With the formidable Australians and then the awesome All Blacks ahead, the Springboks cannot be expected to remain unbeaten
RUGBY: Jon Swift
THE thing that impressed so much about Kitch Christie as the coach of our national rugby team was that air of calmness about him. Christie, you felt, always had a game plan, a set of tailored manoeuvres worked out for any eventuality … and then something left in reserve.
On the evidence of games against the SA Barbarians and the tigerfish Fijians this is a quality that Andre Markgraaff, the new man at the helm, has yet to exhibit.
It is, from the outside at least, a worrisome aspect as the reigning World Cup champions go into the first of four Tests in the tri-nation series against an Australian side smarting from the monumental klap they got at the uncompromising hands of the All Blacks last Saturday.
This weekend in Sydney, Markgraaff, an honest second row forward in his active days and always a cerebral player, attempts to bring these attributes to bear on a team that has all the attributes to build on a 15-Test winning streak but has yet to produce the fire that carried Francois Pienaar and his men to the heights they reached at Ellis Park last June.
There is a distinct feeling that the Amabokoboko are a couple of internationals short of putting it all together and that two more Test matches would have helped hone what is — on paper at least — a formidable side.
That these two Tests are scheduled to be against two of the most potent teams on Earth is, one feels, not the way things should have panned out for the new coach and the squad he has been mandated to build for the next World Cup in Cardiff three years away.
The Test against the Fijians exposed some areas of indecision in the Springbok engine-room that the Australian side under John Eales will surely exploit to the full. The Fijian Test was also — admittedly given the luxury of hindsight — one that, historic as it was, being the first meeting between the two countries, could have perhaps waited for later on an already crowded schedule.
But that then supposes — probably falsely — that there were other, perhaps softer options available and that any Test, against any rugby- playing nation of any note, can be regarded as “soft” in the new professional area.
The Fijians had nothing to lose. The South Africans had the obverse side of the coin staring them in the face. The South Sea Islanders, prime adherents to the big hit philosophy, duly ruined the evening for Hennie le Roux and Markgraaff by taking the talented backline player out.
And while the squad has arguably more than sufficient cover to take up the not inconsequential slack that the absence of Le Roux engenders, his anticipation, handling and superb broken-field running will be missed in a side still seemingly battling to find a rhythm and consistency of flow in their game.
It could be argued, in the aftermath of the staggering manner in which the All Blacks rolled their way to that massive 43-6 victory over the Wallabies at Wellington, that this lack of cohesion is also evident in the Australian make-up.
But that presupposes that any side in the world could have beaten that particular New Zealand team on that specific day on a truly magnificent performance in the cold and wet conditions they revel in. One suspects that the All Blacks will struggle somehow to produce a repeat performance of this magnitude.
It also leaves open the thought that while the Wallabies were a badly beaten side at the end of the 80 minutes of All Black magic, they can hardly be regarded as a pushover for the Boks in Sydney.
It is something Markgraaff will have to ponder, as he will the question of whether the South African tight five who showed some patchiness against the hugely physical Fijians is indeed a quintet equipped to take on the best the rest of the world has to offer.
It may perhaps be carping, but a player of the calibre of Mark Andrews — on whose shoulders so much rests in the vital area of lineout — cannot afford to give away four balls on his own throwing as was the case against Fiji’s Emori Katalau. Against the Fijians, this statistic gave rise for some concern. Against the Australian pairing of Eales and Garrick Morgan, it could prove crucial.
No more evidence is needed in this regard than the way Robin Brooke took the ball in the opening minute of last Saturday’s Test, allowing Michael Jones to crash over for the first-minute try that opened the floodgates for the All Blacks. There was, from that single take, no coming back for the Aussies.
The two outings Markgraaff’s Boks have had thus far would tend to suggest that the South Africans have yet to snap into action from the opening whistle. Again, the Aussies have the still fresh experience of the devastation wrought by a lightning start.
This is an aspect of the current South African style that must be worrying Markgraaff. Somehow, somewhere there has to be the urgency of sudden impetus introduced into the way the current squad are playing the game.
That said, there is also the feeling that when the inherent abilities of the Boks do meld with the immediate, there is a disjointed feel to what the South Africans are trying to achieve.
Australia have made four changes in critical areas following their loss against New Zealand. These too must be weighed carefully.
There is the introduction of Andrew Heath into the Wallaby front row — an area incidentally that has, for South Africa, not looked as rock-solid as perhaps it should.
The Wallabies have also lent some beef to the side of the scrum with the recall of Daniel Manu at the expense of meanie Owen Finegan and revamped the crucial area behind the scrum by bringing in livewire scrumhalf George Gregan and pivot Pat Howard.
In both of these instances there have proved to be problems for South Africa in the build-up games to the Aussie Test. Flyhalf has become a problematic position and some of the service from Joost van der Westhuizen — a matchwinner on song, and errant and erratic genius when the notes fall flat — early in the Fijian game was shoddy at best.
There was also the sight of Pienaar and Ruben Kruger switching sides of the scrum which would indicate some indecision in this respect by both players and coach.
It is pointless harping back to the extremely successful Christie era and then giving the new man at the helm the unenviable task of shouldering that additional burden in a job where victory is fleeting and defeat seldom forgotten or forgiven, but there is something Christie said that everyone concerned — the coach, the players and the public alike — will do well to remember.
“You don’t beat the All Blacks five times in a row,” was Christie’s reading of the two Sanzar Series internationals which precede the three-Test tour of South Africa which follows immediately. Quite so.
What Christie could have added was that two out of two against the Wallabies is an equally unlikely piece of ante-post betting.
Perhaps it is heresy to preach gloom and despondency, but there is the distinct and growing feeling that this Saturday will herald the end of the unbeaten run by the Springboks and give Markgraaff and his side an unwelcome taste of defeat and give thrust to the planning to take them out once we get them on home soil.