On Saturday night Coetzee finished off the Boks’ year with a 27-13 defeat with a team that included several newcomers and which was selected with Lions players in key positions and which was geared towards following a template not dissimilar to the one that got the Lions to the Super Rugby final. In short, Coetzee made his selections with building towards the next World Cup in 2019 in mind, and after the game he made that point.
“If you compare the sides that played in this game you will note the vast difference in terms of experience between the Welsh team and the South African side, but I was pleased with the youngsters and pleased that we have now made a start towards a greater time,” said Coetzee.
However, it was a case of being way too late with the selection many had been crying out for back in June, with some players having gathered rust through inactivity and others just losing confidence after being asked to follow a game-plan that was alien to them in the early phases of the international season.
The Boks looked like a team low on confidence against Wales, and while the promised energy was injected in the early stages, the team looked like one made up of combinations that haven’t played together recently.
Coetzee admits now that in June he faced a difficult choice, and it could have gone either way, but that he wishes that in retrospect he’d gone for a more youthful line at the start of the year and started the build-up process to the next World Cup then. Had he done so, the team that played on Saturday would have played often enough together to grow confidence and could have picked up on some of the momentum created by the Lions in Super Rugby.
“I agree that I should probably have done it differently and gone for more young players and more Lions players, but I was worried that if I did do that, and back the youngsters, I might end up sitting in the same position that I am now and regret not opting for more experience,” said Coetzee.
“It was a difficult thing to decide on, but if I could rewind the clock, I’d now go the other way. I had a lot of Lions players in the team for Wales, and if I really wanted to back the Lions game back in June (when Jesse Kriel would also have been an option), I could have selected Lionel Mapoe at centre too. That would have given us an almost complete Lions backline. But it is easy to be wise with the benefit of hindsight.
“What was important for me was to get the Lions halfbacks to learn how important the kicking game was. I think that message was drummed home to them not just during the international season when they played for the Springboks but also in the Super Rugby final in Wellington.”
As it turned out, Jantjies and De Klerk weren’t good against Wales, and he was questioned afterwards on whether he had regretted bringing them back in place of Patrick Lambie and Rudy Paige.
“We weren’t good against Italy so there had to be change,” was how he explained the selection.
Given more of a backing earlier in the year, and more encouragement focus on the positives implicit in the no fear approach encouraged by Lions coach Johan Ackermann and which appeared to be belatedly backed by Coetzee in the week building up to the Cardiff test, when he said he didn't want the players to be afraid of making mistakes, the season may have turned out differently for Jantjies and De Klerk. It is going to be interested to see how they will be deployed going forward.
