When the Springboks took the nine-hour flight from Johannesburg to Perth this week, the weight of expectation might have been enough for the team to be charged excess baggage. Winning all three of their home games without losing key players to injury set up the possibility of a third Tri-Nations title to add to those of 1998 and 2004.
In previous seasons, home wins have been followed by humiliations on the road, but the fare served up by Australia and New Zealand in Sydney last Saturday suggests otherwise this year.
Akin to two bald men fighting over a comb, the pre-match talk of expansive rugby by the two coaches was soon forgotten in the wake of what might well be the worst Tri-Nations game ever played.
Those with only medium-term memories might argue that the Boks have been involved in a few shockers: the 0-28 of Dunedin in 1999 and the 16-52 of Pretoria in 2003 spring to mind, both against the All Blacks. The nadir against Australia was the 0-49 of Brisbane in 2006, which was part of a five-game losing streak by Jake White’s team that almost cost the coach his job.
But in those games the woes of one team were balanced by the joys of the other. Not so last Saturday. It is hard to remember when last an All Blacks team looked so uncomfortable with the ball. Multiphase moves (admittedly few in number) seemed to end with the ball-carrying team moving backwards.
Before the game both Graham Henry and Robbie Deans suggested that the current dominance of South Africa was owed largely to newly formulated laws that reward the team that kicks and chases the best. There may be a grain of truth in that, and the International Rugby Board (IRB) may soon have to embark on yet another series of law changes, but it should not be allowed to obscure the paucity of ambition at Sydney.
If New Zealand is the traditional home of direct attacking play, then Australia is the bastion of rugby that engages the intellect as well as the adrenal glands. The Wallabies gave us Ken Catchpole, Mark Ella, David Campese and George Gregan, players who could be seen thinking about the game while playing it.
Yet the new generation, under a Kiwi coach, were bereft of ideas on Saturday. In the last two minutes, with a one-point deficit courtesy of Dan Carter’s penalty goal, the Wallabies, tryless in the preceding 78 minutes, tried to batter their way across the All Blacks line.
They did not have the wit to construct a drop goal. Had they done so, Australia might now still be in with a chance of winning the tournament. Deans did not dare suggest, post-match, that a drop goal would have been an example of ”winning ugly” and his team doesn’t do that. But previous statements suggest that both he and Henry believe that to be the preserve of the Springboks.
In which case history beckons for Peter de Villiers and his charges. The three home wins have all been unsatisfactory for differing reasons, but it all boils down to this: a Springbok team that bears comparison with the best of a century of precursors isn’t doing enough. The kick and chase works, up to a point, but this is a team that should be scoring tries by the truckload.
Maybe the weight of expectation is greater when playing at home. Maybe the next month will reveal the class of 2009 in their true, world-beating colours. Which is not to say that anyone expects 15-man rugby at all times, merely to suggest that John Smit and company have underachieved with the resources at their disposal.
On scant evidence, the Subiaco Oval in Perth was once considered a Springbok stronghold. Yet the record now reads: played five, won two, lost two, drawn one. It’s clearly not a case of just turning up, even if there will be hordes of relocated Van der Merwes cheering the Boks on from the stands.
But the evidence suggests an away win of rather greater magnitude than the one-pointer achieved by the All Blacks in Sydney. The Boks are unbeaten, rested and have Schalk Burger back in the squad. By contrast the Wallabies are beginning to wonder whether poaching Deans from New Zealand was a false dawn.
Deans’s first task when he took over was to introduce a bit of ”mongrel” into the pack. He bolstered the tight five and began a programme of ”contested” practices that resulted in some blood among the sweat and tears. He picked a few teenagers and set off boldly in pursuit of victory at the 2011 World Cup.
But there is a long way to go before then and it is asking rather too much of his current squad to live up to the Springboks, even with home advantage.
Six points from three games should be enough for South Africa to clinch the Tri-Nations and it is not fanciful to suggest that five of those points might be in the bag by Saturday night.