Momentum, speed and space
Tony Brown keeps his attacking blueprint short. The Springboks attack coach says three things decide whether a rugby team dominates. “Momentum, speed and space. If you can achieve those three things on the rugby field, you’re always going to be quite a dominant rugby team.”
Defence is the same list in reverse. Stop the momentum, kill the speed, shut down the space. Brown, a 51-year-old New Zealander, joined Rassie Erasmus’s staff after South Africa won the 2023 World Cup, and his job since has been to add layers to a side built on power.
no renewal
Free for 2 weeks.
A coaching culture problem
The hard part is not the diagram, it is the habits. Brown says South African players are raised and coached to go through people. “South Africans get brought up and coached to run over the top of people which doesn’t always work at international level.”
His fix is a change in outlook rather than a change in personnel. He wants players to “buy into the mindset around playing a little bit more”, and to get fitter so they can reposition quicker between phases.
Lessons from Japan and the Highlanders
Brown has done this before. He coached Japan and the Highlanders, and at both he built the attack around the players he had instead of forcing one system onto every squad. He looks at what a group does well, where it struggles, and shapes the plan from there.
That approach matters for a Springboks group with huge physical gifts. The challenge he describes is getting them to use those gifts with more variety, without losing what has made them hard to beat.
Discover the rest of our Rugby news on MathODDS!
in your pocket.
Real-time notifications & alerts
Leave a Reply