Ex-All Black: Springboks' 'prepared to lose' mindset breeds winners

Former Blues captain and two-Test All Black James Parsons has commended the Springboks’ commitment to playing innovative rugby, after recognising a curious compromise in the team’s game plan that downed the All Blacks in Wellington.

The hooker turned Sky Sports analyst maintained several key talking points made in the wake of the Eden Park Test in the latest episode of the Aotearoa Rugby Pod. Those points included concerns over the territory game and defensive efficiency against an energised Springboks team.

But he also came out with a hot take that South Africa were “prepared to lose”, and were rewarded for that attitude at Sky Stadium, formerly known as the ‘Cake Tin’.

“What I will say about the Springboks is they have massive courage, and they’re prepared to lose,” Parsons said on the Aotearoa Rugby Pod.

“That’s a big difference, mindset-wise. They are prepared to lose. They don’t like it, their people don’t like it, but they are prepared to go all in. Once they’ve done their prep, they go all in, and they stick with it. That’s not as easy as they make it look.

“And I think the difference in mindset, here in New Zealand, is we can’t afford to lose. And that’s a different mindset in itself, and that pressure and being able to deal with that. I’m not saying that should change, absolutely not, but they are prepared to lose and are probably a little bit more accepting of it.”

“Our fans will have a go at the team, because they were in control of it. Whereas a lot of the Springboks fans will look for reasons like the ref and things that were missed on the field. They have their players’ backs. When they lose, it’s quite a different pressure.

“They expect them to win, but they go, Why didn’t we win – because we are the best? and they’ll find (reasons), whereas we sort of pile into the team, which I get because they’re in control. They’re the only ones that can go out on that field.

“I’m just trying to show you that it does change the ability to go, well, we just didn’t get it right.”

Parsons had begun the episode by delivering his key analysis of the Boks’ game plan, and didn’t reserve his criticisms of the All Blacks for just the latter stages of the game when they were blown out on the scoreboard.

“You can isolate the second half, but it wasn’t going all our way (in the first),” he said. “And I think also, looking back to Eden Park, we said it last week, if we allow South Africa to have that many opportunities again, and we knew Wellington was going to be dry conditions, it was too much ball, too much territory to be able to withstand it. Any defence would crumble.

“South Africa still had 21 turnovers, but there’s some key stats for me that just show why they were able to find the space on the outside. We’ll deal with the set piece on a separate example, but I think the breakdown’s really critical.

“We say rugby’s simple, and I’ve said it the last few weeks; you win the collision, you put yourself in a position defensively to bring linespeed or play on top of teams.

“Well, South Africa won the collision on attack, in particular. They had 70 per cent gain line, which is no surprise, but I think the All Blacks haven’t faced 70 per cent gain line this season. They had 50 per cent lightning-quick ball, but one of the smart things, and I don’t know if it’s Tony Brown or Rassie Erasmus, is they only had 13 per cent dominant carries.

“As we’ve outlined, they’re used to 50 or 60 per cent dominant carries, and you’d look at that stat and go, oh, man, the All Blacks must have done a job in the tight collision, but it was more that the South Africans didn’t try and overplay their hand in the contact.

“This idea of post-contact metres and fighting your way, it actually buys defence time. And what they did is they actually sacrificed those extra two or three metres to recycle that ball quickly.

“From a logical point of view, 70 per cent gainline, you’re on the back foot defensively. 50 per cent lightning-quick ball, you’re again on the back foot. You’ve got no chance to just get set. And then, every time they took a close collision in tight, and you’re expecting it to be that big brute collision, the D (defence) tightens, doesn’t get that (big brute collision), then they get that quick recycle, and then they play to the width and the skill of (Damian) Willemse and co. just exposed it.

“So, it would be easy to look at the 70 per cent defensive stat and go, oh, one-on-one tckles is a key focus, but to bring it back to why it makes it challenging, it’s purely around that collision area. And the way the South Africans dominated that area, but also played the chess game really well in terms of deciding when to go through the middle, but when to sacrifice a little bit to gain a lot on the edge.”