The natives of Buenos Aires are known as Los Portenos, the people of the port, and they do things differently there. In 1996, Andre Markgraaff’s Springboks appeared at a reception in the town and the official invite announced that proceedings would commence at 10pm.
Two years earlier, James Small had been involved in a nocturnal fight with a beach bum at a Port Elizabeth bar 48 hours prior to a Test against Argentina. His reward was to be left behind when Kitch Christie’s team made their post-season trip to Britain and Ireland. In Buenos Aires, however, Small made his appearance at the appointed hour and said: ”If I was at home I’d be banned for being out this late.”
Those familiar with the Argentine lifestyle will not need to be told that, with the exception of the South African contingent and a desultory bar staff, the place was empty at the appointed hour. The reception finally lurched into life at midnight, by which time the Springboks were all safely tucked up in bed.
It was John Cooper Clark who pointed out that the British idea of a 24-hour city is somewhere where you can get a drink after 11pm, but the true definition is Los Angeles, a place where you can get run over by a skateboarder chomping a Big Mac at 3am. For LA, read BA. The idea of playing a Test match in Buenos Aires is, then, essentially a romantic one. It’s when you get on to the pitch that things change rather dramatically.
There have been strong links between the Springboks and the Pumas since 1965, when Danie Craven took it upon himself to give the South American game a leg up. The Pumas quickly adopted the ”subdue and penetrate” tactics popular in South Africa at that time, finding that their prime-beef-bred population produced as many oversized examples of manhood as their mentors.
Forty years later, Jake White’s Springboks can boast a massive pack of forwards, but no one is kidding himself that Saturday’s Test match will be a pushover. Marcello Loffreda’s Pumas will be as big, better drilled in scrumming technique and keen to prove that they should have been invited to an expanded Tri-Nations.
These are not the locally based easybeats that White’s team tamed 37-3 last year. These are the battle-hardened French- and British-based mercenaries who have rewritten the history books for their country over the past decade. These guys are good.
Fortunately, the same applies to the Springboks, despite the fact that injury has denuded White of 10 quality players. His back line is full of oomph and his forwards an enviable mix of grunt and flair. The absence of Joe van Niekerk may be a blessing in disguise, for the upper-body strength of Jacques Cronje will be crucial against Puma forwards who could pry barnacles off a ship’s hull with their bare hands.
If there is a weak link, it may be at scrumhalf where Bolla Conradie has been woefully short of game time this season. Lacking the silky kicking skills of Fourie du Preez and the in-your-face qualities of Ricky Januarie, Conradie will need to be at the top of his game in order to take the pressure off his flyhalf, Andre Pretorius.
If that debatable link works, however, the Springbok backs have a rare look of power and finesse about them, rather akin to Douglas Adams’s slice of lemon wrapped around a large gold brick.
The last time White’s team played a Test, he made the error of moving Jean de Villiers to wing in order to accommodate crash-ball specialist De Wet Barry. Now De Villiers has been reunited with Jacque Fourie in midfield, bringing an instant sense of order to proceedings.
It is particularly pleasing to see Conrad Jantjes back at Test level, four years after he bowed out against the US in Houston. How times have changed in the Bok ranks. That game was Harry Viljoen’s swansong as Bok coach and the 43-20 score line belies the fact that his team was a directionless rabble.
Four years later, the press are desperately searching for anything even mildly controversial to write about White’s tourists, as he continues to hand out caps with the parsimony of Ebenezer Scrooge. Consequently, while this is a game that South Africa could lose, they almost certainly won’t — because they know where they’re going.