Andy Capostagno rugby
It may be too soon to start talking of another golden era in Natal and Springbok rugby, but when New Zealanders start to complain of illegal tactics you know that something radical is happening.
New Zealanders like to praise South African teams for trying hard and losing. It is not in their nature to praise them for preparing well and winning. And whom do we have to thank for this pretty state of affairs? Take a bow, Butch James. In last week’s match against the Chiefs, Kiwi commentator Tony Johnstone became so incensed at James’s armless tackling that he gave up following the ball and targeted the laissez faire attitude of Australian referee Andrew Cole.
That James got through the match without attracting a yellow card has subsequently become more important to the New Zealand public than the fact that in winning 24-8 the Sharks threw away at least four tries and the possibility of an entirely more humiliating score line.
First let us acknowledge that James has a problem. He has a tackling method that targets the upper body of the ball carrier and that involves little or no use of the arms. He likes to bounce people back in the tackle, rather than wrapping them up, the theory being that you stay on your feet more frequently and are therefore instantly available for general play.
The lawmakers have fulminated for some time on what has become known as the “ball and all” tackle. The suggestion from the International Rugby Board think tank is that to avoid injuries and to encourage the release of the ball, tackling should only be allowed from the waist down.
This is a laudable suggestion that, if adopted, would do rather more for the game than the proposed amnesty for the rolling maul.
It would return tackling to the skill it was always meant to be and empower the little guy with good technique over the big guy who cannot stoop to conquer. It would also force James and his ilk to conform, but until it happens the onus remains on the referees to determine what is and what is not dangerous.
In the meantime we should be wary of building up James’s reputation lest he suffer in comparison with his predecessor Henry Honiball. They are entirely dissimilar in all but one respect, and that just happens to be their tackling.
Sharks coach Rudolf Straeuli hit the nail on the head this week when he said: “We are working with him to keep his tackling legal, but there is no doubting the influence he has. With him around they [the Blues and the Chiefs] didn’t attack us in the channel.”
An Australian player who shall remain anonymous (because I can’t remember his name) said that what was missing from Springbok rugby last year was the physical threat brought to the game by Honiball. That threat made opposition teams think hard about their tactics and it also had another less obvious consequence.
Dick Muir, who played at inside centre with Honiball for the Sharks for many years, has one of rugby’s great noses. It looks not unlike an aerial photograph of a slalom course. The reason, according to John Allan, a team-mate of both, “is that nobody wanted to tackle Henry”.
To return to James, his tackling idiosyncrasies have been known by the Sharks for several years. Straeuli’s predecessor, Hugh Reece-Edwards, said the “armless” aspect was exactly how Honiball had started out and that once he had been taught to lift one arm away from his side all the mutterings disappeared.
The point being that Honiball’s method remained unchanged, but it looked a darn sight better. At the age of 22, the James dog is not too old to learn new tricks. This week the Sharks take on the Reds in Brisbane and the topic of James’s tackling is certain to come up.
Meanwhile, the Cats will never have a better chance of beating the Crusaders in Nelson on Sunday. The three-peat champions just about kept their semifinal hopes intact thanks to a bonus point earned in Cape Town, but in most other respects they will want to forget about the Stormers match as soon as possible.
The Crusaders are not helped by having to race across the time zones, while the Cats have been in Nelson for a week already, honing their skills and reflecting on a remarkable second-half display against the Blues. It had all looked so familiar; a first half filled with moves all of which broke down once the try line came in sight. A try early in the second half from the Blues seemed to have sealed the Cats’ fate at 23-9 and when the inspirational Rassie Erasmus left the field soon after in search of toilet paper to staunch a bout of diarrhoea the match could have been written off.
Instead, a scything run by Eugene Meyer ignited the blue touch paper and the Blues were kept scoreless for the rest of the match. The team that can reinvent itself in such circumstances has nothing to fear but itself.
Whisper it, but despite the matchless play of Stephen Larkham for the Brumbies, this year’s Super 12 final could be a rather parochial affair. Sharks against Cats for the big prize. Who could have dreamt it?