The Springbok onslaught has already drawn blood in the UK. Will Wales be able to stop the flood? Andy Colquhoun reports from London
New coach Graham Henry has been portrayed as Welsh rugby’s “great redeemer” in a controversial advertising campaign which borrows from the words of a popular hymn.
But the bright young things in the ideas department might as easily have plonked a crown on Henry’s head and stuck him on a chair in Cardiff Bay as he’s much more likely to be playing King Canute against the Springboks on Saturday.
The South African game is surfing on the crest of a rugby wave after a Tri-Nations win and a thrilling Currie Cup competition and it is about to come crashing down on the four home unions. Already the painfully limited Glasgow Caledonians have been swamped 62-9 and Wales are next, at Wembley.
The smart money – if you could get a bet on anywhere – is on Nick Mallett’s side to complete a fifth grand slam of victories (to follow those of 1912/13, 1931/32, 1951/52 and 1960/61) and a record 18 successive Test victories.
With two home Tests against Italy to start 1999, after the deluge could come numbers 19 and 20.
No local analyst here in Britain has dared punt the opinion that any team has the beating of Mallett’s side and even the four home union coaches can’t agree on where the Springbok weaknesses might lie. In a survey of these four coaches by the London Sunday Times, two offered the opinion that there weren’t any, while Ireland’s Warren Gatland muttered something about temperament and Jim Telfer of Scotland suggested the scrummage was a weakness – a relative weakness, he added.
The scrummage actually looked awesomely strong as it shunted the Caleys around Firhill Park on Tuesday night – despite giving away 3kg per man – and this, after all, was only the second team.
It was a stop-start performance, but a 10- try return without playing really well demonstrated a pace and directness which was simply too much for the home side. The ease with which Breyton Paulse scored a hat-trick against James Craig – reputed to be the quickest man in Scottish rugby – should have sent a chill down the spine of the British game.
But Saturday sees the start of the real stuff at a sold-out Wembley stadium. The hamstring injuries to full-back Percy Montgomery and flanker Rassie Erasmus have all but cleared up. And the Springboks should show only one change to the side which clinched the Tri-Nations in Johannesburg in August with Franco Smith replacing the injured Pieter Muller at inside centre.
For two Springboks it will be a special day. Gary Teichmann will win his 30th cap as captain, leaving behind Francois Pienaar in the record books, and lock Mark Andrews will become the first Springbok to win 50 Test caps.
A win too would relegate Kitch Christie’s name – in this instance only – to the footnotes of the game as this team would be completing a 15th successive victory, so exceeding Christie’s golden run in 1995.
But Mallett has warned against complacency and native arrogance on enough occasions for us not to overlook the revitalised challenge of Wales.
A new dawn is reported to be breaking in Welsh rugby but it is hard for observers not to be jaundiced. If the Welsh rugby team slaughtered at Loftus had been given a point start for every new dawn their game had witnessed, then they would probably have won by 150 points to 96.
The game in the principality has been in a permanent state of crisis for the best part of two decades. The other side of that particular coin has been an almost priapic state of expectation as each new coach or acclaimed heir to Gareth Edwards has been hailed as a messiah before the ritual crucifixion after a couple of defeats.
Auckland’s Henry should be different, if only for the simple fact that he can have no delusions about how far off the pace is the game in the northern hemisphere and particularly in Wales.
He has been given a five-year contract – which reputedly makes him the best-paid coach in the world game – but it’s a sign of how far Wales have plunged that his brief in 1999 is not so much to win the damn World Cup as not embarrass the hosts.
Only backs Mark Taylor, wing Daffyd James and loose forward Colin Charvis have survived from the Pretoria massacre and the return of the likes of centre Scott Gibbs and number eight Scott Quinnell should give them some much-needed physical presence.
But the clear-out goes further than that. Only five players survive from the first- choice 15 which went down by 50 points to France at the end of the last Five Nations season, as Henry has striven to find the characters and physiques to eradicate Wales’s glass jaw.
But finding out what progress has been made with a game against the world champions in their current form is like putting Bambi into the ring with Mike Tyson.
Well, that’s a bit of an exaggeration but these Springboks are building an air of remorseless invincibility which it will take a minor miracle for Wales to shatter on Saturday.
In the past 12 months they have grown into a team of historic significance. Andrews, James Dalton, Teichmann and Joost van der Westhuizen will extend their Springbok appearance records in their respective positions.
Andrews and Krynauw Otto will add a 17th appearance to their record as a lock combination and Henry Honiball and Van der Westhuizen move ever closer to the halfback record (24) by partnering each other for a 20th time (with 16 wins).
They are names which will resonate through Springbok rugby history for years to come. And no Welsh King Canute is about to change that.