Andy Capostagno Rugby
There was a moment when it became clear that South Africa could win the 1995 Rugby World Cup. It was the moment that Stephen Hilditch blew his whistle to signal the end of the match between Swansea and the Springboks on Saturday, November 5 1994; bonfire night.
The final score was Swansea 7, South Africa 78, but those of us who were lucky enough to be at the St Helens ground that day shook our heads not at the size but at the manner of the victory.
The Springboks put the club champions of Wales to the sword by a margin of 12 tries to one. Andr Joubert scored four of them and converted nine for a personal tally of 38 points. He played that day like a man under an enchantment. One kick through the defence saw the ball bounce away from the last vestige of cover, then lift itself one final time into the air before being gathered by Joubert on his way to score. It was as though the ball waited for him.
Joubert was the fulcrum, but the whole team played like angels that day. In the small hours of the next morning Uli Schmidt, a rational man reduced by the manner of victory to childish wonderment, let off a firework in the corridor of the hotel which set off the smoke alarms. If the intention of the prank had been to rouse the hotel, it failed. Most were so drunkenly happy that they slept through the noise and would probably have sent death himself away with a flea in his bony ear.
Why dwell on such things when only two World Cup-winning Springboks played in the Tri-Nations decider against Australia? Because there was a moment last Saturday when it became clear that South Africa could win the 1999 Rugby World Cup. It was when Bobby Skinstad threw a dummy so outrageously perfect that it would have made the Mona Lisa break into a belly laugh.
Ironic that a moment of such levity should have been produced by a South African. We are regarded as dour and humourless in most of the rest of the world, an impression that would have been reinforced by the actions of a few arrogant pin-heads in the Ellis Park crowd.
It is to be hoped that such pond life cannot afford the air fare to watch the Springboks come into their kingdom for a second time in Europe next year.
Now is the time to praise famous men. Nick Mallett has built a team deficient in several areas, but filled to bursting point with character. It is a team which has learnt how to tackle as if its life depended upon it, how to close out despair and emerge victorious from 23-5 down, how to embellish the workaday moves of the training field with flair, and most importantly of all, how to win.
That’s enough praise. Now is the time to be ruthless. The squad has returned to provincial life, some with greater enthusiasm than others. The Currie Cup is the next goal for the players, but for Mallett the tour to the United Kingdom in November and December will already be exercising his mind. He has built a squad which laughs in the face of provincialism and enjoys its own company. Now is the time to break it up.
Henry Honiball, Joost van der Westhuizen, Mark Andrews and Pieter Muller should be told to put their feet up immediately their Currie Cup duties have ended. All four have nothing left to prove by enduring the cold and wet of a British year end. It may seem harsh on their bank balances in the short term, but the dividends of time spent at home will repay them far more certainly than the faltering rand.
The tour to Britain should, in some respects, be treated as a development exercise, which is not to say that it should include players of colour just for the sake of it. Instead it should be a chance for Mallett to develop a pattern of play away from the comfort zone of Honiball in the number 10 shirt.
Gaffie du Toit’s extraordinary skills may become the placebo for the new millennium, in which case he needs to be given a run in the relatively relaxed circumstances of a British tour.
For Honiball is only human and without wishing the gentleman farmer any harm, there will come a time when he is unavailable, and injuries being the pain in the backside that they are, that time may be during the World Cup. After all, it happened in 1995.
There have been times this season when Van der Westhuizen has seemed to be the spanner in Mallett’s works, rather than the petrol which drives the engine. But only Van der Westhuizen would have scored that try at King’s Park. Like Honiball, his name on the team sheet puts the fear of God into opponents.
So rather than give the northern hemisphere coaches a leisurely chance to work him out, leave him at home and build Werner Swanepoel’s game instead.
The absence of Pieter Muller from tour would allow further backline appraisals. Franco Smith may be the man for the job at inside centre, but don’t forget the precocious talents of Griquas’s Lourens Venter.
Again, Britain is the place to find out these things. Selborne Boome would, if you’ll pardon the pun, jump at the chance of a Test place at lock in the stead of Andrews and there are many more options for a bold coach to try.
Having achieved all he has in one year, it would be foolish to attempt to tell Mallett how to do his job. He may happily take a full-strength squad to Britain and hang the consequences. But wouldn’t it be nice to send a less than wholly representative side to exact revenge from the British and Irish, even if they couldn’t afford to stay in the equivalent of the Mount Nelson Hotel on the way around?