Johann van Graan has experienced just one victory over the All Blacks while involved at the Springboks.
That glorious day was on October 4, 2014, when Patrick Lambie kicked a late long-range penalty to clinch a 27-25 win at Ellis Park.
Van Graan, a loyal soldier of Heyneke Meyer’s, was persuaded by SA Rugby to continue as a Bok assistant coach alongside Allister Coetzee, and he knows the drill in the build-up to an All Black Test in New Zealand – gush all day long about how wonderful the world champions are, and then hope to catch them off-guard at the weekend.
The ploy nearly worked in September 2014 in Wellington, when the Boks limped into the New Zealand capital on the back of a heartbreaking 24-23 loss to the Wallabies in Perth a week earlier.
Then-breakdown consultant Richie Gray said “South Africa and New Zealand is up there with the great sort of international derbies. Huge history, stories and folklore behind it. There’s a bit of a buzz”, while on Tuesday, Van Graan went even further in describing how great the all-conquering All Blacks are.
“They’re got a fantastic set-piece, very good scrum. Their lineout and lineout-contesting is definitely the best in the business. They’ve played so many Test matches together – their nine and ten are pretty special at this stage. I think Beauden (Barrett) is probably one of the two or three form players in world rugby at the moment,” he said during a press conference in Christchurch ahead of Saturday’s Rugby Championship clash at the AMI Stadium (9.35am SA time kickoff).
“The way that the centres came in for Nonu and Smith and Sonny Bill, their back-three are solid as always. A fantastic rugby team rightly the number-one side in the world, but we are looking forward to the Test match.”
Van Graan, who is responsible for all the Bok team’s attack and lineout play, will remember the 2014 game – the Boks’ most recent in New Zealand – fondly as the South Africans nearly pulled off the upset of the year at Westpac Stadium.
With a 20-year-old Handré Pollard producing a polished performance, the major difference in the Boks’ approach on the night was holding on to the ball instead of kicking it away, particularly in a rousing last quarter when they had the Kiwis on the ropes.
Cornal Hendricks scored a brilliant try that was created by Pollard’s flair and skill, but Meyer’s team couldn’t finish them off due to a number of handling errors inside the New Zealand half on attack, with Lood de Jager being tackled into touch in the closing stages.
But Van Graan should remind Bok coach Allister Coetzee that the All Blacks can be beaten with a ball-in-hand approach.
Coetzee said at the weekend that the Bok plan against the Wallabies was to counter-attack and play off their mistakes, but that won’t get them anywhere against Steve Hansen’s world champions on Saturday.
The only way the Boks will have any chance of victory in Christchurch is to take the game to the All Blacks, give flyhalf Elton Jantjies total freedom to play the way he does at the Lions on attack, unleash Lionel Mapoe as a strike-runner at outside centre, and bring wings Bryan Habana and Francois Hougaard into the game.
But the only way the backs can flourish is if the forwards catch a wake-up in the way the 2014 pack did, where the likes of Duane Vermeulen, Francois Louw, Marcel Coetzee and Victor Matfield were busy in the lineouts and the breakdowns. The Boks have to slow down the All Blacks’ ruck ball to allow their defence to get into position.
Pieter-Steph du Toit will definitely some much-needed punch to the forwards, but it remains to be seen whether Coetzee will make any other unforced changes, or whether the incumbents repay the faith shown in them by their coach.
Van Graan did veer off the party line a bit and gave the Boks some hope. “For the past five years, we came up short on a few occasions, losing the game in the last few minutes,” he said.
“We’ve got to focus on our game to make sure we limit our mistakes, and do what we do well and try to apply some pressure on them. It’s a difficult thing to do as they’re a very good rugby team at this stage.
“We believe that we have a few strengths that we want to force that on to them. I’d like to believe that every rugby game has its own character, so you’ve got to apply pressure, and this is Test-match rugby.”
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Independent Media