A great Springbok victory over the All Blacks was the first ingredient needed in the recipe for a rugby revival
RUGBY: Jon Swift
SOMEONE had to say it, and All Black coach John Hart did not disappoint. One foot on the plane? A New Zealand Test team? Pull the other one. There has never been a wearer of the silver fern who has not concentrated his all on the job at hand. The Springboks earned their victory the hard, blood-and- guts way.
And it truly was a magnificent victory in the face of a barrage of adversity, injury and an All Black side pumped up to take a 3-0 whitewash home with them. It was, even for as committed a side as Sean Fitzpatrick’s New Zealanders, a bridge too far.
The 32-22 win for Gary Teichmann’s side has engendered a number of important things for Springbok rugby. Not least of them will be a revival of confidence in a side that has been under fire from virtually every quarter.
And while the win produced the result that has so often threatened sans delivery, it cannot, in all fairness, be equated with the decisive significance of a Waterloo. But it did – swopping campaigns and generals – have some of the elements of bravery of the charge at Balaclava about it.
Somehow, if they could find a horse standing tall enough or stirrups of the length required, you can just picture Teichmann leading from the front, wielding a sabre and rallying the flagging enthusiasm as the roar of the guns grows in intensity.
The rangy Natalian has been an inspiration this season both in the way he has lifted his game to peaks that only a year or so back would have seemed beyond him, and how he has grafted this industry to the business of accepting the onerous task of captaining a losing side.
In this regard, it is of note that Francois Pienaar, one of the most inspirational of on-field leaders, and Morne du Plessis, a man who has matched this priceless ability both on and off the demarcated playing area, have not truly been a part of the mini-revival. Pienaar through injury; Du Plessis through an almost tragic indifference.
One questions whether Du Plessis will ever be persuaded to again put his personal interests on the back-burner and lend his not inconsiderable knowledge to the cause of South African rugby. More to the point, put in his position, would you? The way he has been treated is a tragedy beyond belief.
Pienaar’s position has far more thorns. It is open knowledge that he and the top brass of the South African Rugby Football Union (Sarfu) have mutually decided that swopping Christmas cards this year would be an unaccustomed politeness.
This, too, is a tragedy. But then perhaps the writing was on the wall when coach Andre Markgraaff, a man who had nothing to do with the World Cup victory, made Pienaar, a man who was central to it, prove himself by playing through an injury.
It was one of those incomprehensible decisions which must have left Pienaar – if you pardon the continuation of the military analogy – wondering why he was being so badly strafed by what is ineptly called friendly fire.
It was a time for the consideration of the fact that players are the assets and should be treated as such. Selectorial policy should be about the safeguarding and honing of these assets, merely a means of gathering the riches and distributing them wisely and evenly. In Pienaar’s case, the thinking was surely a trifle profligate.
Pienaar, one suspects, will have to do what he has done so many times in the past and come storming back. One also suspects that right now the odds are stacked against him. From a personal point of view, all power to his arm.
The players knew the value of both Pienaar and Du Plessis in the very ethos of that face-saving victory at Ellis Park last Saturday though. It was a win which took the edge off the disappointments of a series – one Hart quite rightly points out now stands 4-1 on a home-and-away basis this season – and Teichmann surely had the backing of his side when he dedicated it to Du Plessis.
It was a gesture that engendered a petty piece of churlishness from Louis Luyt, who emerged from his self-imposed isolation to immediately snatch away the offering of the players, maintaining that it was “for the 43 million South Africans, not for an individual” that the Springboks had finally come good and posted the biggest-ever Test score against an All Black side.
Luyt, a sports administrator with the perspicacity to become the first official to initiate talks with the ANC in the days when they still wore communist horns, must surely have missed the point that, in picking a man convicted of a killing with racial overtones, there is a large proportion of those millions that have lost all recently-acquired faith in Springbok rugby. But then Luyt, for all the many attributes he has proved to have, has ever cast some bewildering shadows. The victory also gained some much-needed breathing space for the coach whose record currently stands at three successes in the last eight outings. Few would doubt that he needs it. Injuries have played a major part in the havoc which has surged around him. No one of sound mind would gainsay that fact.
But there is also cause to examine the inconsistencies in what Markgraaff has done. John Allan has disappeared without trace. Steve Atherton has flitted through the side, into obscurity and then back to the bench, and James Small has been consigned to an uncertain limbo after a superb performance at fullback against the Wallabies in Bloemfontein. Add this up if you have the arithmetical ability.
There are other anomalies. Yes, losing Johan Ackermann from the second row could not have helped. But Markgraaff, a better-than-average lock in his own playing days, has taken fully eight Tests to get the lineout working to anything like international standards.
In this regard, last Saturday’s pairing of Mark Andrews and Kobus Wiese are to be congratulated. Before he went off to be replaced by Fritz van Heerden, Andrews showed one of the biggest pluses of lock forward play in this country of late. Jumping at No 4, Andrews took the loop ball with ease, nullifying to all intents and purposes the lunging tactics of Ian Jones and Robin Brooke on the flat, snap throw-in which has been the Springbok norm.
And Wiese. Truly magnificent. This, for me at least, was the performance of the match. His sheer physical presence and cerebral approach to the tough business of stoking the fires in the very innards of the scrum might have cost him a vicious eye-gouging, but it earned him a huge amount of New Zealand respect.
Wiese, to quote the vernacular, vat geen kak van helicopter pilots. And on top of that, took every one of his own put-ins. In this, he was surely helped by the return of his Transvaal teammate James Dalton at hooker. And here was another player who made a difference.
Dalton is not without his detractors. But he remains a fine player whose mobility adds significantly more to broken play than does the cumbersome Henry Tromp. The Bullet also has the ability to burrow in from a stance built disconcertingly close to the playing surface and rip out the ball.
It all added some much needed extra fire-power to the South African eight … and in consequence laid the platform of the extra half metre for Joost van der Westhuizen’s brilliance to truly shine. Two glitteringly individualistic and opportunistic tries signalled this.
There was also some almost kamikaze tackling for the All Blacks to think about and this, too, made a difference of some substance in the overall dynamics of the game. Japie Mulder’s references were clearly spelt out by Frank Bunce, who rates him highly. One can only hope that Mulder – remember that devastating tackle on Jonah Lomu in the World Cup final? – can shake off his back problems for good.
As for Henry Honiball, one tackle on Bunce’s centre partner Walter Little clearly spelt out the intentions of the lanky Underberg farmer. Little was both driven back a full two metres and unceremoniously dumped.
Quite apart from the fact that he must subconsciously have been looking for the next Honiball defensive blitzkrieg, that tackle had the effect of reversing the momentum and holding the gainline for the rest of the South African backs to arrange themselves behind.
There are still some problem areas. The front row remains a coaching nightmare, but this, one feels, can be remedied. So too can the indecision about flyhalf and the role that this pivotal position occupies in present and future tense.
But what it all adds up to was a growing understanding that here was a side both able and willing to impose its joint and several authority on a game against an extraordinary team.
South African rugby, its players and supporters alike, can take heart from this stirring outing and, while it might not fully be the plinth from which to launch the euphoria that followed a victory few in the packed Ellis Park stands would have bet on before the first whistle, is a sound basis for future embellishment.
A word of caution though. It is certainly not cause for the coach and selectors to follow the example of the cavalry at Balaclava and charge headlong at the guns.
The way Morne du Plessis has been treated is a tragedy beyond belief