There are people who say Allister Coetzee doesn't know what he's doing as Springbok rugby coach. On Saturday night he proved them wrong by keeping his wits about him in a situation that was as unprecedented as beating the Aussies three times on successive days, two of those victories coming in the same city.For those of you watching with only a casual eye, here is how the coach had to deal with some situations on the field:Before the kick-off he had selected an outside centre (Juan de Jongh) at inside centre, a fullback (Jessie Kriel) at outside centre and a flyhalf (Pat Lambie) at fullback. He moved a left wing (Bryan Habana) to the right wing to accommodate a scrumhalf (Francois Hougaard) on the left wing.By this time, most rugby selectors' heads would be spinning. Coetzee seems to have kept his, especially when it came to bringing on replacements.When the fullback at outside centre (Kriel) pulled a hamstring late in the first half, he was replaced by no less than an outside centre (Lionel Mapoe)! But when the left wing playing on the right wing (Habana) was also hurt early in the second half, he needed to be replaced by a fullback (Willie le Roux).In an ideal world, Le Roux should have come on for Lambie, who was showing signs of strain towards the end. It's easy to understand why the flyhalf who played fullback was in difficulty: in the last three months he has played only 20 minutes of rugby.But the coach had other problems. Having opted for a 6-2 split among the reserves before the match (that is, six forwards to two backline players), Coetzee had used up his backline options by the 46th minute.When scrumhalf Rudy Paige was taken off in the 57th minute with concussion, it called for some quick thinking by the coach.By that time, he had replaced Oupa Mohoje, a blind-side flank who had been playing on the open side, with Jaco Kriel. This meant he needed to send on an eighthman, Willem Alberts, to play open side, so that Kriel, also more at home on the blind side, could play on the left wing, so that Hougaard could return to his regular position at scrumhalf.In other words, Alberts, a brute of a bloke of 120kg and standing 1.92m, was a replacement for Paige, a man of only 77kg and 1.69m tall. A replacement of such disparity must also be unprecedented in the game of rugby union.And then there are those who say Coetzee doesn't know what he's doing. Kipling could have written a poem about him, keeping his head when all about him are losing theirs.Still, it was hard to get too excited about the Boks, or even the Proteas. Quinton de Kock's innings of Friday night, which set off the first leg of the hat-trick, was a joy to watch, but the Aussies did after all bring their second-string attack for the series.And I know it's the centenary of Delville Wood and the Somme, but did we have to commemorate those World War 1 battles with the trench warfare rugby we saw on Saturday night at Loftus. All those kicks from the howitzer boot of Morné Steyn - and not one raid into enemy trenches. If rugby is not about a bit of derring do, it is just dryfenkies (gaining ground) and that makes it very, very dull...