Steve Morris : Rugby
It is arguably ironic in the extreme that the return of the Springbok rugby team from their victorious tour of Europe should have both enegendered an armed truce and signalled the departure of the other collection of young men who have done this country so proud.
The sight of Minister of Sport Steve Tshwete and South African Rugby Football Union (Sarfu) president Louis Luyt behaving like brothers in arms rather than the combatants they are in the reality of the court cases and commissions of inquiry which have clouded rugby administration over the past year, is not one you would expect.
But the catalytic nature of a national side coming back from the troughs of defeat to scale heights undreamt of in the slough of the Tri-Nations series earlier this year was what made this possible.
For as the Bokke, fresh from a hammering of the Scots that – in rugby terms at least – made Culloden pale into insignificance, came triumphantly home, Bafana Bafana were leaving a 2-1 defeat at the hands of world champions Brazil to fine-tune their effort for next year’s World Cup soccer tournament at the Confederation Cup in Saudi Arabia.
But at the heart of both sides is a growing pride in what they are starting to accomplish and the guiding hand of a coach who recognises where his side has come from and just where he thinks it can complete the journey.
Nick Mallett has instilled in a rugby side who knew they had the capabilities, the belief to make things work. He has done this in much the same way Clive Barker has got Bafana Bafana to France 98 – by making the players understand that doing the basics well and at speed is the basic requisite for success on the field.
It also makes playing the game fun; witness rebel with a new cause James Small’s assessment of the differences between his first tour of Europe on this country’s readmission in 1992 and the journey under the guiding hand of Mallett.
“It was,” says the man whose second try in the 68-10 devastation at Murrayfield put him one ahead of Danie Gerber’s 19 for South Africa, “a regime in 1992, not a rugby tour.”
It is also worthy of note that the player who unselfishly gave up his chance to go into the record books and fed Small the pass for that 20th try in green and gold was Percy Montgomery … and that his grin on seeing Small cross the line was almost as wide as the winning margin.
In different ways perhaps, both players owe a debt to Mallett.
Montgomery has ridden the loudly-voiced doubts on his abilities to become a fullback of devastating potential. He may still lack the crunching defensive capabilities of a centre like veteran Dick Muir – another who Mallet can lay claim to revitalising – but he has class stamped all over him and a fleetness of foot that is going to worry many defences in the years to come.
Was he ever a centre or a wing? It is doubtful. It took Mallett – and admittedly injuries to Andre Joubert and Justin Swart – to harness the potential and channel it correctly.
At fullback, Montgomery has the time to measure up the tackle and the speed to chase down most breakaways. It has changed the man forever. He shares with Joubert that spark, the sudden electricity that flows through his side when he gets the ball in hand, that marks a great player. We shall see much of him now the crushing burden of crash-balling and split-second head-on tackles have been lifted from him.
Small too has bloomed yet again under the new coaching regime, retained his on-field aggression and tempered his Terminator tendencies off it. Mallett had the nous to make him the tour’s entertainments officer; recognition of his senior status in the Springbok set-up and an in-built halter on the more headstrong part of his nature.
Small responded superbly, and it should be remembered that he laid on the pass which gave Pieter Rossouw the second of his four tries against the English at Twickenham, when in the past, Small might well have been tempted to test his reputation as one of the best finishers close to the line in world rugby and just go for it. The man’s oft-quoted conviction that he would die for this country is no less true than it was when he first started his international career. Just now you feel that he would think first before facing down the enemy guns, tempering a depth of playing valour that has yet to be fully plumbed with some inner debate.
Rossouw, Muir, Andre Snyman, Henry Honiball, Adrian Garvey and Krynauw Otto have all risen above the pressures of anonymity in one form or other and become players of stature.
Rossouw on the left wing has used his long pole-vaulter’s legs – a measure of thanks is due here to the injury which switched him from athletics to rugby – to turn on deceptive pace and demonstrate a swerve which will bring him many more tries at Test level.
Muir has shaken off the stigma of his advancing years and proved to be the midfield general who has transformed the way the backline thinks and operates.
Snyman too has prospered by the switch from wing back to centre. Here is a backline player with the speed, power and resolve to take that inside gap and cut through the oposition the way he did against both England and Scotland. Going inside looks beuatiful when it works, when it doesn’t , the lumps and bumps that result are magnified.
Honiball’s role under Mallett has perhaps been somewhat underplayed. He is being used in many instances as another loose forward coming back towards the epicentre of the scrum, drawing the opposing forwards back in and helping to open the gaps in the middle.
It is tribute to the toughness of the Underberg farmer that this has worked and he is still a whole man.
Garvey was recalled to demonstrate what most people already knew; this is a ball player who should never have been out of reckoning for the Bok side over the past four years,
Otto too has bloomed. From a man who seemed destined to stay in the shadows at international level, he has become a presence in the lineouts and one of the more mobile second rowers to have partnered Mark Andrews.
It has been this bonding of diverse spirits into an entity with a single purpose that will be the lasting legacy of a tour where the Springboks opened up and scored a monumental 35 tries in five Tests, laying waste to all before them.
The frightening thing though is that we probably haven’t seen the best of them yet. It is something that Mallett is working hard to achieve. His plan to contract the top 25 or 30 players to Sarfu rather than leave them entirely open to the whims of their respective unions is one aspect worthy of note.
With a Springbok staring something like 40 international, Super 12 , Currie Cup and sundry other representative games in the face, the burn-out factor that Australian captain John Eales talks about is a coach’s greatest modern nightmare.
Mallett must make this work. For not even a coach as cerebral as he is, as perceptive as Bafana’s Barker, can rebuild a new side every year.
ENDS