Springboks win prestige Sportswriters' award for conceding possession of the ball

The Rugby Sportswriters' Association has awarded the Springbok rugby team its prize for giving the ball away. In the preamble to the award citation the Sportswriters praise the Springboks for having found 'ever-creative and new ways for ensuring that their opponents regain possession of the ball after losing it.' To any seasoned rugby fan it had became increasingly evident that the Springbok coaching staff was not satisfied with the simple, traditional way of losing possession i.e. booting the ball down the field, down the throat of the opposing full-back or wings. Although there has been a fair share of this, the Springboks have now taken the whole process to a new level. One neatly disguised method is to kick the ball diagonally across the field so that it bounces into touch just a metre away from the touch line. The subtle precision of this move helps to shield the fact that the opponents now have the ball. Another innovation is, instead of repetitively kicking up-and-unders in all weather, the Springboks are also opting to wait for a period when the wind is blowing in their faces. Under such conditions an up-and-under often drifts back in their direction meaning that the opposition has a good chance of gaining the ball without even losing ground. Other variations of the kicking game include grubbers that hit the opponent and bounce back in your direction, having a kick charged down and booting the ball across the field directly to an opponent. The Springboks now save their best efforts at losing possession for games against the All Blacks. Knowing that the All Blacks simply love possession, the Springboks have raised losing the ball to the level of pure art in these games. In addition, when simply kicking the ball away doesn't work as well as it might, they have been working on ways to concede penalties in more technical ways, particularly in mauls, where the referee is called upon to dig deep into his knowledge of the game to pick out the infringement. This subtle technique has required extensive practice but the coaching staff now feels it has perfected it better than any of the other major rugby countries. Says one of the coaching squad: 'South African schoolboys tend not to kick and their infringements are often rather naive. We've had to take this material at the senior level and drill them to kick the ball away creatively and concede penalties without looking as if they are. It's still work in hand but we're incredibly pleased with our progress, this year in particular.'