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Rob Houwing
The more optimistic of South Africa’s supporters might be wishing that the beefed-up Springboks will run into a Wallaby side in some sense of disarray for the Castle Tri-Nations match at Mr Price Kings Park next Saturday.
After all, the Aussies will do the long haul having come off a pretty sobering 30-14 defeat to the All Blacks in Auckland this weekend which quickly sees the simultaneous Bledisloe Cup stay out of their grasp once more.
And in most instances when the Springboks entertain these foes on our soil, tipsters generally lean the way of the home outfit.
Yet it may not be nearly so straightforward this time: for one thing, the Wallabies will take comfort in the staging of Saturday’s encounter in coastal, temperate Durban rather than one of the Highveld strongholds where they historically come to grief the proverbial nine times out of 10.
They will also be well aware that their Tri-Nations quest, albeit a slightly lower-value objective for all parties this year anyway, hasn’t quite been wrecked by the Eden Park loss – they managed to stave off handing the currently near-untouchable All Blacks a bonus point to accompany the triumph.
Stranger things will happen than for the Wallabies, ranked higher than the Boks on the IRB ladder anyway, to win on Saturday and then see South Africa knock over the New Zealanders in Port Elizabeth, reasonably unlikely though that may seem at present.
Under those circumstances, Rocky Elsom’s troops would then be right in with a stab at stealing the title for the first time since 2001, as they end the campaign in Brisbane against their Antipodean rivals on August 27.
So although smart money surely stays very much pinned to yet another All Black hoisting of the spoils, Australia remain in realistic enough contention and with their pride ruffled, rather than more all-embracingly destroyed, in Auckland.
Certainly they never raised a white flag, as indicated by their nominal “winning” of the second half by 14 points to 13 after they had looked really up against it at 0-17 down by half-time.
There were also enough passages of real-estate dominance, rosy ball retention and renowned flashes of Aussie flair for coach Robbie Deans to quickly beat any sense of morbidity out of his charges and steel them for the challenge of the Boks.
At times when their defence was really stretched, the All Blacks reminded the world that this is an aspect that has hardly been neglected during their parallel ambition to take the game to new levels of pace, power and “total rugby” attacking thrust.
As assistant coach Steve Hansen reminded the television audience in a snap chat during the break on Saturday: “We worked really hard off the ball whenever we didn’t have it.” (That pattern didn’t change a whole lot in the second half.)
I fancy that a fairly big drawback for South Africa on Saturday, despite their obvious intention to field a team significantly closer to fullest strength at last, will be the sheer volume of changes: their “A-team” are going to have to hit the ground running after a few weeks of inactivity while the Wallabies, by contrast, are battle-hardened at the highest level after committing far more of their top personnel to the early stages of the competition.
Normally, of course, a best-staffed Springbok side starting out an international campaign would brush off some cobwebs against, say, a visiting Scotland, Italy or Canada before squaring up to either of their toughest foes in recent years.
Another little feather in the Aussie cap, perhaps, is the way their set-piece stood up, by and large, to the supposed might of the All Blacks – especially so at scrum-time, I felt, although loosehead Sekope Kepu was suddenly “popped” rather unflatteringly right on the hour mark.
Of course their three-quarters will try to run some of the more game-shy Boks around the park as much as they can in Durban: Digby Ioane looked a real handful at left wing from relatively few opportunities and might just set the looming World Cup alight in much the same way Bryan Habana did in 2007.
Something to give Peter de Villiers and company some encouragement will be the wayward place-kicking in Auckland of James O’Connor – the Wallabies may just be struggling to settle on who their best option really is in this department – and also the increasingly evident discomfort of Quade Cooper at No 10 as the Wallabies were forced onto the back foot by the black tide.
With some household names comfortingly returning to the fore, of course the Boks can win on Saturday.
But they’d better not be complacent, simply because they will have binned some baby faces and the Aussies will be coming off a reverse at Eden Park ...
The more optimistic of South Africa’s supporters might be wishing that the beefed-up Springboks will run into a Wallaby side in some sense of disarray for the Castle Tri-Nations match at Mr Price Kings Park next Saturday.
After all, the Aussies will do the long haul having come off a pretty sobering 30-14 defeat to the All Blacks in Auckland this weekend which quickly sees the simultaneous Bledisloe Cup stay out of their grasp once more.
And in most instances when the Springboks entertain these foes on our soil, tipsters generally lean the way of the home outfit.
Yet it may not be nearly so straightforward this time: for one thing, the Wallabies will take comfort in the staging of Saturday’s encounter in coastal, temperate Durban rather than one of the Highveld strongholds where they historically come to grief the proverbial nine times out of 10.
They will also be well aware that their Tri-Nations quest, albeit a slightly lower-value objective for all parties this year anyway, hasn’t quite been wrecked by the Eden Park loss – they managed to stave off handing the currently near-untouchable All Blacks a bonus point to accompany the triumph.
Stranger things will happen than for the Wallabies, ranked higher than the Boks on the IRB ladder anyway, to win on Saturday and then see South Africa knock over the New Zealanders in Port Elizabeth, reasonably unlikely though that may seem at present.
Under those circumstances, Rocky Elsom’s troops would then be right in with a stab at stealing the title for the first time since 2001, as they end the campaign in Brisbane against their Antipodean rivals on August 27.
So although smart money surely stays very much pinned to yet another All Black hoisting of the spoils, Australia remain in realistic enough contention and with their pride ruffled, rather than more all-embracingly destroyed, in Auckland.
Certainly they never raised a white flag, as indicated by their nominal “winning” of the second half by 14 points to 13 after they had looked really up against it at 0-17 down by half-time.
There were also enough passages of real-estate dominance, rosy ball retention and renowned flashes of Aussie flair for coach Robbie Deans to quickly beat any sense of morbidity out of his charges and steel them for the challenge of the Boks.
At times when their defence was really stretched, the All Blacks reminded the world that this is an aspect that has hardly been neglected during their parallel ambition to take the game to new levels of pace, power and “total rugby” attacking thrust.
As assistant coach Steve Hansen reminded the television audience in a snap chat during the break on Saturday: “We worked really hard off the ball whenever we didn’t have it.” (That pattern didn’t change a whole lot in the second half.)
I fancy that a fairly big drawback for South Africa on Saturday, despite their obvious intention to field a team significantly closer to fullest strength at last, will be the sheer volume of changes: their “A-team” are going to have to hit the ground running after a few weeks of inactivity while the Wallabies, by contrast, are battle-hardened at the highest level after committing far more of their top personnel to the early stages of the competition.
Normally, of course, a best-staffed Springbok side starting out an international campaign would brush off some cobwebs against, say, a visiting Scotland, Italy or Canada before squaring up to either of their toughest foes in recent years.
Another little feather in the Aussie cap, perhaps, is the way their set-piece stood up, by and large, to the supposed might of the All Blacks – especially so at scrum-time, I felt, although loosehead Sekope Kepu was suddenly “popped” rather unflatteringly right on the hour mark.
Of course their three-quarters will try to run some of the more game-shy Boks around the park as much as they can in Durban: Digby Ioane looked a real handful at left wing from relatively few opportunities and might just set the looming World Cup alight in much the same way Bryan Habana did in 2007.
Something to give Peter de Villiers and company some encouragement will be the wayward place-kicking in Auckland of James O’Connor – the Wallabies may just be struggling to settle on who their best option really is in this department – and also the increasingly evident discomfort of Quade Cooper at No 10 as the Wallabies were forced onto the back foot by the black tide.
With some household names comfortingly returning to the fore, of course the Boks can win on Saturday.
But they’d better not be complacent, simply because they will have binned some baby faces and the Aussies will be coming off a reverse at Eden Park ...
