This time last year there was a general feeling of well-being after the announcement of Rudolph Straeuli’s first squad as Springbok coach. He had the boldness to pluck Brent Russell from the Springbok Sevens team, apparently on the evidence of half an hour in the Springbok trial at Loftus. He dealt summarily with Percy Montgomery, who asked to be treated differently and was shown the door, and throughout the squad there was a feeling that the dark days under Harry Viljoen were at an end.
The team failed to steamroller Wales in successive Tests and was only intermittently impressive against Argentina in Springs, but Straeuli was demonstrably on the right track and both media and public gave him enough rope. The feel-good factor continued through the Tri-Nations, ending with an epiphany at Ellis Park where the Tora, Tora, Tora theme seemed to finally gel. Then came the end of season tour to Europe and record defeats in three successive Tests. That’s when the honeymoon ended.
But the coaches of national sides, who bemoan their fate as sitting ducks during the season, at least have a lengthy off-season to build up a few antibodies. It is six months since Corné Krige led his men (and a few boys) off the field at Twickenham where the electronic scoreboard leered down its news — England 53, South Africa 3. The Super 12 may have been desperately disappointing, but that’s behind us now. It’s Test match time.
When Straeuli announced last week that he was parting ways with Tim Lane it was the signal that the grizzly bear had awoken from a long hibernation. Lane was among the many support staff that had been forced upon Straeuli when he accepted SA Rugby’s job offer. The Australian had begun his tenure under Viljoen, with whom he shared a dream that the plodding caterpillar that is South African rugby would one day emerge from its chrysalis as a beautiful butterfly.
Straeuli’s romantic selections of last year seemed to buy into the theory, but it doesn’t take a genius to work out what he thinks now. His first selection of 2003 comes with a plethora of footnotes regarding injured players and compromised choices. But where last year it screamed attack, attack, attack, this year the message is defend, defend, defend.
To that end he has selected a pack with few frills, a 32-year-old scrumhalf, a centre partnership that Stonewall Jackson would have been proud of, and a flyhalf who will convert all the penalties that this team will force out of any opposition. You can criticise most of Straeuli’s selections on an individual basis, but as a unit you have to admit it has the comforting feel of a blunt object about it.
One of the traits that Straeuli shares with his mentor, Kitch Christie, is a fierce loyalty towards players he knows can do the job. He has gone back not to last year, but to 2001, when as coach of the Sharks he reached the Super 12 final. His key player that season was Trevor Halstead, who was employed as an extra flank forward to carry the ball over the gain line and hold it up until support arrived to set up the next phase.
Halstead was consistently ignored by Viljoen during the 2001 season, and then when injuries forced his hand he made the stupid mistake of selecting him at outside centre, where he spent his time yearning for the possession that was being kicked away by Braam van Straaten and Louis Koen on his inside.
That’s the same Louis Koen who is the only flyhalf in Straeuli’s squad (if you discount Jaco van der Westhuyzen who has been selected at fullback). The same Louis Koen who looked so out of his depth at international level and who Lane allowed to play for the Bulls this year because he was surplus to requirements at the Cats.
Bulls coach Rudy Joubert, who is now part of the Springbok coaching set-up along with Ray Mordt and Gert Smal, is of the opinion that Koen is a much better player now than he was then. That’s as maybe, but even with Andre Pretorius injured, it’s a hell of a risk.
Legend has it that Nick Mallett once selected Gaffie du Toit for a Tri-Nations Test to prove to people that he wasn’t good enough. Is Straeuli indulging in something similar? Hard to believe given the man’s integrity. It’s more likely that Koen is his luxury component, the points machine that will denude the backline of quality ball, but which will richly reward the toiling forwards for their effort.
Crucially, of course, Straeuli has given Koen his halfback partner at the Bulls, Joost van der Westhuizen, to play with. Van der Westhuizen is the caretaker captain while Krige returns to fitness, and the set-up of the team, particularly among the forwards, will delight the Springboks’ record try scorer. It will also ease the decision-making process, because it has long been known that Van der Westhuizen doesn’t waste good ball on flyhalves.
This brings us to the eight who are going to generate that ball. There are two players missing for whom room should have been made. Geo Cronje has earned selection to the South African ‘A’ squad, but Gary Botha’s omission from both squads is a
mystery.
Those two notwithstanding, however, the public’s dream of a dominant Springbok pack seems close at hand. There are skilful and hard players in all three rows and a sprinkling of impact players to boot. The latter aspect explains the return of Selborne Boome and also suggests that Jaun Smith will resume the ”super-sub” role that he fulfilled in the first month of the Super 12.
For players such as Hendrick Gerber and Craig Davidson there is the consoling thought that hard work over long periods is sometimes rewarded and while the squad generally is lacking in indisputably great players, the coach cannot pick people who do not exist. The attrition rate in South African rugby suggests that this squad will bear little relation to the one that will go to the World Cup, but it will do for now.