Right now Springbok coach Jake White is probably cursing the vagaries of a fixture list that has taken the deciding match of the 2004 Tri-Nations to Durban. That is because in 1998 — the only time South Africa won the tournament — the conclusive contest was at Ellis Park.
In the final quarter of that match, Nick Mallett threw in his impact players — Bobby Skinstad and Ollie le Roux — and in the thin air of Johannesburg the Wallabies huffed, puffed and expired. Something similar happened to the All Blacks at Ellis Park last week, but this week White’s men will have to win on a level playing field.
Sea level, that is.
History is with the Wallabies. Since the end of isolation, both their wins in South Africa have been at sea level, the most recent in Durban four years ago. Sterling Mortlock converted the winning penalty from the touchline with nerveless precision on that occasion as Australia won 19-18 to clinch the title.
The Springboks have beaten them several times at the coast in the past 12 years, but only the 27-18 win at Newlands in the opening match of the 1995 World Cup could be called emphatic. It is normally nip and tuck, with a stray penalty deciding the issue.
So why should this match be any different? Principally because it bears more similarity to the Newlands win in 1995 than to the Durban defeat in 2000. In 1995 Kitch Christie’s side didn’t know how good they were. True, they were unbeaten under their new coach, but the only southern hemisphere side they had played was Argentina.
The manner of their victory against the reigning world champions, rather than the size of it, proved significant, particularly the shining moment when Pieter Hendriks ran around David Campese to score the opening try. The technical department — with Dave Waterstone at the fore — had made up their minds that the great Campo was, in fact, past it, and so it came to pass.
Against New Zealand last week the Bok technical department made up their minds that Andrew Mehrtens was past it. And so, somewhat emphatically, it came to pass.
Like most good ideas, this was a simple one. Joe van Niekerk, selected for his superior pace from a standing start, would pick up the ball at the base of
the scrum and run into Mehrtens’s defensive channel. Invariably he made it across the gain line and from the bridgehead the rest of the team was able to advance.
When the ball was allowed to go beyond flyhalf, De Wet Barry would perform the same function as Van Niekerk, and it was his ability to stay on his feet and make the ball available through the tackle that allowed his centre partner, Marius Joubert, to have a field day.
No one was about to make himself look foolish in front of a full house by overlooking Joubert as man of the match, but it was Barry — the most improved rugby player in South Africa — who was the principal architect of victory. Last year Barry emerged from nowhere to destroy the Wallabies at Newlands. Now all he has to do is repeat the dose. Given the injuries that have bedevilled each of their careers, it may be tempting fate to say that Barry and Joubert have solved the riddle of who should play in the centre for South Africa. Both Rudolf Straeuli and Harry Viljoen, the previous two incumbents of White’s current job, would have united the two players on a regular basis if they had been consistently available.
Fortunately, both are still young men, and if Joubert can curb a few of his baser instincts and improve his game in the same dramatic fashion as Barry, the pair will wear the numbers 12 and 13 for South Africa for the foreseeable future.
Against the Wallabies, the Bok brains trust will have to come up with something subtler than the ‘wallop Mehrtens†theory. Stephen Larkham defends his channel far better than Mehrtens, and his instinct for a gap was the difference between winning and losing for the Wallabies against the Boks in Perth last month.
The most pleasing aspect of this season, however, has been the knowledge that this Springbok coaching team has the ability to produce rabbits from hats on a regular basis. Van Niekerk’s inclusion among the run-on team last week was one such instance, applying as it did Nietzsche’s dictum: ‘Be bold and great forces will come to your aid.â€
The one change in White’s team for Durban is at blindside flank, where AJ Venter returns at the expense of Gerrie Britz. White’s explanation is that the tight-head side of the scrum, marshalled by Eddie Andrews, is an area that needs shoring up. Venter is being asked to do the job that his namesake, André, perfected, adding grunt in the push and physical presence at the breakdowns.
It would be churlish to point out that this should have been done last week. The saga of the missing Victor Matfield is, hopefully, at an end and this time next year we may have forgotten that Britz was ever a Springbok in the first place. All that remains to be said is that if, by some bizarre force of nature, the Springboks lose on Saturday, they will be entitled to look back on the two games played without their lineout master and cry bitter tears at the vicissitudes of people who care for politics above rugby.