It’s a good job that Rudolf Straeuli’s nature does not admit panic. If it did the performance of his team in the first test against Scotland in Durban last week would have been an excuse for ceaseless trips up the tunnel to find new trousers.
Instead, Straeuli has taken all the criticism the Springboks received for their 29-25 win on the chin and come up with something very similar for the second test at Ellis Park on Saturday.
Andre Snyman has an injured hamstring and so is unavailable: Marius Joubert replaces him at outside centre. Ricardo Loubscher has been dropped out of the squad of 24 and replaced by Brent Russell, with Jaco van der Westhuyzen
coming off the bench to start the game at fullback.
Straeuli has resisted the temptation to rush Bob Skinstad back into the side and he, along with Stormers lock Quinton Davids, will not be part of the match 22. In other words, the nuts and bolts of the team from one to 10 remains unchanged, leading to the presumption that the tactics will also bear a marked similarity to those employed in Durban.
There are those who will suggest that this is patent madness and there have been clarion calls for more flair and less 10-man rugby. Which only goes to show that Straeuli has replaced one set of critics with another, for last year his team scored oodles of tries, but couldn’t win first- phase ball and were pilloried as a
result. They also kept losing, with but a single last-kick-of-the-match win against Australia to break a losing streak of six matches.
It may seem crazy to suggest that the public and press need to show a little patience with just four months to go before the World Cup, but that is effectively what Straeuli is asking for.
He will have spent the week deconstructing Saturday’s performance and should have concluded two things. That Louis Koen spent the match standing way too deep, something that is simple to fix, and that the whole side couldn’t catch a cold, something that is not.
The statistics do not lie in this instance and it was not until an hour of play had passed that the Springboks managed to take the ball through three phases or more. They knocked the ball on and turned it over at the breakdowns as though it were but a minor component of the game of rugby. They ran into each other rather well, but couldn’t tackle the opposition.
All of which is not the fault of the coach. It has now reached the stage where players must stand up to be counted. If they truly want to go to the World Cup they have to be able to translate provincial form into the test arena.
They are one-nil up in the series playing on — historically speaking — their favourite ground, safe in the knowledge that they can’t get any worse. Now let’s see if Straeuli really is on the right track.
Springbok team: Jaco van der Westhuyzen, Stefan Terblanche, Marius Joubert, Trevor Halstead, Ashwin Willemse, Louis Koen, Joost van der Westhuizen (captain), Pedrie Wannenburg, Wikus van Heerden, Hendrik Gerber, Victor Matfield, Bakkies Botha, Richard Bands, Danie Coetzee, Lawrence Sephaka
Substitutes: Robbie Kempson, Cobus Visagie Selborne Boome, Jaun Smith, Craig Davidson, Gcobani Bobo, Brent Russell.