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/ 21 September 2007
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There have been times during his tenure as Springbok coach when Jake White must have wished he were Bernard Laporte — but this is not one of them. At the same time that White and his charges are relaxing after a job well done, the coach of France is wondering if his team will still be in the World Cup on Saturday morning.
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/ 14 September 2007
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What a difference four years make. On Friday South Africa take on England at the Stade de France, confident that they have the beating of the old enemy. Four years ago the England team had an aura of invincibility about it, but today it looks like one of those household implements reassembled in haste, with two or three parts left over that don’t seem to have a genuine function.
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/ 7 September 2007
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Argentina created one of the biggest shocks in World Cup history by beating host nation France 17-12 at Stade Francais on Friday night. In front of a full house at Saint Denis France froze in the headlights and produced a string of errors suggesting that they will not be the force some had expected in the showpiece event.
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/ 7 September 2007
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Australia beat England at the 1991 Rugby World Cup final, but in the South Stand at Twickenham lurked a couple of fellows who held up a banner emblazoned with this motto: ”South Africa, the real World Champions”. As it turned out, the blazers of the International Rugby Board had met during the second World Cup to debate the re-entry of the Springboks into the international fold.
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In a perfect world the Springboks would be sunning themselves in the south of France, fine-tuning a few of the more cerebral moves cooked up by the coaching team and ingratiating themselves with the locals. After all, we are just one week away from the beginning of the Rugby World Cup 2007.
With just more than a month to go to the beginning of the World Cup, the superstitious among the 30-man squad chosen by the South African selectors will be avoiding black cats, ladders, people whose eyebrows meet in the middle and the other bad omens too numerous to mention.
When lock Johann Muller takes the field at the head of the Springboks in Christchurch on Saturday, he will become the 53rd captain of his country and, remarkably, the fourth different Springbok captain in this year’s Tri-Nations. Four captains in four games is not something to be proud of, even if coach Jake White can cite certain extenuating circumstances.
There have been some odd happenings in South African sport during the course of the 21st century. Take the case of cricketer Jacques Rudolph, who made his debut for the Proteas against India in 2001, only for the ICC retrospectively to strip the game of its Test match status.
It would have been rather disingenuous of All Blacks coach Graham Henry to criticise the Springboks for leaving 20 of their best players at home for the away leg of the Tri-Nations. After all, it was his decision to rest his top 22 from the first seven weeks of this year’s Super 14. But, without going over the top, Henry has made his point.
Major Test matches come around so often these days, that it is easy to allow one to slip unremarked into another. But when the Springboks play the All Blacks, the world tends to slow down and this week in Durban was a time for reflection. The last two Tests between these sides at King’s Park were memorable for entirely contrasting reasons.