There is little doubt the Springboks have been left behind the All Blacks tactically, but too fundamental a shift from the usual template might prove as disastrous in the long run as a failure to react.
A lot of the finger pointing this past week has been directed at the player driven system at the Boks.
The All Blacks have stolen a march on the South Africans because their chief strategists were able to sit back and analyse developments during the Super 14, and then use what they found as the foundation of their plotting to beat the Boks.
But although Heyneke Meyer is apparently giving a lot of input - and what a pity his brain hasn't been utilised at Bok level - the Bulls also feed off a player-driven system, and they won the Super 14.
Captain Victor Matfield was an important part of the four-man player committee that devised most of the Bok strategy last year, but the absence of another influential Bulls Bok, Fourie du Preez, could be the key to why the Boks have fallen down where the Bulls Super 14 team didn't.
Du Preez is a rugby genius, and it was his excellent on-field decision-making that drove much of the Bulls' success not only in this year's Super 14, but last year as well.
Du Preez's absence might explain why kicking coach Percy Montgomery, who lends more than just kicking expertise to an inexperienced management, is so confounded at the Bok inability to execute the kick-and-chase game as well as they did last year.
His statement that the Boks were kicking too much was what made the headlines, but what he had to say appeared to be more directed towards poor decision making - in other words knowing when to kick and when not to - inaccuracy and shoddy execution than quantity.
Stats from the Super 14 show the team that kicked the most, the Bulls, won the competition. The team that kicked the third most, the Stormers, came second. In neither instance would you say that there was too much kicking, as both sides scored some great tries.
The problem facing the Boks is accentuated by Du Preez's absence and is encapsulated in one of the latest buzz phases of rugby, "finding the right balance".
The Bulls do still rely heavily on forward dominance and the distance their kickers can propel the ball on the Highveld, so it was really Allister Coetzee's Stormers team that best grew their game in the recent Super 14 season by getting that balance right.
There is a great deal that Coetzee and Rassie Erasmus could teach the Bok management from a tactical viewpoint, but top of the list would be the importance that selection can play in ensuring that the right balance is found.
It was why Dewald Duvenage was selected in the team ahead of Ricky Januarie.
Bok coach Peter de Villiers was right when he said Du Preez is impossible to replace. He was wrong in assuming though that he could get away with a completely different style of player and expect the Boks to seamlessly continue with their winning habit.
Ruan Pienaar's overdue selection should not be about snappiness of service, but about the additional prong he can bring to the Bok field kicking arsenal.
Januarie was in good form against Wales and France, but against Italy the Boks were sloppy and Januarie didn't fit.
While the Bok kicking game has failed abysmally over the past two matches and given rise to the belief they should completely overhaul their game strategy, Coetzee and his Province team have shown what can be if the strategy is properly implemented.
Given that WP started the new Currie Cup season with wholesale changes because of Springbok call-ups, they have done remarkably well to start off with an away victory against last year's beaten finalists, the Cheetahs, before whitewashing the Lions.
They might not always have played aesthetically pleasing rugby, but in neither game did they give the opposition so much as a sniff.
They were playing the same law interpretations that are being played in the Tri-Nations, and much of their success has revolved around the kicking of Willem de Waal, but also the tactical boots of Duvenage and Conrad Jantjes.
Lions coach John Mitchell admitted that it was when his team lost the territory battle that they lost the match.
The WP defensive game has been lauded, and at this time when the Boks are floundering, conceding four tries in each of their matches, perhaps the words of Coetzee are worth paying heed to.
"A lot of (the media) are writing about our defensive game, but what is being neglected is the role our kicking game is playing in setting up our good defensive record," said Coetzee. "What we have done in both these games is play the game in the right area of the field. Our kicking game has been spot on, and that has made it a lot easier for our defence. If you are down in the opposition 22 for much of the game it is hard for the opposing team to strike at you.
"It's not about kicking, it's about making the right decisions, knowing when to kick and when not to kick, that is what we got right for most of the Super 14."
The point is that while a shift of emphasis may be needed, a radical overhaul to the exclusion of kicking would fail to take into account the role the Bok inability to dominate the All Blacks physically played in negating their kicking game.
Domination at the contact points effectively means the All Blacks are able to get numbers back to field the Bok kicks, which has meant their fullback has never been isolated at the back and there has always been relative safety about their decision to run the ball back when they have opted to do that.
Of course, inability to make first time tackles also did not help...