Viljoen changes game plan
January 31, 2001

Harry Viljoen plans to make the South African forwards a force in world rugby again.

The Springbok coach and his assistants decided on a new playing pattern during a two-day think tank in Cape Town last week. The emphasis will now be on good scrum work and tactical kicking.

Viljoen told Rapport he was relying on assistant coach Andre Markgraaff to continue his work with the forwards. "He did excellent work before and during the (Bok) tour last year. Now we have a whole season to make our forwards a power in world rugby," he said.

He said: "We want to take the best out of the past when the ground work of the game was applied correctly. The plan is to emphasis good scrumming and lineout jumping. And when we have to kick, then it's about tactical kicking. But we will combine it with modern rugby where the ball is carried more and controlled for longer periods."

Viljoen said they discovered during the recent out of Argentina and the British Isles that the South African forwards were competent, but didn't dominate as they had in the past.

The tactical kicking was also not accurate. "These are areas we must work on if the playing pattern is going to work," he said.

Viljoen feels that the southern hemisphere sides have neglected their forward play because of the pressure of playing attractive rugby. He said teams like England have shown the value of a good, hard forward game.

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