Scepticism runs deep in the South African psyche. In sport it is manifested in two ways. Beat a feared opponent too easily and the result is ”meaningless” because, despite pre-match hype to the contrary, the opposition was under-strength. Beat the same opponent too narrowly and the joy of victory goes out the window, as a familiar mantra hits the streets: ”How do you expect to beat Australia/the All Blacks/Nigeria [depending on the sporting code] if you can’t stuff X at home?”
But what do you with a draw, especially in rugby? Usually the tired old clichés are rolled out about a draw being like kissing your sister. Sammy Woods, an Australian cricketer who played for Somerset in the 19th century said, ”Draws are only good for bathing” — but his witticism hasn’t stood the test of time since people don’t bathe in drawers anymore, they swim in trunks.
And so it was that, among the billowing smoke of the post-match braais in Durban last week, no one really knew what to make of a 30-all draw between South Africa and France. There was, however, an air of simmering discontent as the old defeatist psyche went to work.
It shouldn’t be a surprise, but are our memories really so short? When the two teams last met, in Marseilles in 2002, the Springboks were woeful in going down 30-10. A week later Rudolf Straeuli’s team lost to Scotland in Edinburgh. Now that was worth getting miserable about. Saturday’s entertainment was not.
It was, in fact, a fine game of rugby played between two good teams, and that is worth celebrating. Don’t let the eight changes made by French coach Bernard Laporte for this week’s concluding Test in Port Elizabeth fool you into believing that the team that drew in Durban was poor. Believe instead his statement, ”France does not have 22 Test-quality players; we have 35 to 40.”
That is why France are so demonstrably the early favourites to win the next World Cup, on home soil in 2007. Laporte can afford to leave out Olivier Magne, one of the icons of the world game for the past seven years, for this week’s encounter.
He can discard three of the back-line players who cut the Springboks to shreds, because the players coming in are better, and he can play ducks and drakes with his front row because he has world-class piano movers coming out of his ears.
What would Jake White not give to be able to select Pieter de Villiers at tight head this week instead of having to risk a player who has scarcely started a match in 2005?
The Springbok player in question is Lawrence Sephaka and while the debate rightly rages around the reasons for his selection, it is only three seasons since he was awarded the players’ player of the year trophy at a time when his position in the Springbok team was unquestioned, albeit at loosehead.
Sephaka played in Marseilles in 2002, as did Jean de Villiers, although the latter lasted just seven minutes on Test debut before being stretchered off with a serious knee injury. Not one other member of White’s starting team began against France in Marseilles.
White has reinvented the national side and is rightly proud of his achievement. His public suggestion that the Boks were ”poor” against France can be ignored; deep down he knows his team did well not to lose in Durban. They did so by drawing on reserves of mental fortitude that only comes with consistency of selection.
Upon that basis, there is little point in rehashing the hoary old arguments about why he prefers certain players against the wishes and advice of most armchair critics. Danie Rossouw is a lumbering oaf, bereft of the ball skills necessary for a flank forward, but White likes him. He offers a focal point to a forward drive and stands foursquare wherever needed.
Albert van den Berg is not bulky enough to play lock and his lineout skills are too similar to those of Victor Matfield to allow the pair to play together. Yet Van den Berg was partly the creator of Bryan Habana’s second try and it was he, not Matfield, to whom John Smit threw the ball in the final, desperately important lineout of the match, 5m from the Springbok line.
As for the two changes to this week’s side, White is nothing if not predictable.
Sephaka was his loosehead in the under-21 side that won the World Cup in 1999, while Ricky Januarie was his first-choice scrumhalf in the 2002 under-21s that won the same trophy on home soil. Fourie du Preez was White’s number two back then.
Which does not mean that dropping Du Preez for this week’s match is a good idea, even if White’s cover story about discovering how Januarie performs under pressure holds a certain amount of water. The player who will miss Du Preez most is flyhalf Jaco van der Westhuyzen, for Januarie possesses nothing like the tactical kicking game of the man he replaces.
Yet it is hard not to sympathise with White, as he battles to make Springbok rugby competitive while juggling the flaming hoops of transformation. When he replaced Eddie Andrews with CJ van der Linde last week, White’s team played the last half hour of the match with but one player of colour, Habana.
It will not have escaped a few politicians that in the week South Africa celebrates the 10-year anniversary of the 1995 World Cup final victory, the Springboks are still playing the game with 14 white men and a coloured winger. And Chester Williams wore the number 11 shirt, too.