Ten things the coaching staff will have learned on this tour

The bok tour has ended and a big thank you to one of my great friends senior rugby writer Mike Greenaway for always sending me the news
He writes very very well and not afraid to say something .To all my mates who read his writings bye bye 2010 and roll on 2011 . thanks once again for reading

Ten things the coaching staff will have learned on this tour

*** Carefully reading labels on medicine and supplements bottles is rather important! Mind you, do they need supplements at all? They stopped taking them on the Tuesday after the Ireland Test and 19 days later, completely supplement-free, they produced by far their best performance of the tour. Are nutritional supplements all in the mind?

*** Underestimate nobody. By their own admission the Springboks did not “pitch up” mentally for the Scotland match – and paid the price of a Grand Slam. A correctly focused Springbok team should NEVER lose to Scotland., and when the team got their heads right, they blew away England, the toughest team on the schedule.

*** If Peter de Villiers pulls his head in, as they say in Australia, and does not turn press conferences into stand-up comedy, he is taken more seriously and avoids creating fires for the SARU backroom staff to put it out.

*** The Boks will know that their biggest threats at the World Cup next year will not come from the Northern Hemisphere. Besides the Boks’ blip in Edinburgh and the Wallabies’ surprise loss to England, the Tri-Nations teams went through Europe unchallenged, with all three ending with emphatic wins this weekend.

*** While the Springbok forwards remain world leaders, the same can hardly be said for the backline. Surely the coaches realise this is an area sorely in need of attention? The backs almost never threatened the opposition and total clean line breaks for the tour can be counted on one finger, never mind one hand.

*** They will have learned that Frans Steyn, if he is to be picked, should be at fullback, not centre, and to that end they will welcome Jaque Fourie back from injury. He was sorely missed.

*** The front row depth in this country is unrivalled. The Sharks front row of the Du Plessis brothers plus The Beast continued their good work of the Currie Cup on to the international stage and now comes the challenge of how and where to introduce John Smit and Gurthro Steenkamp.

*** A place has to be found for blockbusting loose forward Willem Alberts. He is one seriously strong unit and in doing the job of injured Danie Rossouw, he scored a try in each of his three cameos off the bench (he was not available for the first tour match).

*** Not all Irish referees are one-eyed sour-pusses as the Boks thought them to be. They spent the Tri-Nations complaining that Allain Rolland, Alan Lewis and George Clancy shafted them but against England, Clancy certainly seemed to be favouring the Boks. Maybe the lesson is that referees tend to favour the attacking sides.

*** The Boks learned a big lesson in how to play in the wet. If they get a rainy game at the World Cup, they will recall how brilliantly Scotland played the conditions.
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