Matt Williams lavishes rare praise on ‘sensational’ Springboks as Joe Schmidt ‘chained’ to under-par Wallabies generation
Matt Williams hails Springboks performance against Wallabies
Outspoken Australian pundit Matt Williams has heaped praise on the Springboks after their “sensational” showing against the Wallabies in Brisbane last weekend.
Williams, a former coach who has become a pundit and offers a forthright insight, has been critical of South Africa in the past, especially their Bomb Squad tactic.
The former Waratahs and Scotland head coach believes packing the bench with forwards is against the spirit of the game, with the Boks having gone 7-1 at times.
Sensational Springboks
However, he has waxed lyrical about their performance in week one of the Rugby Championship, writing in his column for The Irish Times that they created “magic”.
“Last weekend on the banks of the murky Brisbane River, known to all as the Brown Snake, astonishingly the Springboks ran the ball,” Williams said in his piece.
“For the rest of the rugby world this is a deeply ominous turn of events, because the South African attack was sensational in the Suncorp Stadium.”
The Australian also singled out former All Blacks fly-half Tony Brown for his immediate impact as the new coaching set-up looks to moving the Boks on as a team.
“The influence of Tony Brown, the newly-appointed Springboks attack coach, cannot be overstated. Last week’s dramatic change in their attacking play was not an evolution, but a revolution,” he continued.
“While the Boks still used their boring but effective cross-field kicking game, it was interspersed with wonderful passages of running rugby. Full of skilled passing and power running from Pieter-Steph du Toit, Siya Kolisi, Eben Etzebeth and Kwagga Smith.
“And their outhalf, Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu, had the commentators’ tongues and the Wallaby defenders similarly twisted as they struggled to cope with his command of the new Springbok attacking structure.
“Brown’s vision of how to play the game empowered the Springboks centres, Jesse Kriel and Damian de Allende to run the ball in a wonderful fashion new to the Boks. They displayed what destructive attacking weapons they are, proving that if the South Africans ran the ball they have such high-quality athletes that no team on the globe will be able to touch them.”
Williams added that he feels the Wallabies are hamstrung by their current generation being “not as skilled” as their rivals as he sympathised with boss Joe Schmidt.
“The match also highlighted a great coaching truth. When quality coaching is combined with excellent playing talent, magic can be created. Without the required playing talent, good coaching has a limited effect,” he explained.
“This current generation of Wallaby players are not as skilled as the other teams in the Rugby Championship, so the effect of a quality coach such as Joe Schmidt is limited.
“Australia conceded 13 first-half penalties. While the word discipline was constantly being used by the commentators, the truth was that the Wallabies skills buckled under the enormous pressure applied by the Boks. Especially at the breakdown. These penalties invited the Springboks into the Wallabies half again and again and again. This allowed Brown’s new attacking structure to strike from close range.”
He concluded: “Like Prometheus in ancient Greek mythology, who is chained to a rock for eternity and daily tormented by a ferocious eagle who feeds on his liver, Schmidt is chained to this generation of Australian players as the Springboks, Pumas and New Zealand feed on his Wallabies.”
READ MORE: Australia v South Africa: Springboks ‘B’ team still dominate our combined XV with the Wallabies
