By now Springbok coach Jake White will have realised that the best dictators need to know how to compromise. Just one week away from the first Test of the season and three weeks into an exhaustive training camp, White’s side to play Ireland in Bloemfontein next Saturday bears only a passing resemblance to the one pencilled in a month previously.
Ashwin Willemse, last year’s South African player of the season, was the latest to be ruled out after injuring his knee in Wednesday’s 62-19 victory over a Central Unions XV in Kimberley.
Last year Willemse thoroughly earned his Player of the Season award by being virtually the only Springbok to play to the best of his ability in every Test. This year Willemse’s Super 12 form left a little to be desired, but that may just have been as a direct result of playing for the Cats.
A couple of days earlier utility forward Pedrie Wannenberg was injured in the gym, while no one really believed that tighthead prop Faan Rautenbach was ever fit in the first place. What that means is that in at least two positions White and his selectors are down to their third choices to start against Ireland. It’s at times like these that able students learn the art of compromise.
White named his team on Thursday but if the previous three weeks are anything to go by there will almost certainly be a couple more changes before the side actually runs on to the field for the first Test. So spare a thought for the coach who is probably as mystified as the rest of us as to how his team might perform against the Irish.
Certainly there were few clues in the match against the Central Unions. Five yellow cards suggest that the ill-discipline that marked Rudolf Straeuli’s reign is still present. On the positive side, however, after half an hour of thud and blunder things improved markedly.
Gaffie du Toit had a good day with the boot and contributed 30 points in all, but then he has never found it difficult to bisect the uprights in Kimberley. The acid test will be the moment when he finds himself in a position to win a game in injury time from a place kick. Succeed and all will be well, fail and the obituary writers will remind White that the Boks would have lost to both Scotland and Argentina last year had it not been for the unerring boot of Louis Koen.
At least the players were spared the embarrassment of a trial this year.
In New Zealand All Black coach Graham Henry stuck to tradition only to see his Probables side scrape to an unconvincing 29-27 win against the Possibles.
It’s sometimes hard to remember that there’s always someone worse off than yourself. Unlike Henry, who owes his job to the fact that his predecessor won everything except the World Cup, White is coming off such a low base that defeat against Ireland would hardly show as a blip on the radar.
That’s the sort of defeatist talk that has presumably already been banned in the camp, gone the same way as beer and fatty foods, but it is a proudly South African trait to bill each visiting side as either hopeless or unbeatable. Since they beat England at Twickenham in this year’s Six Nations Championship Ireland fall into the latter camp.
But if we are a little unsure which Springbok side will turn up for the first Test, that goes in spades for the Irish, the nation that the gods drove mad; all their wars are happy, all their songs are sad.
Much is being made in the media of the dazzling midfield partnership between Brian O’Driscoll and Gordon D’Arcy, so much so that it is tempting to recall a story about a gifted Irish three-quarter of a much earlier generation.
Tony O’Reilly, famous now as a media mogul, but 40 years ago as a wing of genius, was said to have a high opinion of himself. The only difference between O’Reilly and God, the story goes, is that while God by his very definition was everywhere, O’Reilly was everywhere except where he was supposed to be.
This is a reference, of course, to the days when Ireland expected to lose the game, but win the post-match celebrations. Times have changed and it is probably fair to say that this is the best-organised Irish side of all time. They will be immensely strong in the set pieces and if O’Driscoll and D’Arcy are given time and space they will run riot.
The key to the game will be the pace at which the ball is allowed to emerge from the breakdowns and here South Africa have a few trump cards. Quite by accident (several of them, in fact) White has ended up with a back row of Jacques Cronje, Juan Smith and Schalk Burger, none of whom has yet reached the advanced age of 22. If they gel quickly we might have reason to smile when the final whistle blows. If not, it could be a long day.