The Fullback is Back!

The rugby year of 2009 will be remembered for many things amongst them the failed Lions tour, the quite disgraceful Bloodgate Scandal and the even headier shame of Renault/Briatori and it's premeditated crash in formula 1, lets not forget The Springboks powerful and relentless Tri-Nations campaign not disimiliar to the act of laying tarmac a process that is both inevitable and all encompassing.

My interest mainly lays at the doorstep of the return of the Fullback.

I remember in the not too distant past the scything runs of Andre Joubert, the eel like movements of Christen Cullen, the sure boot and surer defence of Matt Burke, all legends in their own right were capable of turning a match on it's head and did so week in and week out.

What happened? following a set of rule changes and the arrival of rugby league like defences, it has since stunted the fleet of foot and monster boots of the men with 15 on their backs.

The full back became obsolete as we knew it, teams opted for a third winger or even a third centre and they just became another body on the line.

This year, I have seen a revival, first Ireland's Rob Kearney made his appearance in the Lions tour coming in for an injured Lee Burne who himself is a very dangerous full back.

I firmly believe that were Kearney not at 15 then the British & Irish Lions would not have come off half as well as they did.

His sure claiming of up and unders and blistering runs ensured that the Lions were on the front foot and set up the moves that created those all too frequent midfield breaks.

Kearney even scored a try by joining the line, and this announced the arrival of the full back with a great big bang.

This revival threatened to become a revolution when Frans Steyn came on the scene during the Tri-Nations and literally kicked the Springbok's rivals into the stone age.

Everytime the All Blacks and the Wallabies received the ball they treated it like the neandethal man's first encounter with a hot coal, with great difficulty.

Steyn's presence was sorely missed in Brisbane and on his return in Wellington his incredibly influencial penalty kicks over 50 metres will not be soon forgotten and in particular, old Henry will have many a sleepless night for years to come.

After the first penalty kick Richie McCaw famously said to his bewildered team mates "right, no mistakes within 60 metres!" which does show if anything that the All Black captain has a wry sense of humour.

Steyn followed up his kicking brilliance with some trojan defence and some incisive runs, but not nearly enough as the Bok's gameplan did not allow for it.

Since Mills Muliaina is no slouch either, come the November internationals I suspect we will be in store for some strategically brilliant full back play that might just set the game alight and hopefully, it will never be put it out again.

A Cullen My kingdom for a Cullen

Christen Cullen, that great All Black fullback, who ran the ball from everywhere, it wasn't so much that he couldn't kick it was just that he didn't have to.

Any player that would be graced with his sidewinder style of running coupled with shrugging off tackles like a slippery eel would run it at every opportunity and might not even stop at the end of the field, but would keep on running like something out of Forrest Gump.

The experts would always talk of his low centre of gravity, that he could bench press more than anybody on his team and that he could probably run the 100m in ten flat, however it was something else that made him such a rugby great and that being his vision for the game and the ability to make that vision a reality.

Sadly his illustrious career hit a speed bump during that very dark patch in All black history, the year of 1998 wherein a fair amount of legendary All Blacks were sent out to pasture after losing all their tri-nations matches.

There were very many things not quite right in the All Black camp and the fact that the Springboks were finding their feet for the first time in the professional era did not help.

Cullen was adversely affected by being played out of position amongst other things during their unsuccessful world cup campaign in 1999 and was being taken for granted by John Hart, also being spoilt for choice with Tana Umaga and Jeff Wilson on the wings put additional pressure on Cullen which eventually resulted in him being moved to centre.

This would have amounted to career suicide for any mere mortal but for the Hermesian fullback.

It didn't bother him and he bounced back in 2000 silencing his critics with 10 tries from 11 games for the Hurricanes and a record 7 tries in 4 tri-nations games.

Following a severe knee injury in 2001, Cullen never regained a permanent position in the All Black squad, this can be strongly attributed to disagreements with the coach John Hart and his replacement John Mitchell.

Cullen's omission from the 2003 world cup squad was an insult and a travesty to New Zealanders and world rugby fans alike but none more so than to the man himself.

In the Cullen era, opposition teams were very wary in their kick and chase game plans, as should their kick not be accurate enough, then they would most certainly be severly punished for it.

This was to happen time and time again, resulting in teams either overcooking their kicks out on the full or trying to run the ball from precarious positions while passing it along like a hot potato.

Since the Cullen's days I have not seen that sense of panic in a team facing the All Blacks.

It is now recognised among the experts that Cullen didn't nearly get enough credit for the good fortunes of the All Blacks as he was so unassuming while the team was so heavily loaded with other, more visually explosive players

Today, the All Blacks find themselves in a serious predicament, they have played their traditional blend of hard forward play with smooth backline play that is not unlike flowing water and have run dry, not once but 4 times this year, the Boks and the French have been able to disturb their gameplan in a horrid fashion.

The players seem to be looking to the sky for answers after every demoralising loss and the New Zealand faithful have thought it has fallen on their heads.

The scoreboards have indicated that the games have been close however this is not a true reflection of the game for various reasons, i.e. the weak Springbok bench and their very harsh tour schedule this year made it a certainty for the Boks to fade in the last 30 of every match. It is no surprise that the South African are the first team to win 3 games on the trot in the Tri-nations. All these factors contributed to a scoreboard that was as close as it was after 80 minutes.

The Springboks have a side full of established stars and upcoming ones, the media punits openly claim that they would fill an international fifteen with Springboks and not the once Mighty All Blacks and that, is exactly my point.

Look at young Franscois Steyn this lad has everybody talking.

He has found a way to win a game in a way that no one else is capable of, basically kicking drop goals and penalties from anywhere.

Pierre Spies, is a giant number 8 that has the running power and acceleration of a super wing let alone a normal one. It is no wonder So'oialo describes him as " built like a madman"

The list goes on and on.

Yes, the Blacks have Dan Carter and Ricci McCaw but where are the fleetfooted players that can make something from nothing, the "magic" as I call it. Don't get me wrong Sitivini Sivivatu and Mils Muliaina are brilliant athletes but at this level I have not seen them tear the world apart at a whim.

I mean someone that can perform miracles that should be beyond their physical and mental ability.

Who was capable of such feats you ask?

You guessed it

Cullen!

The Boks will need tries, tries, tries

Someone once told me that "all is not as it seems" and I can be sure he was not the first person to use that phrase and nor will he be the last.



The very conservative style of play the Springboks are employing is awash in the rugby fraternity that is the media, it has spilt over into the living room and now everyone is debating it, did the Boks not play like this throughout the previous century, didn't this style of play gain England its first world cup trophy, didn't the Mighty All Blacks attempt the same strategy with lesser success against Australia in Sydney on August 2009 and win. Some experts say it is not the true form of the game, that it is stifling creativity and alienating rugby fans.


Lets not forget the outpouring of anger from Australia and New Zealand over the style of play or the lack of it from their teams following the respective maulings they have received from the South Africans.
"Suicidal" I think was the most frequently used word by the New Zealand and Australian media to describe their approach.



Everyone has an opinion and loyal fans are ever divided.



There is one point of interest though, The Boks are a very formidable unit, strong defensively and incredibly skilful in the forwards and the backs, not to mention very pacy from the lock forwards to the props these guys can run the ball from anywhere, they did it last year against Australia at Ellis (Coca-Cola) Park with a 53-8 drubbing and then thrashed England at Twickenham soon after. The question is this, so why don't they do it now?



My analysis points in this direction, the Boks Tri-nations opponents recognise the very present danger the Boks now pose and have come up with a frenetic and and berserker style gameplan to combat them, namely, "kill the ball"



In all three tests played against the South Africans thus far much has been made of the very suicidal nature of the All Black and Wallaby gameplan, which is to run the ball from everywhere, and when the Boks have possession, to kill it on the ground, slow down ball recycling and the inevitable going offside to stem the flow of the attack, hence the outpouring of penalties.



Once the All Blacks And the Wallabies have possession they are then hellbent on claiming 7 points at all costs and at times have been very successful.



That shows me that they are attempting to win on a 7-3 points trade, i.e. they stunt a Bok try scoring opportunity at all costs which normally translates into 3 points and they then respond with a 7 pointer that keeps them in the lead.



This smells of desperation as it was quite clear that at times during the South African tests the tourists could not live with the "Green Meanies" on the pitch.



The result?



Well, the Boks take the three points on offer and why wouldn't they and they win the test match by a much closer points margin than the game on the field would suggest.

The referrees were also quick to pounce on any cynical play and quite rightly went to their pockets to hand out some well deserved yellow cards like candy.

Something that is very clear is once the All Blacks and the Wallabies faced each other, they reverted back to their typical styles of play with no sign of these crazed tactics, which they seem to reserve only for the Boks.

It is quite apparent that the All Blacks and the Wallabies are playing a game of damage limitation and in this regard it has worked, were they not so comprehensively outplayed in every facet of the game and so severly starved of possession I could quite easily see the tests being much closer.

Targeting The Playmaker, a sign of the times?

Do you remember back in 2002 when the Springboks faced England at Twickenham and the game was heavily overshadowed by the reckless and sometimes dirty play of the South African players none more so than the late shoulder charge on Jonny Wilkinson by the South African lock, Jannes Labuchagne. The English brainstrust actually still refer to the then South African captains berserker behaviour as Corne Krige's "five minutes of madness".

The lock was duelly dispatched off the field with a red card in the 15th minute by referee Paddy O'Brien and the rest as they say is history.

The Springboks lost by a record margin and Jonny ended up with a serious shoulder injury that might be linked to this incident.

If we look further back into the situation surrounding the teams, one must remember that the English were very formidable at that stage and were making the southern hemisphere sides look quite ordinary.

The Springboks and their couch were under considerable pressure as they had had a terrible Tri-Nations campaign and the pressure was definitely on, especially on the old school coach that was Rudolf Straeli.

Englands playmaker and points scoring machine that was Jonny Wilkinson was their M.V.P. by a long shot without him they were quite toothless, Woodwards entire gameplan was built around Wilkinson, one can assume that all opposition teams were hoping Jonny would take a long vacation.

Now, it is risky to suggest that in a Springbok team talk prior to the Twickenham test, it might have been suggested that Wilkinson be taken out, it might even have occured in a way similiar to that movie with Jack Nickolson and Tom Cruise, a Few Good Men where it is alledged that a physically inept Marine that is dragging the platoon down results in the squad leader singling him out for some team bullying that is against regulations, but is able to get around it by informing the platoon that this marine in question must not be singled out for any punishment, which then does result in the marine being punished by the squad. This squad treatment was known as a "Code Red".

Considering the whole "kamp staaldraat" saga that even had coverage in Germany a country not exactly teeming with rugby fans, that debacle was orchestrated by Straeli and it would seem that this might not have been beyond him either.

In years to follow, this kind of singling out of star players by opposition teams seemed to have dwindled away as it is definitely not worth losing a player for by receiving a red card in return.

Unfortunatley, this ugly beast might be making a very strong return.

During the British & Irish Lions tour it came to my attention that in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd tests, the Springbok scrumhalf, Fourie Du Preez, many refer to as the best scrumhalf in the world came in for some undue attention.

In the first test Fourie Du Preez was shoulder charged late by Tom Croft from the side after Du Preez had launched another offensive kick. Tom Croft was penalised for this infringement, however no yellow card.

In the second test as to many South Africans delight and corresponding horror to all U.K. fans Ronan O'Gara had his own moment of madness by launching himself at Du Preez who was attempting to collect an up and under in the Lions half of the field. O'Gara made no attempt to claim the ball instead it was a blatant attack on Du Preez, this resulted in a penalty that won the Boks the series in the final minute.

Interestingly enough this was to be repeated in the third test by Simon Shaw stabbing his knees into the back of Du Preez as he was lying in a prone body position on a loose ball. This did result in a yellow card and a ban for Simon Shaw of three weeks.

Three test matches later The Boks faced the Wallabies in Newlands Cape Town and Du Preez was once again singled out for special attention uncharacteristically by Matt Giteau.

Du Preez was once again attempting to claim an up and under and was struck in the face by an airborne Giteau's elbow and following body weight to boot. The ball was not even near Du Preez at the time. This did result in a yellow card however no citing again.

It appears as if the late tackle and the forearm aerial attack seem to be the weapon of choice as it is the most likely way for the aggressor to escape any serious repercussions as I have proved in the results of citations in the tests above.

I am finding this quite astonishing that this pattern of play is not being voiced by the sports media and that the referee's are not putting a stop to this potentionally premeditated "Code Red" behaviour. Who will be the next target, Morne steyn or maybe even Dan Carter.

Should the referee's fail to be brave in the face of this sinister gameplan, in time Rugby could end up being played within an encircled cage whereby all the players needed to do was to knock the living daylights out of each other, while the barbaric crowds bay for blood.

Neil Fleming

Matt Giteau copyright Reuters Images

John Smits Jolly Green Giants like English Roses

Much has been made of the imposing Green Hulk which are the current crop of Springboks that is all the news these days. They have an arms length of accolades to rival something out of Greek mythology. The world cup, a Lions tour, a Super 14 title and what is starting to look like, dare I say it a Tri-Nations title

Yet, I can't shake this feeling that I have seen it all before.

A "Beastly" front row that can and will squeeze all and sundry like an olive in a Sardinian press, a physical and speedy backline comprised of what looks like a line of open side flankers, all balanced around a number ten with a metronomic boot that doesn't know the meaning of the word fail.

It reminds me far too much of the Woodward or should I say Wilko era, whereby forward dominance, a solid backline defence and a scary ability to receive penalties and punish oppositions with it were the order of the day.

This worked splendidly against southern hemisphere teams with better attacking line-ups (Yes this is true), however when the Brits needed to score tries they did this too, in any case this was not often required. Interestingly enough the winning class of 2003 never really could convincingly beat inferior sides as their gameplan never aloud for it, what it did allow for was winning with a capital W. The game of suffocation does not allow for many attacking opportunities which the Springboks can attest to.

Retrospectively, the boredom that was English rugby of that era has bloomed into the now recognised genius of the South African winning formula. All who deny it, do so at your own peril.

Alas as history has shown once Wilkinson was felled by injury and the larger backline players like the Greenwoods and Coens retired this style of play for England was no more and have since been relegated to an almost embarrasing identity between world cups.

Should the Boks incure similiar losses, for instance an injury to Morne Steyn they would have to adapt as you see, it is quite like our solar system it does not work without the sun.

c Reuters Images