After two one-sided contests with New Zealand, the Springbok coaching staff have made nine changes to their match-day 22 for this week’s Test against Australia in Brisbane. There have been times in the recent past when knee-jerk reactions were not called for, but this is not one of them. Even the principal sponsor seems to recognise that the end of an era has been reached, for, on Tuesday, Sasol announced that it would not continue an association that has lasted for six years and R150-million.
With just over a year to go to the next World Cup, the defending champions appear rudderless as well as sponsor-less. A lacklustre display in Auckland was put down to rust and a certain amount of ennui, following last year’s three successive wins over the old foe. But last week’s display in Wellington brought no new method, so change has become inevitable.
Several of the changes may be disguised as horses for courses. Suncorp Stadium is regarded as a “top of the ground” course for sprinters rather than stayers. So, replacing the rather pedestrian Francois Louw with Ryan Kankowski on the flank is an interesting throw of the dice, even if the latter has never played in the number seven jersey in senior rugby.
Equally, Gio Aplon may well have played on the right wing even if Jean de Villiers had not been serving a one-week ban for a spear tackle. De Villiers, a lynchpin of the team for the past five years, has failed to shake off the poor form that dogged him in Ireland during his European vacation. Picking him out of position on the wing has not helped, and it has served to highlight the problems in midfield, where the combination of Jaque Fourie and Wynand Olivier has not added up to the sum of its parts.
Given his consistently fine displays for the Bulls during the Super 14, Olivier perhaps deserved a run in the team, but his preference for the crash ball does not best serve a side boasting the clinical thrust of Fourie and Bryan Habana out wide. If De Villiers has reached the end of the road and, given the excellence of his pedigree, that is far from certain, the gifted Juan de Jongh should have been given a start, instead of waiting on the bench.
Many will cheer the elevation of Ruan Pienaar to the starting line-up. Always the bridesmaid, Pienaar must have believed that Fourie du Preez’s decision to take the year off to rehabilitate his shoulder would be his chance to shine. But the coach’s well-known regard for Ricky Januarie got in the way.
Peter de Villiers has defended Januarie doggedly ever since he took the reins from Jake White after the 2007 World Cup. He even played the race card to defend his scrumhalf when Januarie’s form took a similar dip last season. The 20 minutes that Pienaar played at the game’s conclusion last week proved to most what the side had been missing and Januarie has been dropped from the 22, perhaps never to return.
It is unkind to suggest that Morné Steyn’s game has been undermined by the service he has received from his scrumhalf, but the truth hurts. The missing ingredient is Du Preez, the rock around which both the Bulls and Springboks have built their games for five years. Du Preez had the ability to make even the extremely limited Jaco van der Westhuizen look good at flyhalf, and without him Steyn is half the player.
Among the plethora of “what ifs” that the coaching staff needs to mull over is this: What if Du Preez is gone for good? And while they are at it, here is another: What if Victor Matfield, John Smit, Schalk Burger and Bakkies Botha don’t make it to next year’s World Cup in New Zealand? The South African Rugby Union tried to arrest the march of time by signing a host of established stars until after the 2011 showpiece. But the game is a hard taskmaster that cares only for desire, not long-term contracts.
Much has been made, for instance, of the continuity endemic to De Villiers’s time as coach. He inherited an established group from White and stuck with it. Like De Villiers, White saw his team stutter 15 months from a World Cup and the former will hope that history does not repeat itself, for the nadir came in Brisbane against Australia.
The infamous 49-0 drubbing marked the Test debut of Pierre Spies but, while Olivier and Fourie combined in midfield and Matfield and Rossouw at lock, the match 22 bore scant resemblance to the one that will take the field this week. Indeed there are only seven left from that day, which underlines the fundamental shift in emphasis that this week’s selection has wrought.
In the immortal words of Abe Segal, it is too soon to panic. Losing to New Zealand in New Zealand happens more often than not to every Test team. It may be that the radical changes to this week’s squad will be counter-productive, but something had to be done, even if it was only the payment of an “admission of guilt” fine. Ultimately the team will be stronger for the decisions made this week and the World Cup selections are less likely to involve an unconvincing roundup of the usual suspects.