When England’s team to play the All Blacks in Dunedin this Saturday was announced there were dark mutterings in the land where they haven’t won the World Cup since 1987. Clive Woodward was doing what he did in 1998, selecting a deliberately weak team to fulfil onerous end-of-season fixtures against strong southern hemisphere opposition.
Woodward’s side contains just eight of the men who annexed the Webb Ellis Trophy last November and there are seven changes from the side beaten by France in the Six Nations Championship in March. There are, of course, plenty of excuses. Several giants have retired, others are unfit and a couple were deliberately rested, but eight out of 15 does seem an awful lot in just seven months.
All of which helps to explain why Jake White’s first Springbok selection of the season almost managed to pass unnoticed. There are three new caps, another who has played just once — and that five years ago — and just five survivors from the side that started South Africa’s last Test, against New Zealand in Melbourne at the World Cup.
It is always the case that a new coach is given enough rope to hang himself and the South African public is in an unusually forgiving mood right now. Some of White’s harshest critics in the weeks and months to come are currently in a wait-and-see mode and unearthing statistics that support the coach’s selections.
They may even point out that 12 months ago White’s predecessor, Rudolf Straeuli, set a new record for selection by discarding no fewer than 14 of the side that had lost 53-3 to England the previous November. Certainly they have noted with sympathy the attrition rate among White’s chosen few.
Due to injury the back line that will take the field against Ireland contains just two (possibly three) of the players White would have liked to announce. Ultimately, however, the 15 who take their places for kick-off on Saturday have nowhere to hide. Merely by pulling the Springbok jersey over their heads they necessarily represent the country.
Those who remember the good old days when a Springbok team’s reputation involved something more substantial than ritual foul play may like to point to a team sheet featuring an Andrews at tight head prop and an F du Preez. This is Eddie Andrews, however, not Keith, and Fourie du Preez, not Frik.
Andrews earned his call-up by anchoring the Stormers’ scrum in the Super 12. A loosehead all his provincial life (and a lock before then) Andrews stepped into the breach that had opened with the departure of Cobus Visagie and Faan Rautenbach. He never took a step backwards and earned admiration from the cognoscenti for his rapid assimilation of the skills required to play the hardest position of all.
Du Preez is a scrumhalf in the classic manner and, after a number of false dawns, most of South Africa will be hoping that the successor to the great Joost van der Westhuizen has finally arrived.
Ordinarily, the selection of two other Blue Bulls at eight and 10 might help Du Preez to adapt to Test rugby, but he admitted during the week that he had never played with Jaco van der Westhuyzen at flyhalf and but rarely with Pedrie Wannenburg at eighth man. That’s because White has selected both in the positions they prefer rather than in the positions preferred for them by Rudy Joubert and Straeuli.
Van der Westhuizen has an immense task ahead of him to translate the form he showed on soft pitches for Leicester in England into the kind of hard-running game required in Bloemfontein. It’s one of those situations where the coach can only cross fingers, hold thumbs and hope for the best.
Wannenburg has been messed around so much by Joubert that he could be forgiven for having a shocker on Saturday, but there are strong reasons to suspect anything but. His second Test under Straeuli was that infamous Twickenham
debacle of two years ago and he was perhaps the only Springbok who could leave the field knowing he had not let his country down.
When Jannes Labuschagne departed on the back of a red card in the 14th minute, Wannenburg became a target man in the lineouts and more than held his own against Martin Johnson & Co. He was immense at the rucks and mauls, tackled anything that moved and should, at the blowing of the final whistle, have been inked into Straeuli’s World Cup squad. His subsequent omission was the most bizarre aspect of a strange squad and he deserves to make a fist of his second chance under White.
The Boks have been at camp in Bloemfontein for three weeks now and it is a fair bet that most of their back line moves revolved around the straight running of De Wet Barry. It is the unfortunate ankle injury to the Stormers’ inside centre that may
finally decide the outcome of the match. His replacement, Wayne Julies, boasts infinitely better handling skills, but will not fulfil the role of extra loose forward that Barry does so well. The change may produce a faster, wider spectacle, but that is not necessarily the way to beat Ireland. There is reason to believe that if this team, or something close to it, can stay together for a dozen Tests it will beat good sides, but this match may have arrived a little early.