/ 21 November 2008

The end of a dismal year

A disappointing Springbok season ends at Twickenham on Saturday. The Boks play their 13th Test of 2008 with a record that reads: won eight, lost four.

A disappointing Springbok season ends at Twickenham on Saturday. The world champions play their 13th Test of 2008 with a record that reads: won eight, lost four.

The addition of a fifth loss would make it into a fairly dismal year, while a ninth win would not necessarily change that perception, which is pretty much the definition of a no-win situation.

Coach Peter de Villiers was clearly aware of that when he spoke to the media on Monday and accused them of focusing on bad news. The following day, however, the Springbok team announcement was postponed — and clearly there is a tug of war going on behind the scenes.

By the time the Mail & Guardian hits the streets the issues will have been resolved one way or the other, but it would surprise no one if the team was altered again before Saturday’s kick-off.

Four years ago Jacque Fourie was in the news ahead of the same fixture and he is there again this time around. Fourie’s magnificent try against Scotland at Murrayfield last week was the difference between winning and losing. He came off the bench to replace Bryan Habana and galvanised the team. Will he do the same this week?

Fourie’s performance put into perspective the pedestrian role that Habana has been reduced to for much of the year and the need to find a place for the Lions centre is an ironic echo of the 2004 fixture.

That year Jake White selected a team that included only one player of colour, Eddie Andrews, at tight-head prop. Fourie was named on the wing, but after political interference Breyton Paulse replaced him.

Fourie ended up playing the last 10 minutes of the game, but was upstaged by Habana, who came on at the same time as Fourie and scored a blistering try with his first touch of the ball.

It was the one bright spot in a poor display by the team that had won the Tri-Nations three months earlier and they were well beaten, 32-16. Moreover, it came hard on the heels of a 17-12 defeat by Ireland the previous week, a reverse that had shredded the pre-tour hopes of a grand slam against the four home unions.

On an Irish note, it’s intriguing that the International Rugby Board (IRB) is now pushing for a return to proper tours instead of allowing international sides to jet in, play a Test match and jet out again. Midweek games were once the lifeblood of the game for international coaches, arenas where they could experiment away from the overwhelming need to win Test matches.

This week the All Blacks played a Tuesday night game against Irish province Munster at Thomond Park in Limerick. It was a special fixture, added to the New Zealand grand slam tour to celebrate 30 years since the same sides faced each other in another era.

In 1978 the great Irish flyhalf Tony Ward was the man of the match, kicking two drop goals and converting the try he helped create in a 12-0 win for Munster.

Ward was an old-fashioned flyhalf, slightly built, with ballet dancer’s feet and a feel for the game that no coach can instil.

Two years later he came on the Lions tour to South Africa and turned up to sit on the bench at Boet Erasmus having left his boots in the hotel. In the days when substitutes came on only when a player could not continue because of injury, Ward felt confident his services would not be required. He was wrong and only then did he realise that no one else in the whole squad took a size six boot.

Ward was at this week’s game to see Munster agonisingly go down 18-16 to a late Joe Rokocoko try. The crowd of 29 000 might have gone home disappointed, but you’d never have known it.

They stayed to applaud the All Blacks and thank them for taking time out of their busy international commitments to visit the home of the five-line — nonsense poem.

And they held their breath whenever All Blacks flyhalf Stephen Donald kicked at goal, in sharp contrast to the oafs who booed Matt Giteau all afternoon at Twicken­ham on Saturday. The point was that the occasion at Thomond Park was greater than the game and the result was utterly ­unimportant. There was a time when Test matches could be described in the same vein, but those days have gone.

So on Saturday the Springboks will have to go to the well again and dredge up some inspiration to finish their year on a high. They will have studied the tape of England’s 28-14 defeat to Australia and noted two things in particular: first, that the English scrum is light years away from the invincible eight that won the World Cup in 2003 and second, that they have a flyhalf who can play a bit.

Danny Cipriani had a poor day with the boot against the Wallabies, but he made two line breaks in midfield that should have brought tries. Unfortunately for England, their backs have become so used to running sideways with the ball that when someone straightens the line in dramatic fashion like Cipriani, there is no one up in support. No loose forwards either and therefore no tries.

New England manager Martin Johnson must have spent the week explaining to the team how it worked in his day. Back then England expected to win wherever they played and once beat the All Blacks in New Zealand with 13 men. The pack never took a backward step and line breaks were supported.

Times have changed and it may be too soon for this England side to beat this Springbok side, even one that has lost a good deal of focus because of mistakes in the selection process. In the greater scheme of things the result is as unimportant as the one in Limerick, but it would be nice to think that the game could be played in the same spirit.