After a week of finger-pointing and apologies Springbok reputations are in as bad a state as England’s jerseys. Rudolf Straeuli decided to ignore the ”connotations of racism” in the Geo Cronje/Quinton Davids affair and everyone took a swipe at Rian Oberholzer for using a sledgehammer to crack a walnut.

By the time the Bulls run on to the field to play the Sharks on Saturday they will know what they are playing for and, sadly, the likelihood is that it will be pride rather than a semifinal spot.

On June 28 Telkom Park will host a Test match between the Springboks and Argentina. Earlier this year the National Lottery allocated R2-million to the Eastern Province Rugby Union (EPRU). On the surface it seems that all is well in Port Elizabeth, but dig a little deeper and you discover that nothing could be further from the truth.

The World Cup wouldn’t be the same without a Bok crisis. Amid all the mud-slinging, backtracking and name-calling, one statement stands out for its balance and calm appraisal of the situation.

Rudolf Straeuli has spread the net far and wide, so just about anyone bar Geo Cronje might be named in his Springbok World Cup squad this weekend. True to form, Straeuli has refused to dismiss the claims of any of the walking wounded in his extended World Cup squad of 40, repeating merely that all would be revealed at the Supersport Show on Saturday.

After the announcement of 40 players from whom the 30-man squad for this year’s World Cup campaign will be drawn, Springbok coach Rudolf Straeuli has nowhere left to hide.

The Springboks have lost their last two matches by wide margins and when they last played the All Blacks, they conceded no fewer than seven tries. In their long and sometimes distinguished history, they have never won a Test in Dunedin – the venue for this week’s Tri-Nations encounter.

It’s not often in these troubled times that the opposition coach is under greater pressure than the Springbok coach, but that will be the case at the Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane on Saturday when Australia play South Africa. Eddie Jones has now seen his team lose three matches in a row and in a World Cup year, the natives are getting restless.

Rugby is a team game and its egalitarian spirit is never more obvious than at those oh-so-forced man-of-the-match ceremonies, when the player singled out by whoever has the short straw this week says: “If the team plays well then my job is easy.”

The 30-30 draw between South Africa- A and Argentina in Wellington on Wednesday raised more questions than answers. On the political front it prompted Pumas veteran hooker Federico Mendez to call once more for Argentina to be included in the Tri-Nations