Publications
Partners
Gavin Rich - SuperSport
Johannesburg - No-one would ever be able to accuse Gary Gold of making light of the Springbok loss in any match they play while he is involved as assistant coach.
Of all the Bok coaches he is the one who most wears his heart on his sleeve and, on Sunday, when the Boks made their way through Heathrow after flying into London from Edinburgh, he looked so disconsolate that it was almost tempting to ask him if some other crisis had befallen him away from the rugby.
Clearly Gold is hurting after last week’s 21-17 defeat at Murrayfield, and on Wednesday he made no effort to hide his frustration and dissatisfaction with the performance when he was interviewed after a training session by the members of the travelling media.
“Not really,” said Gold when he was asked if he had gotten over the defeat.
“I would say it was about a minus-5,” he then said when he was then asked to rate the game on an enjoyment level on a scale of one to 10.
“No, seriously, it was one of my worst experiences in rugby, it really was bitterly bitterly disappointing. It was just so disappointing to see what we had worked so hard towards just get thrown away like that. We had worked so hard in the previous two test matches,” he said.
“I am not saying we played well in those games, because we didn’t, but the determination was there and the attitude was there. We let ourselves down very badly in that game and we let the country down and our fans down. We know it wasn’t an acceptable performance.”
Gold said that the main problem had been that the Boks hadn’t been clinical enough and after a fair start they had allowed Scotland to fight their way back into the game and get a foothold.
“We just weren’t clinical enough in building phases, one or two individual errors just kept letting us down. It was one of those days where guys would drop passes that they would not normally drop. We would box kick with the idea that the kick would be chased down and we would win possession back, but it just wasn’t working out that way. We just kept surrendering possession every time we tried it.
“When those problems keep repeating themselves then the errors just keep compounding and compounding. I thought we started well, but then we started to give away penalties, and we did not help ourselves by missing two kicks. We are not normally a team that misses kicks.
“The upshot was that Scotland were allowed back into the game in a situation where we would not have allowed them back in the past. It was just so frustrating.”
As every other member of the Bok camp has said when asked about the Scotland match this week, Gold claims that the Boks have moved on now from the defeat and closed the book behind them. However clearly there has been some hard talking within the camp, and Gold says everyone has taken responsibility for the poor performance.
“We’ve all put up our hands and taken responsibility, we all need to put our hands up now and take ownership, both the coaching staff and the players. We know we let the country down, so it just means we are going to have to make up for it by winning on Saturday.”
That though is something that Gold knows won’t happen easily.
“England are definitely a team on the rise. I thought that last year, when they seemed to be improving, and then this year they showed it when they beat Australia in the one test in Australia. Martin Johnson has a team of young players playing for him and he looks like he is sticking with them. In time they will start building up experience and the number of test caps and they will become an extremely difficult team to beat.”
The mood of the other Bok assistant, Dick Muir, was not much better than that of Gold.
"We made results the emphasis of this tour, so the Scotland defeat was a massive failure for us. The best we can now hope for is a 75% success rate from the tour which is less than what we were aiming at, We know the performance was unacceptable and we are going to have to make up for it against England," said Muir.
Johannesburg - No-one would ever be able to accuse Gary Gold of making light of the Springbok loss in any match they play while he is involved as assistant coach.
Of all the Bok coaches he is the one who most wears his heart on his sleeve and, on Sunday, when the Boks made their way through Heathrow after flying into London from Edinburgh, he looked so disconsolate that it was almost tempting to ask him if some other crisis had befallen him away from the rugby.
Clearly Gold is hurting after last week’s 21-17 defeat at Murrayfield, and on Wednesday he made no effort to hide his frustration and dissatisfaction with the performance when he was interviewed after a training session by the members of the travelling media.
“Not really,” said Gold when he was asked if he had gotten over the defeat.
“I would say it was about a minus-5,” he then said when he was then asked to rate the game on an enjoyment level on a scale of one to 10.
“No, seriously, it was one of my worst experiences in rugby, it really was bitterly bitterly disappointing. It was just so disappointing to see what we had worked so hard towards just get thrown away like that. We had worked so hard in the previous two test matches,” he said.
“I am not saying we played well in those games, because we didn’t, but the determination was there and the attitude was there. We let ourselves down very badly in that game and we let the country down and our fans down. We know it wasn’t an acceptable performance.”
Gold said that the main problem had been that the Boks hadn’t been clinical enough and after a fair start they had allowed Scotland to fight their way back into the game and get a foothold.
“We just weren’t clinical enough in building phases, one or two individual errors just kept letting us down. It was one of those days where guys would drop passes that they would not normally drop. We would box kick with the idea that the kick would be chased down and we would win possession back, but it just wasn’t working out that way. We just kept surrendering possession every time we tried it.
“When those problems keep repeating themselves then the errors just keep compounding and compounding. I thought we started well, but then we started to give away penalties, and we did not help ourselves by missing two kicks. We are not normally a team that misses kicks.
“The upshot was that Scotland were allowed back into the game in a situation where we would not have allowed them back in the past. It was just so frustrating.”
As every other member of the Bok camp has said when asked about the Scotland match this week, Gold claims that the Boks have moved on now from the defeat and closed the book behind them. However clearly there has been some hard talking within the camp, and Gold says everyone has taken responsibility for the poor performance.
“We’ve all put up our hands and taken responsibility, we all need to put our hands up now and take ownership, both the coaching staff and the players. We know we let the country down, so it just means we are going to have to make up for it by winning on Saturday.”
That though is something that Gold knows won’t happen easily.
“England are definitely a team on the rise. I thought that last year, when they seemed to be improving, and then this year they showed it when they beat Australia in the one test in Australia. Martin Johnson has a team of young players playing for him and he looks like he is sticking with them. In time they will start building up experience and the number of test caps and they will become an extremely difficult team to beat.”
The mood of the other Bok assistant, Dick Muir, was not much better than that of Gold.
"We made results the emphasis of this tour, so the Scotland defeat was a massive failure for us. The best we can now hope for is a 75% success rate from the tour which is less than what we were aiming at, We know the performance was unacceptable and we are going to have to make up for it against England," said Muir.
