{"id":75244,"date":"2025-08-17T14:47:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-17T14:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/75244\/"},"modified":"2025-08-17T14:47:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-17T14:47:08","slug":"ex-bok-head-coach-points-finger-of-blame-at-manie-libbok","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/75244\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-Bok head coach points finger of blame at Manie Libbok"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

One former Springbok head coach has taken aim at South Africa\u2019s halfback pairing following their 38-22 defeat to Australia<\/a> at Ellis Park, questioning Manie Libbok\u2019s ability to control a Test match when conditions turned against him.<\/p>\n

Libbok\u2019s performance has been a lightning rod for criticism since the defeat, with his intercepted pass to Joseph Suaalii and defensive lapses highlighted as turning points.<\/p>\n

With no specialist No.10 on the bench, Libbok was forced to play the full 80 minutes.<\/p>\n

Speaking on the Talking Boks podcast, former South Africa<\/a> head coach Nick Mallett said the Springboks\u2019 lack of direction at scrumhalf and flyhalf contributed heavily to the Jo\u2019burg collapse. <\/p>\n

\u201cFrom there, our halfbacks [Grant Williams and Libbok] never managed the game,\u201d bemoaned Mallett. \u201cNine and 10 have to control a game, and they\u2019ve got to sense when the game is moving in a certain direction.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat happens sometimes with Manie, and I think he\u2019s done it with the Stormers<\/a> too, is that when things are going well, he\u2019s brilliant on front-foot ball. His selections are really good. But when the ball isn\u2019t so quick, he still tends to try and play that fast game, that wide-passing game, trying to play at pace.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was when we started playing, in my view, the incorrect style of rugby against Australia. They\u2019re very good on transition, they\u2019ve got very skilful players, and we made a lot of mistakes in that second half.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was a game crying out for more game management \u2013 kicking into corners, mixing in the driving maul, keeping Australia guessing. Instead we played into their hands.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet the reaction has been far from one-sided on X. <\/p>\n

Some observers argued it was unfair to scapegoat the DHL Stormers flyhalf, pointing instead to the Boks\u2019 malfunctioning set-piece and defensive fragility. Rugby writer and pundit Paul Williams<\/a> pointed out that Libbok could not be solely blamed for the defeat, insisting: \u201cCan\u2019t blame Manie Libbok<\/a> for that defeat. But some will. So weird,\u201d while one Springbok fan reminded fans that \u201che didn\u2019t lose seven lineouts.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One former Springbok head coach has taken aim at South Africa\u2019s halfback pairing following their 38-22 defeat to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":75245,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-75244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75244\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}