Laurel and Hardy, Torvill and Dean, Lennon and McCartney, Roy and HG. It’s well-nigh impossible to think of one without saying the other. That’s the effect of synergy. The Cambridge Dictionary definition is ‘the combined power of a pair of things that, when they are working together is greater than the total power achieved by each working separately’. As if to prove its own point, the meaning derives from two old Greek words yoked – ‘ergon ‘work’ and sun ‘together’.
It can even meld opposites in the larger frame of things, such as Larry Bird and Magic Johnson on the basketball courts of the NBA in the eighties. US basketball was an ailing third wheel lagging behind football and baseball when Bird and Magic turned pro in 1979, but by the time they retired it had been transformed as a sport and a business.
Magic and Larry played for two bitter rivals, the Los Angeles Lakers and the Boston Celtics, but after cooperating on an advert for Converse sneakers in 1985 they knew their fate was intertwined. Thirty years later, there was even a Broadway show named after them. You cannot think of one without saying the other’s name. As Magic observed in the LA Times: “We’re mirrors of each other. I may smile a little bit more, but the way we played the game of basketball was exactly the same. We didn’t care about scoring points. We cared about winning the game and making our teammates better. That’s why we were able to change not only basketball but able to change the NBA too.”
The historical rivalry between South Africa and New Zealand is one of the great synergies upon which the game of rugby is built. It is impossible to think of the All Blacks without conjuring the Springboks, and it is one of the ways the game is defined in the public imagination.
‘Synergy’ is also why the latest edition of the old rivalry played out at Eden Park was so important. Neither country currently has that precious commodity in plentiful supply, and both are feeling their way towards it with World Cup 2027 in view. Trying out new combinations, trialling new experiments to find where the rare metal can be unearthed.
The Boks have lost the twin pillars of their double World Cup success in the front row, Steven Kitshoff and Frans Malherbe; the playmaking duo of Handre Pollard and Willie le Roux is beginning to show its age and fraying around the edges; head coach Rassie Erasmus has never adequately replaced the ‘Great Duane’ Vermeulen at eighth man.
The good news, the message in a bottle bobbing in a sea of uncertainties for Rassie, is he looks to have found some of the secret sauce in his front-row selections at Eden Park. The Bokke dominated the scrum penalty count 4-1 but the pivotal moment arrived in the 62nd minute when they pushed the All Blacks clean off their own feed.
That is the top-drawer All Blacks scrummaging trio of Tamaiti Williams, Samisoni Taukei’aho and Tyrel Lomax which is backpedalling at a rate of knots. By the end it is moving so fast it might have run all the way into Auckland Harbour. The turnover gives Kwagga Smith an easy run off the base and two phases later, Malcolm Marx grounded the ball over the try line and the Bokke were right back in the game. As New Zealand forwards coach Jase Ryan observed acerbically after the game:
“We were bit messy, especially on our ball, we just want to get it out and play to be fair.
“But there’s one where they climbed into us, we lost our footing, tried to get back up, and it was just too late.
“So that will be a never again moment.”
The starting Bokke front row of Ox Nche, Marx and the Bath tight-head shortlisted for Gallagher Premiership player of the season, Thomas du Toit, dominated their opposites at the start of the game, and the prospect of injured Gerhardus Steenekamp joining his fellow northerners Jan-Hendrik Wessels and Wilco Louw on the pine will give South Africa the set-piece extras Rassie demands at the end of it. Synergy begins at home. If only some of the magic ingredient can seep into the spinal spots of eight, 10 and 15, the Springbok Svengali will be beside himself with joy.
A scrum penalty count of 4-1 plus one other clean turnover would typically be enough to win you the lion’s share of games played out in wet, treacherous conditions, but at the garden of Eden, it was outweighed by the All Blacks’ control of the Springbok lineout throw in the first 50 minutes. Poor Ruan Nortje endured his worst outing as a lineout skipper in the myrtle green-and gold jersey as the established synergy of Scott Barrett and Tupou Vaa’i, now happily restored to his best position in the second row, went to work with a vengeance.
RugbyPass’ own Jake White had been right on the money about the key area in the build-up to the game:
“Winning clean lineout ball is key. It’s all about the quality you get on your own ball, and it’s how you disrupt the opposition. It’s why the Springboks routinely go for a rangy blindside like Pieter-Steph du Toit, who is 6ft 7ins, or Franco Mostert, who is an inch shorter. Interestingly, the All Blacks have been questioned for never being able to adequately replace Jerome Kaino, who last pulled on an All Blacks number six shirt in 2015.
“They have lacked a dominant six, which is why they’ve trialled Vaa’i there. For Saturday they’ve moved 6’ 6 Simon Parker over from eight for only his second cap. Why’s it so important? If there’s any doubt about going long in the hooker’s mind, he’ll end up throwing somewhere else in the line, and then it’s easier for the defence to second guess where the ball’s going and spoil it.
“A towering blind-side [means] you don’t give the opposition lineout ball at the back, which leads to powerful rolling mauls and penalties called against you. If you can counteract height with height and disrupt that ball, you in effect set up a platform to stop the maul.”
Between the three of them, Barrett, Vaa’i and rookie Simon Parker made Nortje’s life a misery at lineout time, and the Bulls caller to be withdrawn in favour of veteran Lood De Jager for the final 30 minutes. With Nortje calling, South Africa only won three of 11 throws cleanly, with three being untidy wins, three falling victim of New Zealand fingertips, and a further two lost through a free-kick offence and a misfiring maul respectively.
The best statistical outcome from the Springbok viewpoint is 64% including scrappy ball and the subsequent maul turnover, but if you only value clean usable delivery the total drops to a miserable 27%. The key to All Black success was the ‘welcome home’ party for Vaa’i in the second row. The Chiefs man started by standing at the front and denying the Boks their golden ticket, the bail-out ball to Eben Etzebeth in the four-man-line.
In both cases Nortje wants to compress the lineout to the front and go to the Etzebeth ‘banker ball’ but the presence of Vaa’i forces him to use the big man as a decoy, which in turn puts the throwing of Marx under greater pressure in the rain. Vaa’i’s presence at the front of the line spooked Nortje like a vengeful ghost, to the point of calling paralysis at the end of the first period.
When Marx tried to hit a target in the mid/back half of the line, it brought the outstanding aerial defensive ability of much-maligned skipper Scott Barrett into the game.
When the Springboks did try to drive the lineout off back ball as White suggested, they ran aground on the sizeable rock of Parker, with a little able assistance from his skipper.
With Captain Courageous holding the short-side corner, Parker is free to change his bind, reach over the top of the maul and stuff the drive for another turnover. The All Blacks had all the answers when the Bokke tried to pull off their patented driving lineout stunt in midfield too.
With no defending forwards committed to the maul there is no offside line, and the old firm of Scooter and Tupou are free to rush the ball-carrier and force another error. And the man with the gleeful grin on his face, whooping and hollering over the top of the prone Bokke in the centre of the scene is Vaa’i, restored to his natural home in the second row and renewing the synergy with Barrett. There is every prospect of that synergy receiving further reinforcement from the introduction of Parker at the problematic six spot.
It won’t relieve all of ‘Razor’ Robertson’s worries about the composition of his midfield and back three, but it is one more selection box that can be ticked. Erasmus may have ticked off a few of his front row boxes at the same time, so there has been progress on both sides ahead of the return game at the Cake Tin. There may also have been a lesson or two learned about the value of synergy and why it should always be supported.
Synergy is more precious than energy and it builds teams and projects faster. Even when that synergy comes from players in opposite camps, as Magic Johnson explained so eloquently: “Larry, you only told me one lie. You said there will be another Larry Bird. Larry, there will never, ever be another Larry Bird.” That synergy is special.
Comments
Join free and tell us what you really think!
Sign up for free