of the travelling South African press corps.
The Springboks have traditionally harnessed an us-against-the-world mentality at the best of times, and in this worst of times have evidently dipped into that well even more. Meyer’s answers were long and repetitive, with one message coming through loud and clear firstly in English and then, apparently, even more so in Afrikaans. They intend to revert to Springbok type.
Meyer reckons the Boks have been playing too much rugby and then tiring in the last 10 or 20, so they intend bludgeoning Samoa for the first 20 or 30 minutes, and make sure they win it in the last 10 minutes.
Unprecedented
“If you play Japanese rugby against Japan, you’re not going to win,” said Meyer.
The ball was in play for 45 minutes and the Boks made 451 metres. There’ll be no more of that.
“It will be brutally physical,” warned Meyer.
The criticism has been unprecedented, so much so that News24 have removed comments from the public altogether, and most of the personal stuff has been aimed at Meyer and captain Jean de Villiers. Despite making eight changes, cutting straight to the chase Meyer was first asked why he had retained the one-time Munster centre.
“First of all, I just want to say that we deserve all the criticism, it was unacceptable for the Springboks. We’re a proud nation and a proud team, and it’s just unacceptable,” began Meyer, who then thanked those who supporters who had stuck with them,
“Great question and a good question,” added Meyer, at the start of an answer that lasted two minutes and 43 seconds.
“I had a long and hard chat with him and I just decided as a coach that if you go into a fight that you have to win, that your whole career and the whole country depends on, if I go into that fight I really want to take a guy that has had six knee operations and got injured in his first game for South Africa. People said he would never play again but he came back and played 100 games, got injured again just before the World Cup, we have an 80 per cent winning record with him at captain,” said Meyer, a statistic he would refer to regularly.
“It was one of the most difficult decisions in my life to make, you are almost in a lose-lose situation because if you don’t pick your captain and you lose they will say you should have picked him,” said Meyer.
“It was a tough choice but I know it is the right choice and I back him. I think if we maybe back each other more, South Africa would be a much better place with maybe less hate, less violence and more love. I am going to go with my captain, I have got total confidence in him and I know it is the right decision for the team.”
Last-chance saloon
De Villiers is clearly drinking at the last-chance saloon, but there was no reprieve for Bismarck du Plessis, who along with being the most influential in making de Villiers opt for penalties to the corner than the posts, was reckoned to have conceded 20 points in harness with sub prop Coenie Oosthuizen, who came on for 10 minutes and incurred a yellow card. The need to “remain humble” was another recurring theme.
The sports minister has become involved again, and Jake White said that “the Springboks had lost their identity” and that “no one is frightened of them any more”.
“I know if we play South African rugby, we can beat anyone,” said Meyer, who could afford one moment of ironic humour when adding: “It’s said you have to win seven matches to win the World Cup. Now we only need to win six games. We’re still in there. If we win six games, there’s a good chance we’ll win the World Cup!”
Despite the need to keep it tight, kick to the air and for territory, amongst the eight changes is the return of Handrè Pollard, the attacking 21-year-old outhalf with just 15 caps, outside of Fourie du Preez, who is promoted ahead of Ruan Pienaar.
Strauss replaces du Plessis, while Eben Etzebeth has recovered from a calf strain and Duane Vermeulen will make his first Test appearance of the year at number eight. Willie le Roux, JP Pietersen and Damian De Allende return in the backline, with de Villiers shifting to outside centre.
“We’ve got to wrap it up there, we could go on forever,” said the press officer. On leaving the room, Meyer shook hands with one recent arrival from the South African media, and regretted they had to meet in such circumstances.
Nobody died, but it sure as hell felt like someone did.
