`I can’t understand it”, said Sean Fitzpatrick, “everyone’s being nice to me for a change.” Back in South Africa on a trip to promote New Zealand as a holiday destination, Fitzpatrick needs to understand one thing: people wouldn’t be half as nice if they thought he was going to run out of the tunnel at King’s Park on Saturday at the head of the All Black Test team. Put another way, you get a lot more respect when you’re retired.
That retirement happened halfway through the Super 12 and was rumoured well beforehand, but it’s safe to speculate that not even Fitzpatrick could have guessed the effect it would have on the national side. What the latest All Black incarnation most obviously needs is an inspirational leader, which is not to belittle the efforts of Taine Randell, but merely to point out that Fitzpatrick is a hard act to follow.
Still, the re-invention of the All Black team is under way and win or lose, Randell will be an integral part of it, whether he plays at eighth man or in his preferred position on the side of the scrum. It is less certain how many more of the new faces in the team to face the Springboks on Saturday will become part of the familiar wallpaper of All Black team sheets.
Isitolo Maka is what is euphemistically known as an impact player and his inclusion, together with the return of Josh Kronfeld, is the reason for Randell’s move from the back of the scrum. Maka looks a good player, but hardly a legend in the making.
Equally, Carl Hoeft’s selection in the loose-head prop berth has the feel of speculation about it. Craig Dowd’s stock may have taken a dive recently, but he is the kind of battle-hardened pro that any team would love to have in a World Cup squad.
The biggest risk of all that coach John Hart has taken lies in the selection of Auckland lock Royce Willis, ahead of Ian Jones. But it is a selection that has interesting parallels.
Fitzpatrick again: “When I first came into the test team it was as part of the Baby Blacks as we became known. In one season I went from being the third-choice hooker for Auckland to the All Black Test hooker. Before my first Test, one of the more experienced players took it upon himself to introduce me to a few people and he forgot my name!”
Willis has had almost as meteoric a rise, having been absent from the draft list for the four New Zealand Super 12 teams at the beginning of the year. And while the number of experienced players in this team could hardly earn the Hollywood-style appellation of Baby Blacks II, the presence of Willis reminds us that the strength of New Zealand rugby has always been its ability to go back to the future.
But Maka and Willis aside, Hart could be criticised for being rather conservative with his new broom. He has moved Mark Mayerhofler from outside to inside centre, and after an absence of five years brought Eroni Clarke back into the team to play in Frank Bunce’s discarded number 13 shirt.
Clarke was so convinced that his chance with the All Blacks had gone that he seriously considered an offer from Samoan coach Bryan Williams to play for the land of his fathers in next year’s World Cup. If he had gone that route, it would have provided nice symmetry, because the last time the World Cup was played in Britain, Bunce played his way into the All Black side by helping Western Samoa to the quarter- finals.
Clarke is a good player, but he is not Frank Bunce. If Hart had truly wanted to experiment he should have picked Norm Berryman at centre. Fitzpatrick believes that Berryman’s best position is wing, pointing out that he only plays centre for Northlands in the second division of New Zealand rugby.
But Berryman has exactly the kind of quick-off-the-mark, bruising style that has made Andr Snyman famous. He could yet be a legend at next year’s World Cup, but only if Hart eschews his conservatism in time.
It may seem contradictory, but conservatism is what has got Nick Mallett where he is today, on the brink of victory in the Tri-Nations. It is no doubt a wonderful feeling to know that your team has won twice away from home and has yet to truly gel, and that you can afford to keep players on the bench who are quite possibly better than those on the pitch.
Most teams, for instance, would give their eye teeth for Bobby Skinstad, but Mallett knows the Western Province flanker’s worth and he also knows his youth.
It is no secret that, while happy promoting the outrageous smokescreen of making him into a centre, Mallett’s actual long-term aim is to give the number seven shirt to Skinstad and move Andr Venter into the lock position. Given Venter’s sometimes peerless play that might seem an obtuse use of resources, but what a wonderful dilemma for any coach to be in.
Equally, it will not have escaped Mallett’s attention that a fit-again Gaffie du Toit is now doing to Currie Cup teams what he did to Vodacom Cup teams earlier in the season. The try Du Toit scored to beat the Blue Bulls and the drop goals he rattled off against Natal suggest that, like Skinstad, his time will come sooner rather than later.
Saturday’s game at King’s Park against the All Blacks will be the 51st test between them, and possibly the least significant. The outcome of the match will have little bearing on who wins the Tri-Nations – that will be decided in Johannesburg against Australia next week -but should the Boks win, it will be a significant psychological preparation for Ellis Park.
Anyone who plays the world champions at the venue where they lifted the trophy better be performing at the zenith of their ability to win. Louis Luyt’s home tuft is right up on the inhospitable highveld and in the heartland of rugby.
On Saturday, the odds are on that South Africa will win, considering their run of good form and New Zealand’s run of bad luck and team changes. Won’t Gary Teichmann be happy to win in front of his home crowd! He certainly deserves it.
The Springbok team which wins the Tri- Nations will receive Mallett’s praise, but expect some fine tuning on the tour to Britain at the end of the season.
If nothing else, the implosion of the All Blacks and the exposure of Hart’s methods will have taught Mallett that stasis is not always the path to success.
And he doesn’t even have a Sean Fitzpatrick to make do without.