When the dust had settled on Nick Mallett’s career as Springbok coach he looked back on his tenure and selected one moment that made him proudest of all. Mallett has been described as arrogant, but it was far more typical of the man that he chose a moment not of coaching brilliance, but of player empowerment.
Mallett said: ”Henry Honiball came to me one day in New Zealand in 1998 and said that he had an idea for a move that he couldn’t work out a defence for.” Honiball explained it and at the end of a training session in Wellington the players tried it once. At the Westpac stadium that Saturday a game that had been played in the trenches was broken asunder by Honiball’s move.
From a Springbok scrum on the left of the All Black 22m line, Percy Montgomery came up from fullback and made a dummy run to the blindside. Joost van der Westhuizen and Honiball exchanged passes on the open side and Pieter Rossouw cut in from the left wing to receive the ball. Torn between marking Montgomery and Honiball, the All Black defence was caught flat-footed and Rossouw scored under the posts.
It was the key moment not just in that game, but in the whole Tri- Nations as South Africa went on to win the tournament for the first and, so far, the only time. Mallett had a settled team, confident in their ability and in the middle of a record-equalling unbeaten run. How Rudolf Straeuli must envy him.
The only real similarity between 1998 and 2002 is the venue. In comparison with Mallett’s Springboks, Straeuli’s team is unsettled, wet behind the ears and, despite four wins on home soil, it has no idea how good it is. It is not at all inconceivable that this team could come apart at the seams against New Zealand, but there is good reason to believe it won’t.
In a carefully contrived build-up Straeuli has got most things right. He has set expectations for his players and when those expectations have not been met the players have been dropped. Importantly, the fixture list was kind to him and the wet weather Test against Wales in Cape Town will be of particular value going forward.
With some expert prompting from Naas Botha the place-kicking of Andre Pretorius has come right. With some barging in the lineouts at training by Straeuli and Uli Schmidt the forwards have at last been prepared for a game of rugby, not a hypothetical opposition filled with angels who would not dream of competing for ball that was not theirs.
There is still some mongrel missing from the pack and question marks abound among the tight five. But if truth be told the same could be said of the All Blacks, who were simply dreadful at the lineouts against Australia last week and no more than competent in the scrums. Furthermore, the decline of Christian Cullen continues unabated and, were it not for the beautifully poised play of Andrew Mehrtens, New Zealand would have lost.
It is never a good idea to suggest that the All Blacks are there for the taking, but beneath the confident veneer lies a team unsure of itself, playing before a home crowd that remembers how it struggled to beat Ireland a month ago. It is not that the emperor has no clothes, but that the clothes he has are too predominantly red and black, a fashion that went out of style shortly after the Crusaders won the Super 12 in May.
On Wednesday Straeuli announced that he had withdrawn Delarey du Preez and Brent Russell from his match-day squad, but went no further in elucidating how the team would actually line up. That is his prerogative, although it annoys the hell out of journalists.
He also made the decision last month not to travel to New Zealand early, but to build up to the game in Brisbane, venue for next week’s clash with Australia.
That too is his prerogative, although a similar base-camp plan for the Sharks in the Super 12 saw Straeuli’s former team lose four out of four in March.
And yet, after all that planning, in Straeuli’s heart of hearts a bonus point for a close game might satisfy him. He is first of all a pragmatist, one who realises that a good showing, even in defeat, will reward his team richly in the weeks and months to come.