A smiling Eddie Jones is Napoleoning up and down a rugby pitch at this very moment with Jake White’s jewels in the left side pocket of his tracksuit top. And he is squeezing them very, very hard.
Jones has good reason to be basking in this savoury glow of satisfaction.
For a start, he’s one-up in the Mandela Cup with the decider to come in eight days.
On top of that he cruelly exposed his rival’s lack of foresight in last week’s Sydney Test and, most importantly: he has a team confident and skilled enough to torment the Boks so badly, that when the Tri Nations proper starts, they will be little but blubbering wrecks.
The Springboks’ witless display in last weekend’s battle of tactical ideologies (or skills, maybe?) certainly sent my fan-o-meter plummeting into the lowest registers. Partly because I, like many others, was feeling decidedly upbeat over the whole affair. How difficult could it be?
We would absolutely get at least one try through either Bryan Habana or Jean de Villiers, and big old Bakkies would, without a doubt, smite those lightweight Wallabies down just as surely as Os du Randt would twist a lock and a hooker into a moaning mess of ruptured spleens and scrumcups.
Of course, the Wallabies were neither lightweight nor lacking in pluck or brains — scoring no less than five tries, as their opposition (and I do mean this absolutely literally) fell and floundered and flopped about like so many green and gold pinnipeds.
On this earth you will find very few games that can be won (or even played) by disregarding, entirely, one of their fundamental actions. Think squash without actually swatting the ball, poker without dealing or cricket without fielding.
The only legal way to stop a ball-carrier from crossing your goal line is to tackle him. There are a number of ways this can be done, depending on the size, gameness and intellectual vigour of the player concerned. But, in the end, it basically comes down to the same thing — making the other team stop for a while and maybe having a go yourself.
The Springboks didn’t do this last week and they lost.
But worse than not defending — they also didn’t attack. They just flopped and floundered and kicked. Aimlessly. Up and down the park. And as kick after kick was sent back, Bakkies and Os and Danie Rossouw and Jacques Cronje had to haul almost half-a-tonne of ass this way and that until it was time for a line-out.
Come breakdown time, they were so knackered that they were unable to prevent the next phase or loss of possession.
In the first half Jaco and Percy were the ones mainly kicking the Boks’ butts.
Which is to take away nothing from the Wallaby forwards who, apart from the line-outs, played the game quicker, better and more intelligently than the South Africans.
The much-anticipated and heavily hyped Ricky Januarie/George Gregan match-up never materialised; or perhaps it did and, was, as logic would dictate, decided in a nanosecond. The ease with which the South African halfbacks were rendered ineffective as a whole was especially worrying — but we’ve seen it before.
Remember last year’s Tri Nations final against New Zealand when Joe van Niekerk picked up from the base, near the Kiwi posts, bounced the advantage line back — and created space of such epic proportions that the resulting try looked like magic? I do and it made me really happy.
I was soon sad, however, because in their next Test against Wales the Boks were just dismal. England came after that and what the Boks did at Twickenham was just completely sub-par. Nothing worked, and they lost by 16 points — mainly because their flyhalf has very real problems when he is under pressure.
Any flyhalf is going to under-perform when he’s being targeted, but he shouldn’t use up valuable time worrying about this. Van der Westhuyzen, it appears, does, and as a consequence places everyone under pressure the instant he receives the ball. This is not a good thing.
But will substituting him with Andre Pretorius solve the problem? Why say that Naas Botha is being roped in to assist Jaco with the kicking skills, but then bring in Andre Pretorius? Does Jaco (or Percy for that matter) actually need to be taught how to kick a ball into touch? This man makes his living from kicking rugby balls every day for at least two hours.
Anyway. Please tell me why Marius Joubert is being allowed to go slowly insane live on Supersport? It pains me to say this, but he should — please — be rested. He was great when he was firing, but now he’s about as necessary as an Australian audio feed. As things are, Jean de Villiers or Bryan Habana are barely seeing the ball: move someone else in there — we’re playing jazz in any case.
Solly Tyibilika and Eddie Andrews are back in the band — filling the seats vacated by Danie Rossouw and Lawrence Sephaka.
This is puzzling because Sephaka did miracles against France in Port Elizabeth and wasn’t nearly as ineffective last week as Andrews was in the Durban draw against the Tricolores. What difference is Andrews going to make against Bill Young — be a poorer scrummager? Solly didn’t do anything wrong in the Durban Test, so deserves a shot, but is he better than Rossouw? Tough call.
Wayne Julies has also been brought back in and he replaces Brent Russell who, despite trying valiantly, failed to ignite the Boks in Sydney.
A week and a bit remains before the Mandela Cup is decided. And after that it’s the Tri Nations. Wallabies back-to-back.
Whatever Jake White decides to do, it has to work. No ifs, buts, maybes or ask Jakes. Should Australia beat the Springboks next Saturday the blow will be immense — Australian teams have never won at Ellis Park and Jones’ wall does not include a Bok trophy taken in Africa. His are all canned. But the greatest worry is that another loss will see the Transformation Brigade and other opportunistic predators turning up the heat and bringing out the knives.
What the Boks need to do is pull together like they did last year this time. If they fail next week, the road back will be long and hard and winding indeed. There is much work to be done, let’s hope they can make the deadline.
Meanwhile, Eddie Jones is still strolling, carefree, on a pitch somewhere. He is smiling. And squeezing.