There has, predictably, been a lot of wailing and gnashing
of teeth following the exit of yet another supremely talented SA under-20 team
from the World Rugby under-20 championships this week.
The keyboard cowboys have been all over the social media, looking for someone to blame. The consensus seems to be that the team was poorly coached although a good number blamed transformation and the quota system, of course.
Now, I’ve been known to whinge with the best of them and my complaints have nothing to do with transformation. I’m just dismayed at how we have allowed our greatest advantage – our school rugby set up – become our greatest weakness while all the while the so-called boffins praise the professionalisation of rugby at school level and wax lyrical about the top 10 rated schools in the land.
There was an eloquent description of what’s going on in
schools rugby on the Daily Maverick site by Zac Elkin this week.
He says what many of us have been saying for the past two or
three years, but it’s a timely reminder, as the Junior Boks bomb out again,
that school rugby is not as healthy as we all think it is. He makes the point
that the emergence of a limited number super schools is killing the game
because their historical rivals are disappearing.
Elite sport is about exceptional individuals, we all know
that. But it’s also a numbers game. The broader the base of the pyramid the higher
the apex will be. That’s why Georgia, who have some impressive rugby specimens
in their under-20 team, will never threaten New Zealand or England at senior
levels. They simply don’t have enough players to be good across the board.
We used to have that in our schools rugby. We have some great
athletes, great coaches and teams that play great rugby, but there are way fewer
schools and players in total. There’s an explanation for the failure of our age
group teams – remember that the under-18s were whitewashed in a series involving
England France and Wales last year as well.
And you really do have to look at coaching. Last year former
Springbok captain André Vos, tweeting after the Springboks were thrashed by New
Zealand, wrote that the problem with SA rugby begins at school level.
“Crash-ball, pod rugby
taught at schools is destroying the game in SA. They don't get taught spacial (sic)
awareness and decision making skills,” he said.
He is exactly right, and many of us have been saying it for
a while now. The best coaches in the land are at the schools, no question about
that, and they are coaching with a professional attitude. Winning is the only
thing that matters, so they are under pressure to produce teams that win and
climb up the rankings. They don’t see it as their responsibility to develop a
large base of players who have mastered the basic skills of the game, and who
are at the appropriate level of skill and physiological development for their
ages.
The top coaches are accumulators of talent, they don’t develop
it. The best available talent is concentrated in those few “super schools” and
the teams are coached, very effectively, to win games. That means perfecting
the style of play that Vos describes: crash-ball, pod rugby. Why change a
winning formula? The coach creates a team that wins and he sticks to a rigid
game plan that guarantees success.
The performance of our national teams have shown that
there’s more to it than that. Some called André Vos daft, but he is right. Spatial
awareness and decision-making is lacking in many of our top players. If players
are taught to set pods, and to create targets for forwards to drive into, then
they are taught to focus on the 10 metres directly in front of them, and they
aren’t aware of space.
And if the coach demands that they stick to the game plan because that’s what brings success, then they never learn to decide for themselves. That’s why the under-20s found themselves 20 points down in a wink of an eye against France, and England.
Is it why the Springboks were in a similar predicament last
weekend? You decide for yourself.
Problems begin waaaay down at Bulletjie rugby. (the tuck and bash) instead of ball in two hands, running straight, evade.....THE BASICS. Bulletjie rugby is a process of elimination. 75 takers in grade 1 - 45 in grd 2 - 35 in grd 3 (a school in Despatch). Where other countries are aware of maturing children we adults are creating an environment (through the structures WE put into place) of offering the game to the early maturing little Tigers. A process of elimination - only the strongest survive (for now). After u13 or u16, where are these players. They've had all the best coaching (since they were all A team players), but now they don't feature. The late developers? You mention great coaching in Safrica. Well? The support we as coaches of Prim Sch children is NIL! u9's playing 15's in the Eastern Cape (only in South Africa). Compare what other countries are offering their children, we are light years behind. (Canada, USA, Hong Kong, UK, Aus, NZ - they all have a clear idea of what children should be doing at what stage of their development. Focus MUST be from the bottom up - ONLY THEN WILL I BE HAPPY :-) - signed, highly frustrated #kidsfirstrugby #agegraderugby teacher from the PE area ;-)
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