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Coetzee welcomes back his Boks

Tuesday 22nd July 2008

Western Province woes: Bad starts, unforced errors and poor tackling

Western Province coach Allister Coetzee is hoping the return of key players from Springbok duty will help put the Cape Town side's dire Currie Cup campaign back on track.

Coetzee received a timely boost when four players were released from the Springbok squad who played in the away leg of the Tri-Nations series.

Western Province are taking on Boland at Newlands in a game that - after two consecutive defeats - is suddenly crucial to their hopes of making the last four of the Currie Cup semi-finals.

Scrum-half Bolla Conradie, fly-half Peter Grant, hooker Schalk Brits and prop Brian Mujati are the returning players, and Coetzee will no doubt be welcoming their presence in his squad.

Coetzee said it was back to the drawing board for Western Province after their shock defeat to the Falcons at Brakpan last Friday. He however added that he wouldn't panic and there wouldn't be wholesale changes.

"We should not panic now and do silly things," said Coetzee.

"I know our performance on Friday night wasn't good enough, but we cannot now just make changes left, right and centre."

The coach said there were three main reasons for the team's poor performance: a bad start, unforced errors and poor tackling.

"We lost our confidence after the bad start," he said.

"There is nothing wrong with the players' commitment. But they make just too many mistakes. Added to that, we don't handle the pressure well enough."

The former World Cup-winning assistant coach to South Africa is now fed up and said it was time the players stopped making unforced errors.

"We cannot win a match every time we have to wipe out a deficit. Also, if you miss one-on-one tackles it causes problems for your team-mates," said Coetzee.

"There is nothing wrong with the defensive system, but somewhere we would have to take a look at the technique."

Coetzee rued the yellow card shown to flank Francois Louw at a crucial stage of the game. Louw was sent to the sin-bin following a dangerous tackle on a Falcons player.

"Just when we started to erase the deficit we received a yellow card," bemoaned the Western Province coach.

"We had to start all over again."

On the injury front, centre Dylan des Fountain has been cleared of a hamstring strain while former Springbok hooker Hanyani Shimange is another likely candidate to front Boland, albeit from the bench.

The bad news for Western Province is that Tonderai Chavhanga has an injury concern after taking a knock to the head last week. Centre PJ Vermeulen is also a worry, and the pair will be reassessed this week.

As far as the Sireli Naqelevuki saga is concerned, Coetzee said the big Fijian had finally contacted the province and will be rejoining the team later in the week.

Naqelevuki is currently dealing with a few family issues that have prevented his linking up with Western Province since the end of the Pacific Nations Cup.

That he will be back "this week" was all Coetzee could confirm.