“80% or even 85% of our game is exactly the same.” Steven Kitshoff, on For The Love Of Rugby: South Africa.
Steven Kitshoff played 83 Tests at loosehead for the Springboks. He says most of the Springboks game plan does not change from one week to the next.
“…80% or even 85% of our game is exactly the same. We play the same kicking style every week. But the only thing that’s going to change might be the mindset of where we’re carrying from or where we start looking for opportunities.”
He said it before Rassie Erasmus named his team for Perth. Erasmus then made 13 changes to the side that won in Baltimore.
Kitshoff was agreeing with Ewen McKenzie, the former Wallabies coach, on Tuesday’s For The Love Of Rugby: South Africa. McKenzie had said 80% of the Springboks’ game is the same every week, and that the number of changes would give Australia hope.
Is a game that barely changes the Springboks’ greatest strength, or the thing Australia can finally read?
McKenzie said the changes would give Australia hope
McKenzie won 51 caps at tighthead for Australia and a World Cup in 1991. He came back to the number three more times in the hour.
“…80% of the game is the same every week. I’m not saying that as a criticism. That means that all the players that come in and he’s had… injuries on the day of the game and guys have come in and just slotted straight in. They knew the line[out] calls…”
Then he named the men who carry it: Malcolm Marx, Jasper Wiese, Damian Willemse, Jesse Kriel and Pieter-Steph du Toit. Take them out, he said, and it becomes a new combination.
“So I’m really interested to see the volume of changes because then the opportunity for Australia is that the Springboks will be a little bit rusty…”
None of those five starts in Perth on Sunday 27 September. Marx and Wiese are on the bench. Du Toit has gone home, and Kriel and Willemse are not in the 23.
The Springboks game plan: every player learns a role
Kitshoff’s answer explains why a new face can walk into that team. The job is fixed before the player arrives.
“So the hookers play a similar role. Each hooker that comes into the squad plays a similar role. The tight[head] job stays the same.”
Take the tighthead prop, the No 3. He lifts at the lineout and anchors the scrum. In defence he holds the third channel out from the ruck. Kitshoff’s point is that all of it stays the same whoever wears the shirt.
So a player back from a year out only has to relearn a role. That is how Johan Grobbelaar can start at hooker on Sunday with Marx behind him, the hooker question the site asked last week.
Daan Human keeps the scrum simple on purpose
Daan Human, the Springboks’ scrum coach, builds for the next man.
“He’s got a very, very simple system because he wants to make it as easy as possible for the following guy to take over from the [Frans Malherbes] or the [Ox Nchés].”
Malherbe is injured. McKenzie called him “always the number three” in Erasmus’s selections. On Sunday the starting front row is Jan-Hendrik Wessels, Grobbelaar and Zachary Porthen, with Nché and Wilco Louw on the bench.
Read also: Kieran Read’s case that Australia match up better than the All Blacks did, and why a physical stalemate suits them.
Steve Hansen calls it a deck of cards
Steve Hansen, the former All Blacks head coach, was on the same call. He described Erasmus’s selection as a deck of cards.
“…he’s got this deck of cards he plays where he’ll keep some of those core players [in] the 15 and the 23 and he’ll add [in] the new guys.”
Perth is that deck laid out. Only Eben Etzebeth and Ethan Hooker kept their starting places. The experience sits on the bench: Marx, Wiese, Morné van den Berg and Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu.
Hansen also had the best line about what the system asks of people. Du Toit is a flanker who can play lock.
“He doesn’t like it, you know, he just about cries when you make him go there, but he’ll do it for the [Boks].”
It works only if the bench finishes games, and a bench that has not always won the last quarter is the risk.
Where Australia get their 20%
McKenzie was specific about the gap: “little things [at] lineout”. Watch South Africa’s own lineout in the first 20 minutes. Grobbelaar is throwing to a lineout that has changed around him.
Then watch the kicks. Handré Pollard is back from the calf injury that kept him out of the whole series, with Herschel Jantjies inside him. If the kicking looks like Baltimore’s, Kitshoff’s 85% has held.
The system has been beaten before. At Ellis Park in August last year South Africa led Australia 22-0 and lost 38-22, a result that sits in the Springboks’ record since 2019.
Both men are right. Erasmus can change 13 players because of the 85%. Australia’s chance sits in the other 20%, and it will show at the lineout and in the kicking first.
Read next: Adam Ashley-Cooper went looking for a door in that system and found one.
Your turn: strength, or a tell?
Either a game that barely changes is why South Africa can pick 13 new starters and expect to win. Or it is the thing Australia can finally read on Sunday. Which is it? Settle it below.
Frequently asked
How many changes did the Springboks make for Perth?
Thirteen. Only Eben Etzebeth and Ethan Hooker kept their places from the 43-28 win in Baltimore. André Esterhuizen captains.
What did Steven Kitshoff say about the Springboks game plan?
On For The Love Of Rugby: South Africa, released on Tuesday 22 September, Kitshoff said “80% or even 85% of our game is exactly the same” and “we play the same kicking style every week”.
When do the Springboks play the Wallabies?
Sunday 27 September at Optus Stadium in Perth.
