RUGBY: Jon Swift
WEARING a crown is one of the most uncomfortable and unwieldy=20 burdens given to sporting champions. Certainly, this proved the case for=20 South Africa at Ellis Park last Saturday. Even the 40-11 final scoreline=20 against the 14 Welshmen who remained on the field at the final whistle=20 didn=D5t quite re-gild the tarnish or straighten the uncomfortable angle of= the=20 Springbok World Cup diadem. South Africa=D5s captain Francois Pienaar was quick to admit this=20 immediately after the often unstructured Test encounter which grew more=20 ill-tempered as the minutes ticked by. =D2There will be a lot of sides coming at us the way Wales did over the nex=
four years,=D3 he said. Indeed there will be. And a good number of them wil=
undoubtedly be better equipped than were Wales. The pressures =D1 on and off the field =D1 of the transition from the amate=
era to the first international of the professional era and the onus of=20 performing as world champions were there for all to see in the first two=20
In this period, the invariably safe Mark Andrews managed to drop the=20 Welsh kick-off; the normally supercool Joel Stransky succeeded in kicking=
the ball out on the full and Kobus Wiese contrived to remove Welsh lock=20 Derwyn Jones from further participation with a punch Mike Tyson would=20 not have been ashamed to claim ownership of. It led to the only Welsh try of the game as flanker Mark Bennett crashed=20 over from the resultant line-out. And it cost Wiese a citing and a 30-day=
suspension and led to the logical thought that, as a professional, this sho=
cost the massive South African lock hard currency as well as the indignity=
of being warned off. Having embraced professionalism, the International=20 Rugby Board will surely have to address this. Sad that Wiese should have been the one to physically demonstrate the=20 indiscipline which the Springboks have been branded with in world rugby.=20 And equally tragic that such a fine forward should have let his baser=20 instincts overrule his worth and talents as a player. The towering presence of big Kobus made some amends by crashing over=20 after 18 minutes in an almost mirror image of the Bennett try in the first =
five times South Africa were eventually to cross the Welsh line. But the Wiese-Jones flare-up as the first five points went on the board for=
the Welsh was the first open explosion of the niggle which was to last=20 throughout, escalating to the fist-fighting charge by replacement hooker=20 Darin Jenkins on Joost van der Westhuizen. It was a rush of blood to the=20 head that cost Jenkins any chance of seeing out the last three minutes of t=
game =D1 the sixth Welsh player to be sent off in an international =D1 and =
similar 30-day suspension. Any cash sanctions related to match fees would=
cost Jenkins less than Wiese. For in one of the other anomalies sure to become even more common in the=20 paid game, a proportion of the Welshman=D5s contracted fee would =D1 by=20 estimation as the Springbok contracts are confidential =D1 be substantially=
lower, coming off a base of around R100 000 a season, than a slice of=20 Wiese=D5s pay packet. If these were the outward manifestations of the Welsh insistence on lying=
offside for most of the game =D1 =D2There was a Welsh player standing next =
Joost sometimes,=D3 was the way Pienaar put it =D1 and the acceptance of=20 French referee Joel Dume to allow this throughout, the less obvious aspects=
of a less-than-spectacular Springbok display were not exactly hidden. From=20that nerviously skittish start, which landed up in Bennett=D5s try, =
Springboks struggled to find any real cohesion or rhythm. =D2We simply=20 cannot allow soft tries like that,=D3 said Pienaar.
Pienaar had earned himself the second Springbok try just short of half- time. It was just reward for a man who stood out among the Springbok=20 forwards. There never seems to be a game where Pienaar doesn=D5t give his=
all and then that touch more. He does not deserve his detractors. But as the clock wound towards the first hour of play, Wales stayed right i=
the hunt. It took the brilliance of Andre Joubert and the equally stellar=
talents with the ball in his hand of Jacques Olivier to breathe some much- needed life into the world champions. Whenever either of these two started moving =D1 and indeed when Van der=20 Westhuizen touched the ball =D1 you could almost see the electricity of fea=
run through the Welsh ranks. The threat they posed was realised when, almost on the hour, first James=20 Small, then debutant Gary Teichmann =D1 and a fine debut too at No 8 =D1=20 and then centre Japie Mulder went over to firmly erase any hopes the=20 Welsh might still have had of downing the Springboks in their own=20
South Africa always looked dangerous with the ball spread wide. Less so=20 when the game was kept tight and played round the fringes. The trap of=20 over-elaboration near the scrum is still one the South Africans fall willin=
victims to. This persistent failing makes them look ordinary at times.=20 Coach Kitch Christie recognised this after the match. =D2Well, we won,=D3 h=
said laconically. =D2We have something to build on.=D3 And build on this performance South Africa must. The crown the side=20 wears will weigh heavier with every succeeding 80 minutes they are called=
on to play before the defence of the World Cup begins at Cardiff Arms=20 Park in 1999. Ahead lie assignments against Italy in Rome and England at=20
No possible amount of money paid to the players can be used to soften the=
workload ahead. But, on the bright side, the first Test is over and a five-=
to-one record victory against Wales notched up. Things can only get better=
from here on in.
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