Andy Capostagno RUGBY
A new Springbok squad with a new captain and a Super 12 dream final in the same week. It’s almost enough to make you forget that, once again, the lone South African team got eliminated in the semifinals. Almost enough to make you forget that, once again, South Africa’s Super 12 franchises began the tournament crawling and ended up sprinting. Almost, but not quite.
Reward for the Cats, defeated by the matchless patience of the Brumbies in Canberra, is a large share of the places in Nick Mallett’s first squad selection of the season. And, after the intriguing decision to step down from Joost van der Westhuizen, Cats captain Andre Vos is Mallett’s new leader.
A cynic might suggest Vos has been handed a poisoned chalice. He is a hard- working eighth man who does all the unglamorous things on the field and, fighting a stutter born of shyness, says all the right things off it. He would sooner be on the golf course with friends than on the motivational speaking circuit. He is, in fact, about as close to being a younger version of Gary Teichmann as it is possible to get.
Remember what happened to Teichmann? Good enough to lead the national side until a certain young impact player came along and then not good enough to make the side on merit at the World Cup despite the fact that said impact player was no more than half fit.
In case you’ve forgotten, Vos did go to the World Cup, but as captain of the dirt-trackers only. A cynic would look ahead to next season and the return of the injured impact player and wonder then, whither Vos? Good job I’m not a cynic.
For what it’s worth, Mallett’s squad is not far short of the best available, although the Cats half-back pairing of Werner Swanepoel and Louis Koen looks short of Test match class. A case could have been made for the inclusion of Dan van Zyl and the much-maligned Gaffie du Toit in their stead, but with attritional times ahead, no doubt their chances will come.
The old saying that if you’re good enough, you’re old enough applies to the two 21-year-olds, De Wet Barry and John Smit, although exactly what Mallett has identified in the latter’s sporadic appearances in the unfamiliar role of hooker for the Sharks is unclear.
The big question is whether Mallett is capable of sending this squad out to play the new expansive game he has spoken of. It might just be the case that the one- dimensional play evident at the World Cup and in the first month of the Super 12 has become endemic to South African players. If so, Mallett could do a lot worse than to keep a copy of this Saturday’s Super 12 final close at hand for inspiration during the tough times ahead.
It could be an awful anti-climax, much in the manner of last year’s World Cup final, but the quality of the play produced by the Brumbies and the Crusaders this season suggests otherwise.
As ever, it is the contrasts that make it so fascinating. The Crusaders are likely to provide the template for the All Blacks post-John Hart and their muscular style has much to recommend it. They have a plethora of foraging forwards who seem to know exactly when the ball has been driven as far as it is going to go at close quarters.
At that point the ball is slung deep to Andrew Mehrtens, who takes the decision on what to do next. It might seem like a truism, but New Zealand is the last bastion of the belief that the scrumhalf is there to pass the ball, the flyhalf is there to use it. Mehrtens spends a lot of time defending the deep kick from the opposition, but he is always magically up with play when needed.
If New Zealand is all about demarcation, Australia is all about collective responsibility. The Brumbies flirt with the offside line and obstructive tactics, but their discipline is such that it rarely becomes overt. By the time the referee has had a chance to wonder whether that was a scissors or obstruction the ball is usually already in the hands of Joe Roff or Andrew Walker.
The Brumbies’ greatest quality is the ability to set up the next phase before most teams realise the last one has ended. It gives them constant numerical superiority and the collective responsibility means that everyone knows where he should be.
It helps, of course, to have the best halfback pair in the world. Someone ought to run a book on George Gregan next season and see how many times he chooses the wrong option. Go as low as you can.
It’s not inconceivable that Stephen Larkham could look very ordinary outside any scrumhalf other than Gregan, but you wouldn’t want to bet on it. Just as you wouldn’t want to bet on the Brumbies losing at Bruce Stadium on Saturday.