The Springboks ease into the 2000 rugby season with a Test against Canada and some not-so-new faces in the team
Andy Capostagno
If we are to believe the coaching staff the Springboks intend to run the Maple Leaf ragged in the opening international of the season at the newly named Waverley Park in East London on Saturday.
To that end a new-look team has been announced with a new captain and a new playmaker among the backs. But on the basis that there is indeed “no new thing under the sun”, it would be as well to point a few things out.
The “new” flyhalf, for instance, is
Braam van Straaten. At around about this time last year, with Henry Honiball out injured and a World Cup looming, Nick Mallett selected the same Van Straaten, not once, but several times. Then he decided he wasn’t good enough to go to the World Cup and called up Jannie de Beer.
Now Van Straaten is back largely on the basis of having been the flyhalf for a successful Stormers team. But he has reinvented himself, we are told.
What nonsense. Remember that in the first month of Super 12 activity Alan Solomons dropped him in favour of Robert Markram. When he brought him back it was to be part of a bold new game plan that involved, wonder of wonders, passing the ball.
Van Straaten has been criticised for his “distribution” in the past, but what that criticism fails to account for is the role of the coach who told him not to pass the ball.
When the coach decided to change the game plan, Van Straaten was “reinvented”. But he is the same burly, somewhat ponderous inside centre turned flyhalf that he has always been. If we are really looking for something new it should be that, having selected him, Mallett sticks with him.
In the good old days the flyhalf called the shots, but we are allegedly at the dawn of a new rugby era, one that involves giving the responsibility for calling back-line moves to the left wing, Pieter Rossouw. Which is rather akin to putting the Emperor Nero in charge of the woodwind section.
The last time Rossouw was genuinely effective at Test level was in 1997 when the Boks toured Europe under Mallett.
In the autumn of his career Dick Muir was selected at inside centre and outside him the backs had a field day, with Rossouw and Percy Montgomery particularly impressive.
Last Saturday Muir returned from a two- year retirement to play the final 10 minutes of Gary Teichmann’s benefit match in Durban. It was as if he had never been away and one moment distilled much of his career. Confronted by a flat-lying defence he chipped over the top and lost the race to the tryline to another of yesterday’s heroes, James Small. For Muir had a sprinter’s brain and a marathon runner’s pace.
His genius, according to his erstwhile Natal coach Ian McIntosh, lay in organising those around him. Said Mac: “I remember Hennie le Roux coming to me once after Natal had beaten Transvaal at King’s Park and he said, ‘Jeez, coach, how the hell do we break down your defence?’, so I told him to speak to Dick because he was the one who called the shots.”
But Muir was temperamentally and positionally suited to organising both defence and attack; for the life of me I can’t see Rossouw fulfilling the same role. Especially because he’s not even the best left wing in the squad; Chester Williams is.
This will all seem irrelevant by seven o’clock on Saturday night, because the Springboks will beat Canada even if they only fire on three cylinders. They have a powerful tight five and a high-quality back row, which means that Rossouw will have all the time and space that his eccentric style thrives on.
The last time South Africa played Canada, back in 1995, the Cannucks had the wily Gareth Rees at flyhalf and Christian Stewart in the centre. They also had a massive pack and bags of attitude. Add all of those things together and it was always going to be a testing day for Francois Pienaar’s men, even without the fight that erupted in the last quarter, causing it to be remembered as “The Battle of Boet Erasmus”.
This time around the Canadians will struggle in the set pieces, despite the presence of hardened veterans like Al Charron and Rod Snow. The latter had a truly memorable game for Newport against Natal last week at tight head, but is likely to start at loose head against the Boks.
His individual battle with Cobus Visagie could be one to relish, but there is a suspicion that individual battles will be about all the Canadians have to play for.
Their backs could be a handful if they manage to get one on one with the Bok defence, for they are firm believers in the value of sevens rugby and have brought giants to their knees on several occasions over the past four years in the shortened version of the game.
Winger Fred Asselin is as quick and elusive as anyone around, while Scott Stewart and Winston Stanley are both a good deal wiser than when they got stuck in at Boet Erasmus five years ago. Stanley, Stewart, Charron and Snow are the survivors of that match, while only Krynauw Otto and Joost van der Westhuizen, who both came on as replacements, remain for the Boks.
Exactly what benefit Mallett can derive from the match is questionable. Win well and the memories of last year’s Italian embarrassment will resurface, win badly and he may start to doubt a few of his own selections. Whatever happens, the real international season begins next week with the arrival of England.