Holding on to victory: The Springboks held out to beat the All Blacks at Ellis Park last weekend.
The Test match at Ellis Park last week ticked many and various boxes, not all of them obvious. Former All Black coach Graham Henry, for instance, said in the week before the contest that it would not be a bad thing for New Zealand to lose a game before next year’s World Cup.
And so he has his wish, 23 matches and almost two years after the team’s last defeat, against England at Twickenham.
It goes without saying that Henry’s successor, Steve Hansen, did not share the enthusiasm for a tactical loss. For Hansen knows that the single biggest obstacle to his team retaining the World Cup is South Africa. For as long as the psychological block remained in place, the All Blacks were safe. It came perilously close to being reinforced in a frenetic final quarter, in which the Springboks made the mistake of trying to defend their lead, but Pat Lambie’s 55m penalty goal smashed it to smithereens.
Springbok coach Heyneke Meyer was thus able to put the tick in the box marked “beat the All Blacks” for the first time in his three-year tenure. Injuries permitting, Meyer can also start ticking off the names of those who will definitely be going to the World Cup. It is not being overdramatic to suggest that, had Lambie’s kick flown wide, his name would have dropped off that list. The majority of the 23-man squad who did battle in Johannesburg are now certainties.
Shadow
It is easier to name those who still have some work to do. On the evidence of the Rugby Championship, particularly the game against Argentina in Salta, all the prop forwards are vulnerable. Since his move to Japan, JP Pietersen has been a shadow of his former self. Reserve scrumhalf Cobus Reinach will not make the cut if Fourie du Preez and Ruan Pienaar make full recoveries from injury. Age may count against Bakkies Botha, but not in the case of the ageless Victor Matfield.
And that’s about it. Everyone else can start getting their visas in order. That includes Teboho Mohoje, who did not look out of place in a game of the highest quality. It also includes Cornal Hendricks, who has done enough in the tournament to supplant Pietersen in the rankings. There will be those suggesting that Pietersen’s tackling is superior but if you have to have a wing in the side to tackle you’re missing the point.
Before Pienaar’s injury, it would have been easy to omit François Hougaard but the Bulls man’s displays in Cape Town and Johannesburg were of the phoenix from the ashes variety. In both cases, Hougaard’s game was transformed by not having to kick away 50% of the balls that came his way. At Ellis Park, for instance, he kicked just three times, carried eight times (one of which was to complete an astonishing try) and passed on 47 occasions.
This week, Meyer responded in a revealing manner to an online question about kicking. He said: “I really don’t like kicking the ball away (and I know a lot of people will be surprised), but for me it’s about ensuring you get the ball back in a better position. For instance, in the Wellington Test, Handré Pollard kicked a superb cross-field kick deep into their 22 which went into touch. They won the ensuing line-out and kicked it out around the 22 which was a net gain for us … and from that line-out Cornal Hendricks scored.”
Bad weather
Meyer’s problem was that he was trying to fit the square peg Hougaard into the round hole left by Du Preez. Inevitably, of course, tactics are dictated by circumstance – the Boks played three of their six Championship games in bad weather. It is not comparing apples with apples to laud Hougaard on a firm Highveld surface in perfect weather to what went before. September and October in England will not reproduce those conditions at the World Cup.
If Hougaard can be regarded as a horses for courses selection though, Pollard has emerged as a man for all seasons. The Bulls flyhalf only turns 21 in March next year but at international level he has little left to prove. No Springbok flyhalf has ever scored two tries in one match against the All Blacks. Few have carried themselves with such insouciance.
Pollard fits the modern requirements of size; he weighs 97kg and stands 1.88m, but he does not play like a battering ram and, furthermore, he does not appear to carry a script on to the field with him. That is what makes him so hard to play against, as a host of age group teams discovered before the invitation from Meyer to step into the big time.
Because of Pollard’s youth, he is one of the few Springboks being allowed back into the Currie Cup for the last month of the season. He is not yet a contracted player and so will have the opportunity to resurrect the Blue Bulls’ season. It would beggar belief if someone at the South African Rugby Union was not drafting a lucrative contract for the young man right now for he, perhaps more so than any other, holds the key to South Africa’s World Cup hopes.