Steve Morris: Rugby
It is indeed a sad indictment of the thought processes which idly bestir the muddied machinations of Springbok selection that Andre Joubert should be considered a reluctant second choice in the green and gold.
It is also all well and good to talk of utilising youth to build towards the 1999 World Cup in Wales and hold up the lack of second wind in an ageing All Black side that let Australia dominate the final 40 minutes of the match at Dunedin as proof that the policy of bringing down the average age of the Springbok side is the right path to follow.
The facts of the matter are simply this: the All Blacks won against the Wallabies at Carisbrook, the Springboks are winless in the Tri-Nations series, and this country is in very real danger of owning both the southern hemisphere wooden spoon and the William Webb-Ellis trophy simultaneously.
On current form, the Australian side looks too much for the Springboks to handle. The South Africans simply lack the cohesion and single-mindedness of one purpose which marked the success of Francois Pienaar’s World Cup winners. In short, we have the players – although not all of them are in the side – but we are not a team in anything much but name.
Russell Bennett will probably one day become the footballing fullback that Andre Markgraaff, the unlamented predecessor of Carel du Plessis as coach, predicted he would be. But surely Du Plessis – a man so cerebral as a player and so tone deaf to the nuances of what is happening around him now he is an involved spectator – can see that time is not now.
Joubert will probably not make the next World Cup. Indeed, he has already made his intentions of retiring public. But right now, there simply is not another fullback with the depth of experience, the anticipation and positional nous to match him.
James Small and Henry Honiball are two others where this seeming indifference to talent in the quest for the fountain of youth has shown up badly. Small, for all his high profile attitudinal problems, remains a world-class player, yet he has had to almost wheedle his way back into the winger’s jersey that should have been his by right. And this stemming from the thinking of a man who was the prince of wings in his own day. Somewhere there is a gap in logic.
The same holds true for Honiball. Relieved of the flyhalf’s role for his inability to match the accuracy and success of Jannie de Beer – and rightly so – Honiball was relegated to the bench and the tyro centre pairing of Danie van Schalkwyk and Percy Montgomery preferred.
It told in the missed tackles, lost opportunities and failure to retain possession under pressure from a midfield which should have been slowly nurtured rather than allowed to flounder in the confusion of having been catapulted into an arena of an intensity they simply were not equipped to handle. Tragically, it took a brutal injury to Van Schalkwyk to change this course.
It is also beyond comprehension why Du Plessis would separate the thinking on a centre not ready for Test rugby from a lock forward deeply imbued with its tougher and more physical nature.
Kobus Wiese continues to be ignored on the grounds of form – and Wiese is a presence of such proportions that Mark Andrews always looks a better player – while Montgomery is encouraged to play himself in. Wiese should have been an automatic choice for his sheer bulk and ability to rampage through the tight loose.
Like Joubert, he might not be a candidate for Wales in 1999, but he sure as hell is good enough at present and would have made a power of difference against the All Black pack, where the equally huge Krynauw Otto all but disappeared from view.
There is nothing inherently wrong with the saying that “if he’s good enough, he’d old enough” in the blooding of young players at the highest level. And again, there is no doubt that, like Bennett, Montgomery and Van Schalkwyk are players of the future. But there must be some debate as to whether they were indeed good enough right now, whatever their ages.
The lines the coach has drawn – and in this it must be said that the coach is always the most convenient target in defeat – have had a lot to do with the lack of a coherent plan and a toenadering of effort among the side.
This surely stems from two factors: the intransigent thinking of a rookie coach in Du Plessis, and the iconoclastic and patronising attitude of the rugby politicians who put him in the hot seat in the first place.
We have no guarantees that the Wallabies are going to allow this country to pass them back the last-place finish of last year for a second time running. The Aussie coach, Greg Smith, may be under just as much pressure from the public back home to hand over the reins as is Du Plessis, but Smith has nevertheless managed to put together a side which has looked inestimably more inventive, infinitely more capable, than has Du Plessis.
It is a great sadness. In the space of seven matches under Du Plessis we have become, as a rugby nation, more like delegated opponents than feared opposition. A record half century plus of points run past our disorganised and defensively understrength backline in the 55-35 hiding handed out at Eden Park is proof positive of that.
And the way the Wallabies dismantled the once proud Springboks in the emphatic hiding at Brisbane showed that it is not just New Zealand who come into a game against South Africa with a great deal less than the awe of old.
Equally sadly, it has taken the attrition of a set of injuries for Du Plessis to make the calls he should have done from day one, taking the best of the available talent and using it as a platform to feed in the younger players on a base of strength. This Saturday at Loftus Versfeld in Pretoria, Du Plessis faces crisis point for his reign in the coaching hot seat. Another failure and the hidden axes will surely flash in the wintry Highveld sun.
And, somehow, no matter what South African Rugby Football Union president Louis Luyt may currently say to the contrary as the man who pays Du Plessis, there is the distinct feeling that those axes have already been honed to razor sharpness.
Only the unlikely fact of a Springbok victory – a win that can only be won of passion alone – will save him.