Steve Morris: Rugby
The public ourpourings of support from the rugby tsars, besieged as they currently are in a winter palace of growing national discontent, for Springbok coach Carel du Plessis, have the distinctly hollow ring of those who protest too much.
Du Plessis is under fire for a string of dubious decisions about the composition of the team and a list of failures that, had he been responsible to shareholders rather than the paternalistic Louis Luyt-led South African Rugby Football Union, (Sarfu) would surely have caused him to seek alternative employment.
Ironically, it is the very lack of success of Du Plessis to animate the team he steers into winning mode – this, one feels, despite the players rather than because of them – which has drawn the sting of much of the unhappiness about rugby in this country in totality.
The Springboks are the focus of current displeasure. As a nation we are, like the New Zealand All Blacks, unused to losing, and turn ugly in consistent defeat. The worst profile of this unwelcome South African face showed in the unsporting indiscipline which cost All Black captain Sean Fitzpatrick some spilt blood and Springbok flanker Andre Venter a red card from Welsh referee Derrick Bevan.
There can be no doubt that Fitzpatrick has been known to rile the opposition in any way he can – it was, after all, the veteran hooker who so infuriated Springbok prop Johan le Roux that the South African led the way to the subsequent ear-biting of Evander Holyfield by Mike Tyson.
That incident effectively ended Le Roux’s international career. Venter’s is on hold for three weeks, but he has become a marked man and rekindled the charges of foul play the Springboks have worked so hard to eradicate in their play.
Venter, much as he deserved his punishment, was contrite. Fitzpatrick, while clearly not happy about the ad hoc maxilofacial surgery, took it like a man who has captained his country 50 times and kept his on-field composure.
In this incident lay a salutary lesson for the South African coach and his players. The New Zealanders are no angels in the close encounters and constantly looking to get a man over the ball in the loose. But, when they face the physical retribution that so often comes in a game as robust as rugby, they accept it as part and parcel of the game as a whole.
In this, Fitzpatrick is a past master. Who can forget the way he conned three penalty points out of John Allen by giving him a greeting more akin to the streets of Liverpool than of Auckland in the first scrum of a Test match last season. Allen, who had worn the colours of both Scotland and South Africa against the All Blacks, should have expected something of this nature and known better than to flare up and throw a punch at Fitzpatrick right in front of the referee.
Ahead of the Springboks lies the final Tri- Nations match against the Australians, a side which has already shown, in the debacle of Brisbane, that they more than have the measure of the South Africans.
This match represents the real watershed for Du Plessis. Excuses can surely be made for losing to the All Blacks at Ellis Park in the committed manner that characterised the Springbok play in that superb encounter. There was no disgrace in defeat that day, although the shakiness of the scaffolding shoring up a backline erected by Du Plessis was already evident.
There is also a case to be made for trying to win away from home against teams as polished and professional as the Wallabies and New Zealand. At home, as the race to avoid the Tri-Nations wooden spoon reaches ground zero, Du Plessis must surely understand that it is a time of put up or shut up.
Luyt has his own problems, not least of them a public perception that he is the puppeteer behind the tangled web that has caused the national team to dance such a disjointed jig to the music of a coach seemingly tone deaf to the seamless rhythms of the modern game.
And Luyt, under attack by a Ministry of Sport-inspired probe into the inner machinations of the game, its sponsorships, its commissions and its apparent lack of largesse in the area of development; under fire from the provinces over which he has established a sullen shogunate; and roundly criticised at every turn, does not want another unwanted area of public discontent.
If it is a choice between the expediencies of removing the coach and the immediacy of holding Sarfu together in the format it now enjoys, there can be little doubt that there is only one option facing Luyt.
It is a sad scenario, but one which Du Plessis – and the unrelenting hourglass of historical timing – has brought on himself. He has had the material to work with – including a captain in Gary Teichmann who, while no Francois Pienaar, has led with physical commitment and unblemished dignity throughout – and yet stubbornly refused to take the logical route of feeding young players into an established team to serve an apprenticeship, choosing instead to rely on a vision of the 1999 World Cup in Wales that only he can see with any clarity.
It showed in the huge difference James Dalton made to the pack on his return to the side, the thrust that the superb class of James Small added to the backline and the incisive tackling of Henry Honiball in the midfield on defence.
Sadly, it has been a spate of injuries as much as the power of reason that led Du Plessis to utilising the talents of these three as his push for youth lost momentun in the defensive frailties of Percy Montgomery and Danie van Schalkwyk at centre, the positional shortcomings of Russell Bennett at fullback, and the way Krynauw Otto’s inability to raise his game to Test level has left him looking like the phantom of the second row opera.
No, Luyt’s backing of the man he hand- picked as national coach when his first choice, Andre Markgraaff, was hoist on a particularly nasty racial petard, will disappear once the barbarians of raging public opinion really storm the gates.
And, sadly, anyone who follows when the inevitable happens and the situation vacant notices go out at Sarfu, will have to live with what has been left behind. It is not a happy thought to contemplate if the game of rugby football means anything to you.