It’s very nice to go travelling, but it’s so much nicer to come home. While Springbok coach Jake White was whistling that refrain over breakfast in his Cape Town home this week, something would have been nagging at the corner of his mind. Was the toast burnt? Did the cornflakes lack crunch? Was the milk sour?
No. The source of the trouble was already a week old and it happened in Perth. And it was not that the Test against Australia had been lost by a four-point margin, nor was it that the Wallabies’ winning try was scored by White’s captain at the 2002 under-21 World Cup, Clyde Rathbone.
It was simpler than that, one of the fundamentals of the game in fact. With five minutes to go and the match in the balance the Springbok pack conceded a tighthead. It wasn’t even a classic heel against the head, either, but a disjointed melee of flailing limbs. But it was enough to snuff out the dying embers of hope.
Worse still, there was the element of déjà vu. With five minutes left in the previous week’s match against New Zealand, John Smit had hurled the ball over the Bok lineout and from the subsequent knock-on the All Blacks built the platform that won the game. Victory had cast a coquettish glance at the Springboks twice, but had chosen to bestow her favours elsewhere. Maybe discarding the word ‘Nike†from the jersey came at a price.
The coach and the team have two places they can go from here, denial or acceptance. To White’s great credit he has chosen the latter path and it is highly unlikely the 22-man squad to contest the home leg of the Tri-Nations — to be announced this weekend — will contain any bolts from the blue.
White said on day one of his tenure that continuity of team selection would be the key. His immediate predecessor, Rudolf Straeuli, picked 70 players in 18 months and never fielded the same team twice running. His selections were based on the
erroneous belief that somewhere in South Africa lived 15 perfect rugby players and all he had to do was sort the wheat from the chaff.
In reality, of course, perfect rugby players are about as numerous as the world’s unicorn population, and White’s philosophy is very different to Straeuli’s. Rightly or wrongly he has decided to work with what he has, rather than worry that he has failed to identify a genius playing on the wing for Stellaland.
So the current squad has bought itself some time and now it behoves certain individuals to use it wisely. Bearing in mind the implosion of the tight five at the key juncture of both away games, South Africa’s big men need to take a long, hard look in the mirror.
In particular the captain, Smit, must learn to impose himself both generally and at set pieces. It is not enough to adhere to a game plan and then complain that the opposition frustrated it. The game is organic and decisions have to be taken on the field, not on the blackboard. That’s not just idle criticism; it’s being deliberately harsh to make a point.
There is less pressure on players on tour than at home. On tour you have to be better than the other two or three players in your position; at home you’re up against the whole of South Africa. It hasn’t started in earnest yet, but pretty soon questions will be asked about Smit. Is he the best hooker in the country and, if not, is his ability as captain enough to justify his continued selection?
White was certain enough on both counts to appoint Smit to the captaincy long before he selected his first squad. In Smit’s favour is his undoubted fitness. In the 17-phase post-hooter movement put together by the Boks in Perth, Smit featured three times and seemed to be the only member of the tight five still capable of significant forward momentum.
A similar manpower issue is due to arise at flyhalf. White’s decision first to pluck Jaco van der Westhuyzen from Leicester and then to stick with him through thick and thin is as important to the team dynamic as the selection of Smit, but in six Tests he has yet to stamp his authority on a match. His principal weakness is the kick from hand, and while the same could be said of Stephen Larkham, the latter makes up for it with his game-breaking ability and fine defence.
Van der Westhuyzen’s selection would be less problematic if the forwards were providing solid set-piece ball, but that is not the case, so where do we go from here? With only two games left in the season, White will stick by his man and will almost certainly take him on the end-of-season tour as his principal flyhalf, but the coach must ask himself whether he is correct to be so loyal.
There are several other players who at other times and in other places would be worried about their future employment, but for a rare moment in post-isolation South African rugby history, they are not at the mercy of selection based on hidden agendas.
On the subject of which, and in conclusion, it would be clever of White to find a place for Victor Matfield in his 22, if only because he is the best player in his position in the country, despite what misinformation you may have seen elsewhere.