RUGBY: Jon Swift
NOW this country has its one rugby side. And that side — or as many as Kitch Christie can substitute against Natal this Saturday — has one game. There are two schools of thought about what promises to be as hotly-contested an encounter as the President’s XV match against Western Province was last weekend.
One stems from a perspective somewhat isolated from the 26-man squad rather than from that of the players, holding that the final warm-up before the opening World Cup encounter against Australia at Newlands should be as tough as it can. These hardliners believe that the game is no place for the fainthearted; no vehicle for those not prepared to accept on a weekly basis the physical risk of playing the game at the highest level.
They have a somewhat dubious point; one made stronger by the fact that the team has yet to settle down to the top combination and the benchwarmers. The danger of laying back and waiting for the opening World Cup encounter against Australia at Newlands on May 25 is a very real one.
It was successfully expressed by South African manager Morne du Plessis: “We cannot wrap the guys in cotton wool,” is the way the rangy former SA captain put it. “And players get injured in practise.”
In laying out this brand of thinking from within the team camp, Du Plessis successfully shoots down the feelings of anyone conservative enough to believe that squad training is all that remains between our side and the opening whistle of the World Cup.
He is right. Cotton-wooling our World Cup hopefuls is a self defeating exercise. The path to the final is a difficult one at best and, while it would be a tragedy if any of the squad were injured against Natal, it would also be foolish to believe that there are no hard knocks on the horizon for the 26 chosen.
Christie made no bones about this. “To win the World Cup you have to take on the best in the world,” is his way of thinking. And simplistic as that may sound, it is a reality which has to be faced.
There are few areas of weakness in the Wallaby side which is South Africa’s first assignment. They are big, they are mobile and even the tight forwards handle like top flight threequarters. And a loss in the opening game means a huge psychological setback — perhaps the more expressive Afrikaans phrase terugslag is more appropriate — and points to a meeting with the hard men of England in the quarterfinals.
That said though, there seem to be few real weaknesses in the squad Christie and his panel have put together for the month-long meeting of 16 of the world’s top rugby nations.
Much has been made of the exclusion of Tiaan Strauss. He is a superb player, arguably the toughest of the current crop of South African loose forwards and has been performing as if the devil were on his tail. But Strauss, fine servant that he has proved to be for this country, does not fit the pattern Christie seeks. His tendency to isolate himself and his propensity to go over the ball, sadly, counted against him. There are and always will be players — some of them great players — who don’t fit the thinking.
Strauss is undoubtedly unlucky to be relegated to the role of standby. The team and the nation will miss his presence.
But if Strauss is stuck with one leg in the old pattern and the other in the morass of changing legislation, perhaps the opposite is true of new caps Robbie Brink and Marius Hurter. Both are imbued with the spirit of the path the new laws have progressed along. There is no second guessing the way Brink attacks the game. Just such a spirited performance against the President’s XV at Newlands last weekend opened the door for the tall 23- year-old.
Hurter is an equally important find and could land up being one of the inspired selections. He is old enough at 25 to have served his apprenticeship with Western and Northern Transvaal to have learnt his trade and young enough to adapt to any new vagaries the rugby brainstrust come up with over their post-match drinks. And to this can be added the fact that Hurter is a fine footballer, unlike the props of old who, as the old saying went, played beautifully until someone gave them the ball.
It is the footballing attributes of the squad which are really more impressive when taken as a whole than the individual claims of those unlucky enough to have missed the cruelty of the cut.
It begins with the “one country, one side” slogan adopted for the competition and carries through the team. Versatility was what Christie said he was aiming for. It is what he has in abundance.
Among the backs, Gavin Johnson and Hennie le Roux are capable of filling more than one particular position without too much eyebrow lifting. James Small, with Chester Williams one of the two wings, is also a more than capable fullback at provincial level.
Even scrumhalf Joost van der Westhuizen has not restricted his talents at international level to wearing the No 9. He has substituted both as a wing and a flank forward in Test matches.
This versatility has allowed Christie the luxury of selecting the extra forward. And even then, there is versatility aplenty among the 15 named.
Rudolph Straueli and Adriaan Richter both have abundant experience on the flank as well as in their chosen position at the back of the scrum. Indeed, it is from flank that Straueli leads the side to take on Natal, giving captain Francois Pienaar a break.
Brink can switch to No 8 and the uncapped Krynauw Otto — another fine young footballer — is as effective on the flank as he is at lock. In this area, it is well not to forget that Mark Andrews, our standout second row forward in the nine tests he has played thus far, was first selected for the national side as a flanker.
Yes, the side might be lacking some of the faces one would have expected the South African selectors to choose. And there might yet be some words spoken about what could be construed as a lack of cover in some areas among the backline. But in essence, we have a workable and talented side to pin our hopes on. Somehow, even if Natal upset the odds and beat the national side — as Western Province came so close to doing before that last gasp Joel Stransky drop goal –it is one we can be truly proud of.