Springboks will show the way one fine day

13 April 2012

I have to come out of the closet on this subject - I like South African rugby! Since they returned from sporting isolation in 1992 and embarked on the most suicidal fixture list in the history of the game, they have gone from strength to strength, despite tearing themselves apart in the most perverse of ways.

Their rugby administration seems to derive great pleasure from creating chaos - a theme that seems to be catching as I thought only England had the patent in that department. Yet one has to admire their resilience, even though it may be fuelled by a nauseating arrogance.

Of course the casualty list is enormous and the body count of coaches since their return is almost into double figures. But are they concerned? Not in the slightest. The belief they have in themselves is on a par with American relay teams.

Take their last coach, Nick Mallet, for example. Mallett took them on a record equalling run of 17 Test wins before losing to England at Twickenham two years ago, and then guided them to third place in the 1999 World Cup. Not a bad effort, but obviously not good enough for the World Cup-holders.

Then he cleverly decided to embark on a new style that completely embraced the modern game. However, with the new style, came problems. He lost more games than he won and his position was coming under massive criticism from the sportsmad nation we know South Africa to be.

The final nail in the coffin as far as South African administrators were concerned was his criticism of ticket prices in an off-the-cuff comment to a journalist. One month later, Mallett was no longer coaching South Africa.

Nothing like making things easy for your national team!

Along comes Harry Viljoen, the current coach, successful in domestic rugby for the best part of a decade but who has not coached a representative team for three years. Not that it matters because Viljoen has surrounded himself with former Springbok coaches (of which there are plenty) to share the considerable burden of coaching his country.

Now Viljoen is different from the others, apart from being a multi-millionaire and one of the most successful businessmen in Africa, he has considerable vision. Although the rugby world thought he'd gone stark raving mad when he declared recently that his team would not kick the ball. This they duly did for their game against Argentina. The Springboks then arrived in Europe and the monsoon they have encountered forced them to cut their cloth accordingly.

There is little doubt had the weather improved we would have witnessed an international team trying to keep the ball in hand for a full 80 minutes. What it would have achieved for the game in this country no one will know until South Africa actually get the opportunity, so we all pray for a dry day on Saturday.

Although to date the Springboks have not been at their full potential, Ireland think they should have beaten them and Wales, with a little more composure, should have added a big scalp to their England collection. But they didn't and are no doubt kicking themselves.

So these new wave Springboks arrive at Twickenham with three Tests played and three won. They will be the first to admit they have been firing only on two cylinders so far, which is worrying.

An even bigger worry for England is that South Africa's scrum half Joost van der Westhuizen looks like he is back to his old form, having fully recovered from a knee injury.

His try against Wales was evidence that if the Springboks win quick ball from contact, they will be difficult to stop.

England, meanwhile, revert to the bulk of the team that should have won the series against South Africa in the summer.

Saturday's match has all the hallmarks of a magnificent spectacle with two teams totally committed to free flowing rugby, I hope the referee doesn't get in the way.

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Springboks will show the way one fine day

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