In 2007, when Springbok coach Jake White opted to rest his key players for the Tri-Nations to have them fresh for the World Cup, John O’Neil threw his toys out of the cot and accused the South African Rugby Union (Saru) of undermining the competition.
O’Neil was chief executive of Sanzar (South Africa, New Zealand, Australia Rugby) at the time and had to back down on his original militancy to keep the peace. After a tense Sanzar meeting in Christchurch O’Neil was mollified, but said: “It’s fair to say it will never happen again.” Today O’Neil is chief executive of the Australian Rugby Union and guess what? It’s happening again.
Peter de Villiers has learned much since taking over from White as Bok coach and instead of simply announcing that he would be sending a “B” team overseas for this year’s Tri-Nations, he cleverly prepared the way by claiming that his entire “A” team is injured. The injury count is 23, with more fringe players being added to the squad by the day as a result.
This is all well and good as long as it isn’t following White’s successful template too slavishly. There were different circumstances in 2007, after all. The Sharks and the Bulls hosted both Super 14 semifinals and then went at each other hammer and tongs at King’s Park in the final.
Then the June international window opened up and the Boks played three warm-up Tests against England and Samoa and two home games at full strength in the Tri-Nations. That meant that the bulk of the side had played seven games of high-intensity rugby in a row and were in need of a break. This year only the Stormers reached the semifinals of Super Rugby and they stumbled at that penultimate hurdle. So the moral high ground is a little shaky for De Villiers in 2011.
But, as in 2007, the Boks are in the happy position of being able to compete at the highest level without their elite players. The jury is still out, for instance, on whether John Smit will command a starting place at the World Cup, despite the fact that he has retained the captaincy at this early stage of the international season.
It might be wise to recall that he was under similar pressure four years ago, when he pulled a hamstring in the 11th minute of the opening Tri-Nations Test at Newlands. Even though Smit was placed in cotton wool he was under the injury cloud for much of the World Cup.
The Boks, who had had just 52 captains since 1891, managed to field four in four games around this time. Victor Matfield took over from Smit, Bob Skinstad took the B team on tour, got injured in Sydney and handed the armband to Johann Muller for the next game in Christchurch.
There is more than a little irony, then, in the arrival from Munster of the same Muller this week. In 2007 the former Sharks captain locked the scrum with Johan Ackermann, who, in his 38th year, became the oldest Springbok, a record that will surely never be beaten. The pair did not let South Africa down and although the B team lost both Tests they won many admirers.
The Sydney Test saw the debut at Test level of the Du Plessis brothers, Jannie and Bismarck, and also of the Stormers flyhalf Peter Grant, who is one of the omissions from De Villiers’s otherwise extremely inclusive squad. Grant was one of 41 Springboks used in the Tri-Nations that year, compared with the 31 of New Zealand and the 27 of Australia.
Those who put store in history repeating itself (and De Villiers is clearly among them) like to point out that the Boks had a flyhalf educated at Maritzburg College each time they won a World Cup. Joel Stransky is in the commentary box these days, but Butch James has been recalled from his retirement stint in Bath and if Grant were to make the final World Cup squad the superstitious would be twice as happy.
But in the final analysis De Villiers may, for all the right reasons, be making a rod for his own back. He has already admitted that World Cup spots are up for grabs and that those players who are genuinely injured need to look to their laurels.
The loyal Muller made a pertinent point when he arrived this week. He said: “Remember that every player in this squad has something to prove. You can play your way into the World Cup squad if you produce two strong performances on tour.”
Equally, of course, you could play yourself out of it, which is the less obvious corollary of the coach’s tactics. He knows he has several players with elite status who have only so many more kilometres left on the clock. Whether the rugby equivalent of the big end goes now or in three months time when it really counts is the conundrum to be wrestled with.