Loose Pass: Siya Kolisi criticism harsh but fair and what the Premiership could learn from France

This week we will mostly be concerning ourselves with team/player matching, fun in France and, in the future, in England too…

Ill-chosen words?

“He gained weight, lost shape and yesterday he was transparent,” was Jacky Lorenzetti’s damning verdict on Siya Kolisi‘s season after Racing 92 fell to Bordeaux-Begles in the Top 14 on Sunday. Harsh, but fair; Kolisi’s injury-disrupted season has left a bit to be desired in the French capital. He was far from his Springbok-leading self and has rarely been his Springbok self since last November.

But yet also, he would not be the first player to have a stellar international career with an influential club career behind him and simply not quite make it, or fit in properly, or acclimatise, or whatever to the new surroundings far from home. Nor would he be the first to fall foul of the burden of over-expectation.

There is a myriad of possible reasons for a signing not to work out, few of them anything to do with Kolisi’s – or whoever it is’ – character or talents. Stephen Donald joined Bath after winning the World Cup with New Zealand but freely admits that he just couldn’t make the mental transition to playing ordinary club rugby again. “Suddenly it’s a Friday night at Worcester, I can’t feel my toes. You begin to question what you are doing there and then the rot sets in… suddenly I am taking short cuts at training, your discipline goes… In the end they thought they were getting this player, but they didn’t get the best of me and I’ve been told they didn’t give the best of themselves to me. It was a funny environment to walk into,” he said.

One of Kolisi’s predecessors as Springbok captain, John Smit, famously sank virtually without trace at Clermont. Vying for the hooker jersey with the bilingual and passionate Mario Ledesma, Smit’s inability/refusal to settle into the French lifestyle or learn the language saw him quickly relegated to the periphery and used as a prop instead of hooker. He lasted only a season having initially signed for two.

‘Siya Kolisi gained weight, lost shape and was transparent’ – Racing 92 president

Sometimes expectations are simply too high too: remember the bizarre story of Julian Savea at Toulon, of whom the Toulon president said that “I’m going to ask for a DNA test. They must have swapped (Savea) on the plane. If I were him I would apologise and go back to my home country.” Savea hardly set the world on fire at Toulon, but then he was hardly being given incendiary service at the time.

On the other hand, it’s worked out for Jamison Gibson-Park far, far better in Ireland than it did in New Zealand. The same applies to Zach Mercer in Montpellier. Talent is important, but so is fit and motivation.

You do wonder sometimes if expectations are realistic. It is certainly realistic to imagine, for example, that Kolisi, having been propelled throughout his career by his desire not only to play but to also serve as an exemplary unifying force in the unique environment that is South Africa, is also finding it impossible to reach the same levels of motivation and performance in the mildly faceless Galactico set-up at La Defense Arena where he is only an important player, rather than the figurehead for an entire cause.

Kolisi may quite possibly return from a proper summer break – his first proper break for over a year – refreshed and rumbling as we know him. Lorenzetti may well eat his words. We’d hope so. Those words smacked of somebody who only saw a player as a robotic asset, rather than someone who really understood the complex aspects of recruitment and management.

Access granted

Loose Pass’ favourite match of the year, the Top 14 Access Match between the Pro D2 runner-up and the next-to-bottom finisher in the Top 14, did not disappoint this year. Montpellier rode their luck to win 20-18 in Grenoble to leave the locals disconsolate after delivering a bang average performance. But Grenoble just didn’t have the killer edge required – the second year in a row they’ve come up short.

It’s now been three years since the challenger won – four if you discount the penalty shootout that saw Biarritz down Bayonne in 2021 – which hints at a growing gap between the haves and have-nots.

But the occasion as a spectacle delivered in spades once again: a raucous home crowd in a packed stadium ensuring the have-nots, who had earned their shot at glory through the season, appeared to get a lot of the marginal calls, also ensuring that the haves were given a mental test appropriate to their task: surviving the challenge that the poor performance throughout the season had left them facing.

One game, one chance. It felt particularly pertinent, however, that this should be such a fun spectacle in the week that the Premiership declared its basement door open, but only by dint of victory in a two-legged play-off.

Make no mistake, it’s fabulous that we have a shot at promotion and relegation once again. The step taken is to be loudly applauded. Making it two-legged less so.

The gap between the Championship and the Premiership is generally so large that for a team from the former to win a game against a team from the latter would be the sort of shock, and require the sort of emotion – and energy-wringing effort seen in, for example, France’s World Cup win against New Zealand in 1999 or Japan’s win against South Africa in 2015: both teams delivering magnificent performances and looking thoroughly spent a week later.

You could imagine Ealing Trailfinders managing to upset Newcastle one time this season for sure, especially in London. But once in London and then backing it up? Once again, it would do the Premiership good to look to France for a better way to do it.

READ MORE: ‘Mission fulfilled’ – French giants sack SECOND coach this season after dire Top 14 run