Andy Capostagno RUGBY
When a great player shows signs of mortality it is a brave coach who tells him to shape up or ship out. Whether it was because of a knee injury that has not properly healed, a paucity of playing time or that most elusive of facets, a lack of ambition, scrumhalf Joost van der Westhuizen played his worst Test match for South Africa at Loftus on Saturday.
It is pointless to list Van der Westhuizen’s lack of aptitude for the job, for he has spent seven years in the green and gold shirt rewriting the manual of how to play behind the scrum. The most prescient thing ever said about him was that he was a terrible scrumhalf, but a great rugby player.
At the World Cup last year he was simply magnificent, lifting his team by the scruff of the neck time and again and, if he has the desire, he may be great again in the near future. But now is the time to leave him out and let him get well, not to throw him into a second brutally hard Test match against England in Bloemfontein.
The Springbok management are aware of their champion’s deficiencies, but chose not to do something about it in Pretoria. As the game dragged on and Van der Westhuizen’s service became more erratic, there was surely an argument for throwing on the unfortunate Dan van Zyl, who has now sat on the bench in two Tests, but still has no cap to show for it.
Under pressure for the first time since the new game plan was mooted, Springbok rugby reverted to type. Sit tight, make your tackles and for God’s sake don’t try anything innovative.
Van Zyl may have frozen in the headlights, but so what? Everything is reversible these days and the management was creative enough to conjure up a phantom bloody nose to allow Robbie Fleck back on after his concussion, so surely something similar could have been arranged for Van der Westhuizen.
It was probably never even discussed for, if truth be told, the management were more concerned with the fact that the entire Springbok back line had lost its shape as surely as a 50-year-old belly dancer.
Players were standing in clumps either side of the breakdown point, waiting for guidance from General Pieter Rossouw who had moved into the centre in the absence of Fleck and De Wet Barry. The lunatics had taken over the asylum.
How often does the winning team in a Test match have more to worry about than the losing team? South Africa were hanging on grimly at the end and managed just three points in 85 minutes of play in this interminable game, after Braam van Straaten’s fifth penalty had bisected the English uprights at the conclusion of the first quarter.
Three points in almost an hour and a half from a side committed to the new wide game. The English defence was good, but not that good. And it will be the visitors who go into the second Test as favourites, for they must assume that they cannot possibly get such a raw deal from the referee twice in a row.
The best team lost in Pretoria because New Zealand’s Colin Hawke gave a string of hometown decisions in the first quarter. England were 15-3 down after 20 minutes, but could not find enough gaps in the familiarly ferocious Springbok defence to see justice done. Ironically, this week’s referee Peter Marshall (Australia) has never been high on the Springbok Christmas card list. Maybe the boot will be on the other foot this time.
If conservatism is the bedrock of Springbok rugby, it is equally so in England. So it was interesting to discover that in the wake of the defeat, Clive Woodward chose not to punish his team with vitriol and whatever the English equivalent of a koppestamp training session is, but instead gave them three days off.
The arguments will continue over whether Tim Stimpson scored a legitimate try, although video referee Mark Lawrence covered all the necessary ground in about 90 seconds and probably got the right decision. But there should be no argument over the quality of the English performance.
This was a quantum leap from the side that ran like headless chickens into the remorseless Springbok defence in the World Cup quarterfinal in Paris. A far more streetwise outfit than the one that could find no way to stop Jannie de Beer dropping goals.
Phil Greening and Neil Back were cerebral in the loose, Jason Leonard and Martin Johnson titans in the tight. And the much-maligned three-quarters came to the party with left wing Dan Luger quite outstanding.
It seemed to be England who were committed to the wide game rather than the Boks, but they had the pragmatism to do it from third and fourth phase ball and to involve the likes of Lawrence Dallaglio, Greening and Back. By contrast the Springboks did not once pass the ball from scrumhalf to wing, and Breyton Paulse, so industrious in East London against Canada, risked dying of cold in Pretoria.
The lessons to be learned in victory are legion. We are constantly told that rugby is a team sport, but if a game plan hinges on a scrumhalf who is off his game, an outside centre who should have been medically retired after half an hour and a flanker who lasted 10 minutes before twisting his ankle, then it isn’t much of a game plan.
Perhaps it is time to admit that Springbok rugby is not ready for something new. And if the players want to play boring, predictable, winning rugby, who are we to criticise?