RUGBY’SYEARIN REVIEW Andy Capostagno A traumatic year for Springbok rugby began with a false dawn. The Sharks and the Cats played each other in the semifinal of the Super 12, a fact that not only prompted talk of South African teams having finally come to terms with the competition, but guaranteed one of them a final place. A competitive pack allied to the boot of Louis Koen took the Cats to the last four, but there was a price to pay. Rassie Erasmus, the most gifted back-rower in the country, fell out with coach Laurie Mains and was dropped. Without his creative influence the pedestrian play of Koen was exposed and that was effectively that. The Sharks were the more rounded of the two teams, thanks in no small measure to the play of their flyhalf, Butch James. Here at last was the player that Bok coach Harry Viljoen had been looking for. James was big and strong and defended his channel like no one since the retirement of Henry Honiball. He had great hands, bubbling confidence and just one Achilles heel: his place-kicking. But in the heady days of May and June such utilitarian considerations were scoffed at. A two-week training camp at Plettenburg Bay in June was the bridge between the end of the Super 12 and the beginning of the Test season.
Viljoen had persuaded the South African Rugby Football Union that he needed an extended squad of 32 so that his new vision for the South African game could be passed on to as many of the country’s top players as possible. And when the squad was announced one of the top players was deemed to be a 19-year-old flyhalf who had not yet played provincial rugby, by the name of Francois Swart. Swart was included ahead of Jaco van der Westhuyzen and Braam van Straaten (among others), but did not make the final cut and did not merit another mention for the rest of the season. At the same time that Swart was the apple of Viljoen’s eye, it seemed the coach was less impressed than the rest of the rugby world by the performance of the Sharks. Hence he could find no room in his squad for Trevor Halstead and Craig Davison, not to mention Warren Britz and Charl van Rensburg. So, when James made his Springbok debut against France at Ellis Park, it was not with the familiar faces of his provincial colleagues alongside him. For a while it didn’t seem to matter. In the opening minutes James broke through and initiated a move that ended with Breyton Paulse dancing his way over the line for the kind of try that gives training camps a good name. It owed everything to spontaneity and confidence, and paid no more than lip service to the book of moves that the Boks had been taking to bed with them for three weeks. The euphoria lasted no more than 10 minutes. French flyhalf Gerald Merceron began to run the game on the platform of excellent ball provided by his pack. The Boks lost 32-23 against a French team written off as no-hopers before the match. The series was shared when South Africa won 20-15 in Durban a week later, but it could easily have been 2-0 to the visitors. The problem at this stage lay in the pack, where the tight five gave second best to the French and, a week later in Port Elizabeth, to the Italians. It was in the friendly city that Viljoen decided to relieve Andre Vos of the captaincy and hand it to Bob Skinstad, a move that owed more to blind optimism than facts. Things began to come right in this match, however, thanks to an injury on the half hour to hooker John Smit, which allowed Lukas van Biljon to make one of the more impressive test debuts in recent memory. Van Biljon subsequently kept Smit out of the team and when, three weeks later, Cobus Visagie returned to the tighthead berth against the All Blacks in Cape Town, the forward problem seemed to have been solved. Unfortunately there was now a more pressing problem among the backs, where a combination of James and Percy Montgomery were conspiring to miss too many kicks at goal.
In the week ahead of the first Tri-Nations Test the Cape Town weather turned foul and Viljoen was forced to eat humble pie as he added Van Straaten to his squad. The Stormers centre/flyhalf had been made the scapegoat for defeat in the final Test of 2000 against England, and was so certain he had played his last Test that he had signed for Leeds Tykes. When the moment came, however, Viljoen could not bring himself to select Van Straaten and despite dominating large portions of the match against the All Blacks, the Boks lost 12-3, due mainly to poor place-kicking. The following week against Australia in Pretoria, Braam was back (at inside centre) and the Boks won 20-15. Van Straaten kicked five penalties and Skinstad scored the kind of try that made him famous when he burst on the scene in 1998. Three weeks later in Perth the same teams fought out a 14-14 draw, which seemed to imply that the Boks had turned the corner. But they lost to the All Blacks in Auckland a week later and again finished bottom of the Tri-Nations log. The post-season tour to Europe and the United States was an ill-judged affair. Viljoen was unable to pick the banned James and went for the best two place-kickers in the country, Van Straaten and Koen. After defeat against France in Paris he managed to pick both of them in the same team and then wondered why his back line was not scoring tries. The Boks ended the season having won five and lost six of their Tests, a statistic that included two wins against Italy and one against the US. They don’t play another Test for six months which, in the circumstances, is probably no bad thing.