The Boks are settling in by sticking to their traditional way of playing the game
Andy Capostagno
It is a strange business when one home win can make so much difference to a team. Suddenly the talk is not of the impossibility of winning away from home in the Tri-Nations, but of the local support South Africa will attract to the Subiaco Oval and the fact that the Wallabies have never won a Test match in Perth.
Even Springbok coach Harry Viljoen has got in on the act by eschewing his normal rash of alterations and naming a side with just one change to the team that beat Australia 20-15 in Pretoria three weeks ago. “We’re getting to a stage where our team is getting settled,” he said. “We’ve made only the one change and that’s because Victor Matfield was unavailable for the last Test.”
As Viljoen’s predecessor Nick Mallett discovered, it is a lot easier to settle on a team when it is winning. Gone now are the barbed comments about the double-edged sword effect of having Braam van Straaten in the team.
All this sweetness and light has emerged since the arrival of a competitive tight five and, more recently, a reliable goal kicker. Sometime soon the stakeholders of South African rugby are going to have to make an important decision. Do they want the national side to win by playing old-fashioned rugby, or do they want to be slaves to fashion?
It has been fashionable for the past couple of years to copy the Australians. There is a sound rationale behind this covetousness. The Wallabies won the World Cup in 1999 and the Brumbies are Super 12 champions.
Successive regimes have attempted to instil the fundamentals of Brumbies rugby into the hearts and minds of South African players. But when push came to shove at Loftus, the Springboks won by embracing atavism. By crushing the Wallaby forwards, defending as though their lives depended on it and kicking their goals the team slotted seamlessly into the history of Springbok rugby.
Will the same recipe be enough to win in Perth? Well, it worked in 1998. On that occasion the Springboks won 14-13, the narrowest of margins being secured by a penalty kick from a slippery lie, not far from halfway, in wind and rain from (whisper it) Percy Montgomery. There was no scoring in the final half hour thanks to wonderful defence from both sides.
But that was a very different Springbok team, one that was midway through its record-equalling run of 17 successive Test wins. It was the only Springbok team to win the Tri-Nations and it may be premature to suggest the current squad has what it takes to emulate that achievement.
But there is nothing wrong with ambition and Viljoen may be right in his assertion that the winner of Saturday’s game will go on to win the tournament. The question is whether the Springboks’ considerable virtues are enough to beat the Wallabies in such a crucial encounter.
The Wallaby back line is unquestionably the best in the world. Disciplinary measures mean they will be without Andrew Walker, but his replacement, Chris Latham, scarcely weakens the side.
There is nothing left to write about the halfback combination of George Gregan and Stephen Larkham. It seemed injury would keep Larkham out of the series this year, but his miraculous recovery helped engineer last week’s 23-15 defeat of the All Blacks in Dunedin. It also threw into sharp relief how much less of a threat the Wallabies are without him.
The back row of Toutai Kefu, George Smith and Owen Finnegan also has that best-in-the-world feel to it. There is power, pace, wisdom, anticipation and old-fashioned Australian bloody-mindedness about it.
The weaknesses appear closer to the boiler room. If John Eales really is the perfect rugby player, then he has earned even more admiration by retiring at precisely the right moment, just as his powers are beginning to wane. His predecessor as Wallaby talisman, David Campese, lost some of his fan base by playing too long past the time when his magical powers had faded.
Eales is still capable of dominating a game, but he needs a little more help than the rest of the tight five appear able to provide. Loosehead prop Nick Stiles was cruelly exposed by Cobus Visagie in Pretoria and he must have had some sleepless nights ahead of this Saturday’s encounter.
The likelihood of soft underfoot conditions will benefit South Africa. It will allow their hard men to dominate in the tight phases and to slow the ball down on the ground, thereby lessening the effect that Smith tends to have in fast and loose encounters.
And so it comes down to the old conundrum. The forwards will win plenty of ball, but will the backs know how to use it? The answer lies in the hands (and feet) of Joost van der Westhuizen and Butch James. The excuse of not knowing each other will not last another game. Both have the ability to dominate and if either or both manage to do so South Africa will win.