Boks deserved to lose
by Courtney Jameson (@dummyswitchpod) · KickOffCourtney Jameson of @dummyswitchpod reflects on the Boks loss to the Wallabies in Perth.
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“The Whole Is Greater Than the Sum of Its Parts”
Philosopher Aristotle coined the phrase, and one could have thought he was talking about Bok rugby pre-game in the studio questioning whether the Boks could overcome 13 changes and still have enough synergy to defeat the Wallabies this past weekend. Broken down, the phrase means: when individual parts are connected together to form one entity, they are worth more than if the parts were individuals. This week was a test of the system, the current Bok entity.
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Did the Boks pass? Another question can be asked: is the point of testing a system to pass, or is the ultimate purpose to find out where it will fail and fix those parts? Undoubtedly, some of our parts are rusted and need some work. Others might be beyond repair and need replacing. A 42–38 result exposed weaknesses. What matters now is what you learn from them. Depth gives you options, but it doesn’t guarantee execution. On paper, the depth looks good, but when theory meets reality, life has a way of punching holes in it.
The Wallabies were the perfect opposition for the test
From a public standpoint, seventh versus first in World Rugby should be simple enough. But this was the Wallabies’ first team. Les Kiss is unbeaten as head coach of the Wallabies, and morale is high off the back of an away series win against Argentina. It was a shorter series, still draining, but where the two teams met in their respective arcs was interesting.
Paul de Villiers in action against the Wallabies. (Photo Gallo Images)
The Boks arrived with a sense of relief, perhaps somewhat coming down from the high of winning a series that was incredibly tense. The Wallabies camp seemed more buoyant after a shorter series and itching for one more. All this pretence, and an occasion of its own, a precursor to RWC 2027 and perhaps a simulation of tough times for the Boks. An opportunity to stress-test some worst-case scenarios.
You learn more from a loss
I didn’t even have to dig deep into my bag of proverbs, scriptures and teachings to hear Jasper Wiese flat-out come out and say post-match that they don’t like losing, but they’ll take more away from this going forward. It feeds into the question of just how far you can change things before it becomes too far. And once you find that point, what can you change so that next time you can push things further?
That was also before the newly introduced dark cloud of Andre Esterhuizen’s captaincy and the resurfacing of his ban for racial abuse of an opposition coach when he was 18 years old, which caused him to miss Craven Week.
The simulation became real
And the first system failure came from management being naive enough to firstly think Esterhuizen could be named captain without scrutiny, and secondly, the refusal to address or provide a platform for questions surrounding the incident.
Furthermore, at the press conference, there seemed to be an attempt to suggest that, 14 years later, he was innocent of what he had been found guilty of. First failure aside, this simulation never took into consideration the man in the middle, the loss of control and even the loss of signal from the referee. As for the decisions, maybe it’s unpatriotic of me as a South African, but like University of Miami coach Jimmy Johnson said: “I told you, if you go to Notre Dame, you CAN’T leave it in the official’s hands.” I feel like that everywhere we go, don’t leave it in doubt. At the same time, can you complain about four yellow cards being given? There could have been more, but can you really complain?
READ | 'We should never have been in that situation': Bok skipper reflects on Perth loss
Finally, after all of this, we can just about get to the game and the parts that need changing. On the field, Jantjies was okay, but the gulf between him and Morné van den Berg was noticeable. The less dominant front row, supposedly selected to add more around the pitch, only really did so for about 20 minutes. Paul de Villiers, for all his work on the ground, cannot replace Siya Kolisi. If the first Test of Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry wasn’t enough to show that, this was another reminder.
Handre Pollard played flat. He had a great pass to Canan Moodie in the build-up to Edwill van der Merwe’s try and then faded. Aphelele Fassi will take a lot of heat because his indiscretions are more obvious. A forward pass or dropped ball happens, the camera zooms in on you and everyone holds their head in disappointment. Conversely, there isn’t the same outcry over being in front of the kicker from a restart that ultimately results in a try for the Wallabies. Nor do we give the same treatment to Grobbies for missed lineouts or Lood de Jager for dropped lineout catches and fumbles.
No PSTD and no Wiese until the second half. Which loose forward generated metres? And as for versatility in the front row, does it really matter if you’re average at doing everything? Specialists like Boan Venter and Marnus van der Merwe might have something to say about that.
READ | 50th Test ends in defeat, but Jasper proud of Bok fightback
But the biggest part remains SA Rugby’s refusal to address the cloud over Esterhuizen’s captaincy. Don’t give me the stale “must everything be about race?” Yes, it’s South Africa. Everything is about race, and he was found guilty of using the k-word. Management failed. Execution failed. Individual parts failed and the Boks lost. They deserved to and if the point of a stress test is discovering where the system breaks, then pretending everything worked would defeat the purpose.
The whole is supposed to be greater than the sum of its parts. On Saturday, it wasn’t. What do we learn from it, and what do we change?
Courtney Jameson and Chris Nkomo run the @dummyswitchpod. and are part of KickOff's Bomb Squad and Tap 'n Go team. Be sure to follow them on X.