Romance or realism?

Legendary coaching guru Basil Bey tackles Springbok coach Peter de Villiers’s romantic notion of trying to play an expansive game at Test level. Can it be done?

The popular opinion is that you cannot play expansive rugby at Test level. Eddie Jones says that if the Springboks continue to play Peter de Villiers’s way, they will get worse.

He recently described De Villiers’s gameplan as nonsense. He says “… no one in world rugby is playing the way their coach (de Villiers) is talking about, not successfully anyway… everyone has discipline, policies and a procedure in their game….You can’t just play an expansive, wide game… “

I agree with his final statement: “… you can’t just play an expansive, wide game”.

If by “just” he means “only”, then he is talking sense – a good side can and does vary its game according to circumstances; it does not play only the wide or free-flowing game, nor does it limit itself only to the narrow, restricted game. Some balls should be run, others must be kept tight; if by “just” he means “it is not quite so easy”, then I heartily agree. You have to be bloody good to play the expansive game effectively.

I am not sure what Jones believes, but I do know he is a very good coach and am firmly convinced that had we not had his backline expertise available to us at the World Cup we would not have won the trophy. However, what most others suggest (and maybe even he) when they talk about the “expansive” game is that it is a loose, weak form of rugby football in which the ball is always passed wide, you run across the field (laterally, is the favourite word) from anywhere, passing the ball in all circumstances; the word “expansive” is used disparagingly.

De Villiers has stated that “… decision-making in split seconds is new to the guys (the Springboks) and it has been a bit worrying. The onus is now on the player; but they want to be in a confined group where they are comfortable.” De Villiers wants the players to be good enough to get out of their comfort zones; good enough to think for themselves, on their feet, as the cliché has it, to play as the circumstances suggest, practically, rather than basing their play solely on what has been drilled into players off the match field.

Is that really too much to ask of a professional rugby player? I have seen university students very successfully embracing de Villiers’s way. Perhaps they are brighter than the Boks!

The assumption seems to be that if you have decided, in general, to play wide in order, let’s say, to make the opponents run because you feel they are vulnerable out wide, that will of necessity mean your tight phases are weak: you do not set-up platforms, you cannot win tackled ball, you are not at breakdowns in numbers, you are weak in defence, you cannot set up a driving maul, play blindside, use your loose forwards from set-pieces, are susceptible to counter-attack from turnover ball – all because you run wide! Most coaches align their backs flat in attack nowadays, so it is difficult to get the ball wide and if you align deep, it is considered a tactical weakness because the tackle line will then be behind the advantage line for your outside players.

The trouble is that someone in the rugby world has done some clever thinking and now we all follow that thinking and play the same (restricted) way, believing it to be the only way.

The more expansive game, played well, creates more opportunities to score tries, to breach defences. Why, because you are moving the ball around, must your scrums be weak, your line-outs poor, your rucking soft, your defence weak, your ball-retention poor. Ideally, all coaches want to be strong in all these areas especially if they are going to “run the ball” rather than play from phase to phase of semi-set pieces – but if you play the disparaged expansive game you must be able to create space, to run angles; you must always have support either to pass to or to be there for the tackled ball.

The old tenets apply, generally speaking: it is a mistake to run across the field, not to draw (fix the Poms call it) your opponent before you pass, not to support the man you pass to. It is important to adjust your support angle in attack so that you can see the ball carrier’s number; you must run off the ball (the ball supporter is more important than the carrier). Pass before contact, even in contact or off the ground (pop pass off the ground, quickly); continuity is important but so is speed of recycling and continuity without speed of recycle is static and easier to defend against.

The great weakness of modern rugby is the slowness of the ball from ‘phase play’; the longer the ball takes to emerge the more time the opponents have to align their defences. The answer, keep the ball in hand and keep it moving, not necessarily always outside – vary it according to defence alignment. There are off-side lines nowadays from tackles, making quick ruck ball even more effective because off-side opponents, struggling to get back behind the last feet, cannot play the ball. Even simpler, don’t go to ground because that gives opponents opportunity to slow the ball down.

For me, the crux of the matter is the pace of the game; rugby has slowed down, thanks to ‘phase’ play, making defences more effective. If you speed the game up, in all aspects from line-outs to rucks, quick put-ins to throw-ins, rush defences to speed in attack, speed of hand and foot, you will create gaps – but it all needs speed in thinking, too. You cannot play slowly and by rote if you want to be effective. There is a greater need for discipline, structure and (even sometimes set) patterns in the wider game than there is the restricted game. Players all have work to do, places to be – because they are playing to the boundaries does not mean that they can run around the field purposelessly nor do they necessarily have to play off the cuff if everyone is where he should be (and if you like to drill your players, you can drill them into being in the right place to run dummies, support, contest, create, pass).

We are bringing everyone down to the same level, all playing the same game. EE Cummings, the poet, wrote: if you pay attention to the proper syntax of things, you will never wholly kiss.

Hans Joachim Marseille, a German fighter pilot in the Second World War, one of the ten most highly decorated German pilots, was a rebel; he broke all the rules of dog-fighting. He was a non-conformist. He was described as an “… unrivalled virtuoso among the fighter pilots of World War Two. His achievements were previously considered impossible.”

Is Frans Steyn not such a man? I can think of a couple of loose forwards from Natal who also fit into that category. I remember the Ella brothers, Cliff Morgan, Mannetjies Roux, Peter Whipp and Dougald Macdonald – all individuals, all with flair. These players danced to their own music – to no one elses’. This is the sort of player you need if you want to play the expansive game and break the dull pattern of mediocrity oppressing rugby at the moment.

My answer, then, is yes; the expansive game is practicable at Test level if it is played properly, holistically and, in my book, it is more effective than the apparently traditional “subdue and penetrate” of some of the previous Springbok teams. BUT it is also more difficult it to play well – you have to be good and so does the coach!

* Basil Bey is a legendary former schoolmaster and rugby coach, whilst he also spent a season as an assistant coach at the Griffons in 1999. The likes of Stuart Abbott (England, World Cup winner 2003) and Springbok scrumhalf Neil de Kock were amongst the players under his tutelage that season.

* Email us your views on this at rugby365@365digital.co.za!