It is about this time of year that South African rugby supporters usually start talking up their team and rubbishing the Europeans. Harsh words have been spoken about the difference in quality between the Super 12 final and the European Cup final.
Prominent critics who should know better have rubbished Leicester (champions of the latter competition) for having the effrontery to even suggest a meeting with the Crusaders (champions of the former). Not in the same league, they say.
And in case I should be accused of pointing fingers, this is what I wrote in this newspaper ahead of last year’s first Test, against France at Ellis Park:
“Logic tells us that the French have no chance. They flew in on Monday for a Saturday game, with a squad missing several key players and promptly set up camp in Cape Town, despite the fact that the second test is in Durban. They expect to cheat the effects of altitude and beat a Springbok team that has spent three weeks together honing skills and team spirit. They must be mad”. Final score, South Africa 23, France 32. Go figure.
Much water has passed under the bridge in the 12 months since that match took place. There has been a wholesale clearout of players, the coach has been replaced and results in the Super 12 have restored some much-needed humility to our rugby. It is 10 years since South Africa emerged from isolation and the Springboks are starting from scratch.
The honeymoon is almost over for Rudolf Straeuli. To date he has been written and talked about solely in terms of contrasts with his predecessor, Harry Viljoen. There is a difference in style between the two men, one summed up by the substitution of the Beacon Island hotel at Plettenberg Bay by the Police Training College in Pretoria, but is there really a difference in substance?
After all, Straeuli is dealing with the same structures as Viljoen, he has the same employer and he even found a place at the Springbok trials for Francois Swart, the single most bizarre selection of his predecessor’s reign. Oh, and you can be damn sure that if Straeuli’s results are similar to Viljoen’s he will be vilified in the press by the same people currently praising his back-to-basics approach.
So what has Straeuli done right? One thing above all: he has selected a squad of 22 players with the potential to play excellent rugby. Straeuli is often compared to his mentor, Kitch Christie, and he has even taken a leaf from the book of his old Northerns coach, Buhrman van Zyl: his lung-busting koppie will test the players at the Pretoria camp.
A mania for physical fitness connects the three, but the most important thing that any coach can have is an eye for talent. Van Zyl threw the 19-year-old Naas Botha into Currie Cup rugby because he knew he was ready. Christie plucked Os du Randt out of Free State when he had played six first-class games for the same reason. Straeuli has given a chance to Brent Russell because he thinks the Sevens star can make a difference.
The withdrawal of De Wet Barry this week has brought Adrian Jacobs into the reckoning and already there is talk of a lack of defensive steel among the inside backs. Bolla Conradie, Andre Pretorius and Jacobs are all small and not noted for their tackling. So what? These three, given their head, could carve up a severely limited Welsh team with the kind of instinctive play that has not been seen in Springbok rugby for four years.
But the backs are powerless without the ball and it is among the forwards that Straeuli’s boldness deserves to succeed. Daan Human lacks the sheer size of the young Du Randt, but in all other aspects he looks the part at loosehead, while the rotation of the old master, Willie Meyer, and the young pretender, Faan Rautenbach, at tighthead looks good.
The back row, as ever, is where the real arguments begin. If there was one player who enhanced his reputation on the end of season tour last year it was AJ Venter. He deserves to be given the chance to make the number seven shirt his own and (injury permitting) the other flank and the captaincy belongs to Corn Krige, which just leaves the conundrum of who plays eighth man?
Whispers are emerging that Straeuli wants Joe van Niekerk to resume the position that he’d played all his life until Viljoen moved him on to the flank. That would mean Bob Skinstad returning to the role that made him famous, that of impact player. Those with only short-term memories may recall that last season began that way and that Skinstad got his first start and assumed the captaincy for the third Test of the season, against Italy, in Port Elizabeth.
It seems that the Skinstad issue is just too big to get around. How Straeuli handles it will make or break his tenure in the job.