Injuries have hit the Springboks hard and coach Carel du Plessis’s biggest problem will be the locks
RUGBY:Steve Morris
THERE is a foreboding feeling of desperation creeping into the deliberations of new national coach Carel du Plessis ahead of the arduous season of Test rugby which lies ahead.
In the interests of our national rugby side – world champions on paper if not particularly of recent record – Du Plessis has asked for any number of switches and readjustments to the thinking and priorities of provincial coaches.
Du Plessis it was who prevailed on Gauteng coach Ray Mordt to give wing Pieter Hendriks a run after injury.
It was a card played in the hope that the flying Hendriks – rated one of the best finishers in world rugby – had come back far enough from his injury to fill the gap left by Jacques Olivier and Chester Williams joining the growing list of this season’s savage list of walking wounded.
The experiment had some merit and some success. Hendriks showed touches of his huge talent, but the rider must be added that he has yet to see out a full 80 minutes and, with the best will in the world, the demotivated, listless and under- strength Natal side he faced are a far cry from a Test series against the British Lions.
Yet who can blame Du Plessis for opening every avenue available? He simply has to get as much into his notebook as possible before naming his squad on June 2.
To this end, Kobus Wiese and Hennie le Roux will be pulling Eastern Province jersies over their heads this weekend in a frantic dash to ensure that they are both match fit and sufficiently recovered to throw them in at the deep end again against Tonga at Newlands on June 10.
Significantly, Du Plessis has also asked that Le Roux be played at centre rather than at flyhalf in the opening game of the 12-match British Lions tour. Le Roux and Japie Mulder have virtually made this pairing their own.
And, while it is no secret that Le Roux prefers the pivot’s role, it is in the midfield that he has truly made his mark as a Springbok and an international player of note.
Wiese will be back to take over the cpataincy of Gauteng. Le Roux will in all likelihood look for a team spot as far away from Ellis Park as possible after being branded a “quitter” by Louis Luyt.
In this respect, Luyt should know better than to denigrate and humiliate one of his greatest assets. Le Roux may well have been at the forefront of the negotiations for professional status among the players who made up the Transvaal squad immediately after the World Cup. He might also well have aroused the ire of Luyt, never a man to let go of a real or perceived slight to his almost despotic insistence in running things his own way. But Le Roux remains a player of immense value to any side, not least of these the Springboks.
Wiese’s case is somewhat different from a Springbok perspective. Du Plessis faces the prospect of the two first-choice lock forwards of last season not being available for the game against Tonga if Mark Andrews cannot recover from his shoulder injury in time.
In the case of Andrews, Du Plessis again made his presence felt by insisting that Natal coach Ian McIntosh allow Andrews to stand down from Super 12 commitments when the province desperately needed him. Still, there is every indication that Andrews will miss the game euphemistically billed as a warm-up for the Lions.
The Tongans are perhaps the world’s leading exponents of the big hit theory of rugby football and to bill this as a match to kick-start the Springbok engine is perhaps stretching the bounds of incredulity somewhat.
Wiese is a massive physical presence; a forward rightly respected and feared by opponents for his ability to drive the ball across the advantage line and his sheer bulk as a platform for the front row in the tight encounters.
Andrews is what Doc Craven used to call a footballer; a man with the athleetic ability to soar high against locks of the calibre of Australia’s John Eales and All Black Ian Jones and yet still run with the ball in his hand with the verve of an elongated flyhalf.
Together they make one of the most awesome second-row pairings in world rugby. Yet if both Wiese and Andrews fail the litmus test set them, it would mean that the immediate options open to Du Plessis are to play the ever-dependable Hannes Strydom with either Krynauw Otto or Braam Els.
Strydom, as tough and honest a forward as has ever been born, has never let any side he has played for down. He is, it must also be remembered, a member of the World Cup- winning side. Yet there cannot but be some hesitation in comparing him with Andrews as a lineout jumper.
There must also be some questions about Otto – himself only just back from injury – in the engine room on his performances thus far at international level. And Els, though a magnificent jumper and enjoying a huge season, has yeet to be blooded in a Test.
It is not a scenario that Du Plessis would have wanted when he was catapulted into the Springbok hot seat.
What it all adds up to is this. If the Tongans give us more than the surface- skimming critics would have us bargain for at Newlands in two week’s time, we are in trouble.
For ahead lies the Lions, a side dedicated to taking the Test series above all else. Without the very best this country has to take them on, we are in the unenviable position of a man frantically trying to stamp out a fire in a dynamite factory.