RWC 2015 - New Zealand vs South Africa: Heyneke Meyer tries to keep lid on bubbling Springboks ahead of duel with ‘best ever’

I want the players excited but I don’t want to put too much emotion on it. I’ve learnt from mistakes

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Heyneke Meyer admits it: there have been times in the none-too-distant past when he has struck the wrong emotional chord in preparing his Springbok side for a meeting with the All Blacks and saddled himself with a bunch of over-motivated players as a consequence.

Hence the importance of the team psychologist Pieter Kruger ahead of Saturday’s World Cup semi-final at Twickenham – a man charged with keeping the tin lid on a tempestuous bunch who often appear to have had their buttons pressed by Freddy Krueger instead.

“The belief that we can win this game has been there from day one, but it’s been a low-key week so far,” Meyer said yesterday at the South African base in Guildford, shortly after confirming that he would stick with the starting line-up who took the field against Wales last Saturday, under the captaincy of the scrum-half Fourie du Preez.

“I want the players to be very, very excited, but I don’t want to put too much emotion on it. I’ve learnt from my mistakes. Everyone wants to try something different against the All Blacks, but it’s more important to go out on the field and do what you’re meant to do.”

Quite how long Meyer remains cool, calm and collected is anyone’s guess: unlike the deadpan New Zealand coach Steve Hansen, say, or the quietly mischievous Wales boss Warren Gatland, he finds it hellishly difficult to rise above the frenzy that surrounds international contests of the do-or-die variety.

For instance, when the All Blacks perform their pre-match ceremonials, he cannot bear to wrench himself away from his place at pitch level. “I never go up to the coaches’ box until the haka is over because it helps keep the adrenalin pumping,” he explained. “I live for these games.”

If Meyer has always been in thrall to Springbok-All Black Tests all his sporting life – “When I was a kid playing rugby outside on the grass, not that I was very good, it was always South Africa against New Zealand,” he said – this particular meeting means pretty much everything to him.

He regards the defending champions as the best: not merely the strongest in terms of this tournament, or the finest of the current World Cup cycle, or even the most accomplished outfit of a professional era stretching back two decades. He is talking about the best ever.

“I really mean this – it’s not just talk,” he commented. “I think this New Zealand team is the best to have played the game. Usually, there is a decline in performance after a side wins the World Cup. These All Blacks have just got better since winning in 2011 and that hasn’t happened before in our sport, so we know we must produce our best performance to beat them. But in saying that we have to believe we can do it, because so many games between us go down to the wire.”

Since Meyer succeeded the wildly controversial Peter de Villiers as Springbok coach in January 2012, he has led the team into seven Tests against the New Zealanders and finished second on six occasions – the exception being the Rugby Championship meeting at Ellis Park in Johannesburg a little over a year ago. If Meyer relished that victory as though he had been on the field himself, the defeats always hurt him in the same way.

“When I lost to them the first time, I was very down,” he recalled. “Steve Hansen came over and – this is what’s great about rugby, I think – brought me a beer. He said: ‘Listen, I know how you feel and I know the pressure you’re under. Just have a beer with me.’ I really respected that.

“After we lost the second time, he came looking for me with another beer and we started talking about the fact that we were under the same pressure. I told him that when the Boks beat his team, I’d buy him a case of beer. Since then, we’ve got to know each other’s families and the beer has become a tradition between us: the winning coach always brings the drinks now. When we won in Johannesburg he took it like a man and told me he was waiting for his beer. If we win this one, I’ll need to buy a truckload of the stuff to do it justice.”

Meyer has tinkered just a little with his reinforcements, recalling Victor Matfield, the World Cup-winning lock from 2007, to the bench after fitness problems. The vice-captain and acknowledged line-out supremo replaces Pieter-Steph du Toit in what the coach described as the strongest substitute combination during his Springbok stewardship.

There is still a faint possibility that the 38-year-old Matfield, now in the thick of his fourth global tournament, will start against the hot favourites for the Webb Ellis Cup. If the Springboks’ latest top-of-the-range second-rower, the deeply impressive Lood de Jager, fails to recover from a foot injury – he will have a run-out tomorrow – the veteran will step up, with Du Toit filling the gap on the roster.

“Victor said to me: ‘Sir, I’m here for whatever the team needs, whether it’s helping the youngsters or making an impact from the bench,” the coach reported. “He’s an unbelievable servant to Springbok rugby and I’m proud to have someone like him in the group.”