In the decades since Joel Stransky’s drop goal sailed over the Ellis Park crossbar to win the 1995 RWC Final, South African rugby teams have refined that famous day’s game plan into an owner’s manual for winning finals.
Across the decades, in repeated winning finals performances, South African teams have implemented that original 1995 winning plan with little deviation from its basics. At its heart, this gameplan’s genius is designed to place game-winning pressure on their opponents in the most extreme environment of elite rugby finals.
Like all great plans, it is very simple. It is based on the truth that, in big games, the team that makes the least mistakes wins.
In rugby, there are only three ways to move the ball forward: either by kicking, mauling or running the ball.
A running game requires passing, which carries the highest risk of the three forms of “go forward”. So, in finals, the South Africans all but eliminate the running game from their play.
Selection is paramount and the South Africans choose as many giant forwards as the laws allow. The bigger, the better. The ignorant tolerance from World Rugby that allows the exploitation of the loophole in our safety laws for a 7-1 or 6-2 bench has been a giant bonus to the South Africans’ game plan.
This is because the foundational principle of the SA plan is to completely dominate all scrummaging with the sole purpose of winning penalties.
The second key factor is to select a goal kicker with a long-range boot and an exceptionally high success percentage. Any kickable scrum penalty is gladly taken, and the three points accumulated to put scoreboard pressure on their opponent.
While the current generation of South African backline players are immensely gifted athletes, any attacking ability is a secondary consideration behind their ability to chase kicks.
[ Six of the best games between Leinster and Bulls ahead of URC finalOpens in new window ]
The aim of the South African kicking game is to trap their opponent in their own half so that any error will be punished with a shot at a penalty goal. If a shot at the posts is not possible, then a kick to touch will be followed by a lineout that almost certainly will be mauled.
While the basis of this plan has been around for 30 years, that does not mean that it is outdated. When we are considering tactics and strategies, the term “old school” does not exist. The only question that needs to be answered is, “Does it work?” As the South African game plan for finals remains highly effective, the answer to that is a big “Yes”.
As the late Australian Billionaire Kerry Packer once said of Genghis Khan, “He wasn’t very lovable, but he was bloody effective.”
The same can be said of the South African finals game plan. It creates spectacularly ugly games of rugby, but it wins trophies.
The South Africans will argue that the ends justify the means. Which is understandable from their point of view. While acknowledging its effectiveness, we have to also state that it does create turgid viewing on rugby’s biggest days.
The Bulls are guided by the 2007 World Cup-winning coach Jake White. Vastly experienced and tactically astute, with an extraordinarily high rugby IQ, White has played a big role in refining the game plan that has provided so much success for South African teams.
As the Bulls have lost two UFC finals in 2022 and 2024, I expect White to implement the tried-and-tested South African finals game plan in full this weekend.
Usually, an Irish team blessed with the golden opportunity to perform on the hallowed turf of Croke Park against an opponent who has been forced to travel up from South Africa would be the red hot favourites. Yet, after so many heartbreaks in semi-finals and finals, the psychological trauma of those torments has damaged Leinster’s confidence as a club.
Confidence is contagious. So too is the lack of it.
The Bulls are aiming to rip open every psychological scab and make all of Leinster’s past mental slashes bleed once again. As the men in blue walk out on to Croker, they will be under an almost unimaginable mountain of pressure. Buoyed by the fact that in the past two URC finals the away team has lifted the trophy, the astute mind of Jake White will have the Bulls aiming to maximise the pressure thumping inside the minds of the Leinster players. So, against all logic, it will be the Bulls who will hold the psychological advantage.
Twenty-four years ago, at the first Celtic League final, which was the forerunner of today’s URC, Leo Cullen was a young Leinster second-rower.
That day at half time, Leinster were in deep trouble. With a player sent off and trailing on the scoreboard to a talented Munster, no one in the rugby world gave that Leinster team any chance of winning. The only individuals on the planet who did were the only people that mattered – the players inside the dressingroom. To their great credit, that Leinster team believed they could win and put in a spectacular second-half shift for a famous victory.
If Leo Cullen can make today’s Leinster players believe that they have the talent to overcome their past, then they will win because, despite their history, this remains an excellent team.
While the Bulls are bringing some potent tactics, to paraphrase Mike Tyson, Leinster must smash the Bulls’ plans with a D4 punch to their Pretorian noses. To do this, Leinster must remain true to who they are, their heritage and their DNA. At every opportunity, they must relentlessly physically attack the Bulls, forcing the psychological pressure back on the South Africans. Remembering that the Bulls are also scared, having lost two finals in recent years.
On Saturday, the long-suffering Leinster faithful have a giant role to play. While D4 is doubting their team, the Bible advises them to “act as if you have faith and faith will be provided”. Or, in modern parlance, “Fake it till you make it.”
So to all the “Molly Malones”, leave your doubts at home and yell yourselves hoarse to inspire your team inside that glorious sporting cathedral.
For Leinster to banish the past four seasons to the waste paper basket of history, they will have to overcome a Bulls game plan that has been proven capable of winning finals. Despite the enormity of that task, with belief, courage and hearts of fire, it can be Leinster’s day.
