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Comment: Rob Houwing, Sport24 chief writer
Cape Town – The British and Irish Lions have certainly laid down the gauntlet with their squad selection: if they’re going to win the series against the Springboks, they will do it the industrial way.
And fair cop to them for that – they have figured that their best muti in a faraway land of thorns is to match the Boks at their own uncompromising and sometimes pragmatic philosophy.
Indeed, I am secretly relishing a return, for a few weeks, of good, old-fashioned “blunt instrument meets blunt instrument” after a general overkill in the past few years of southern hemisphere-culture frisbee.
That’s not to say that the three-Test series will automatically be ponderous and devoid of tries or bursts of electric hand-to-hand play – two of the Tests will be on the highveld, where spring-heeled assaults on the whitewash can happen in a flash of blinding light.
But a high premium on quality set-piece ball, field position and the forcing of penalties may well be the dominant theme in determining who grabs the laurels.
It’s odd that Bok coach Peter de Villiers was “surprised” by the selection of Paul O’Connell above Irish compatriot Brian O’Driscoll as captain: I’d have staked my house on the Lions opting for the second-rower as they’ve won two of their last three series here with gnarly locks at the helm and in South Africa, of all places, it’s prudent to have your skipper in the fiercest heat of the cauldron.
So the Lions’ first major strategic chore, the assembling of the soldiers and their on-field commander, has been completed.
Premature
Of course it would be a tad premature at this stage to expect all the key components of the Bok gunnery to be irreversibly installed, but it is my own strong wish that De Villiers make a call as soon as possible – bearing in mind that the first Test is only some eight weeks out -- on his precise positional intentions for incumbent captain John Smit.
And it is with similar fervency that I hope it is yet as first-choice hooker.
This makeshift (for at the end of the day he will still be makeshift) tight-head prop thing? Sorry, it’s an increasingly loony tune, especially when you assess the formidable slabs of front-row meat assembled by the Lions.
It probably sounds a bit rich for me to be passionately punting the No 2 claims of Smit: I admit I was among the lobby not too many years ago fatally seduced by the claims of more lightweight, “run-around” hookers like Schalk Brits (when he was still a particularly free-spirited Lions player) and Gary Botha.
I also concede now that it was one my stupider sporting judgments -- something Jake White, even if I am no apologist for the ex-coach, put to poppycock by his religious insistence on Smit as both his leader and No 2 which bore such great fruit at the 2007 World Cup.
Simply, his thoughts steeled by the slightly worrying decline of South African scrummaging on the global stage, White realised that the bulky Smit in the middle of the front row meant less likelihood of turbulence at the set-piece for the props alongside him and the pack more generally.
So if not actually dominating compellingly at scrum-time, Springbok eights of the White era tended at least to hold their own.
And “not go backwards” may well be the best we can expect of the Bok eight against a Lions team clearly hell-bent on havoc and front-foot momentum in this phase.
Flexible warrior
Personally, I think a front row of Beast Mtawarira at loosehead, Smit at No 2 and CJ van der Linde or Jannie du Plessis for the right shoulder is capable of just about neutralising the big, literal Lions “push”.
Proud, gritty and admirably flexible warrior though he is, I fear for Smit’s comfort if he is forced into the No 3 jersey against the Lions after so laughably little exposure, frankly, to the role in his 12-year first-class career.
Smit has an aura about him – an essential, Morne du Plessis-like gravitas -- as national captain. He must start against the Lions (Victor Matfield as leader is just not nearly so palatable an option, I think) and he deserves to do so in the position best suited to preserving his playing reputation.
That position, with respect and great regret to Bismarck du Plessis and his own bullocking biceps, is hooker.
The younger player’s time as a shoe-in Bok No 2 starter cannot be far away, let’s face it. He is 24; Smit a near-twilight 31. (Du Plessis will improve his own credentials, too, if he curbs a not-yet-purged penchant for needless over-robust play and concession of penalties.)
For the task at hand against the best of the British Isles, though, Du Plessis must be cajoled into introduction to the paddock after 50 or 60 minutes in the manner of a grumpy rhino let out of a transit cage, with Smit only then making the switch to tighthead if necessary.
Right now, with the Lions countdown clock ticking ever louder, Smit is in a potentially hazardous, undercooked situation for the Sharks: smatterings of time at hooker, dollops of exposure at tight-head. Yet probably not enough of either, if we think national interest in this red-letter year.
The former position, in particular, with its emphasis on precise lineout throwing (and that had become an ever more pleasing Smit forte up until this season) requires tons of dedicated preparation.
He is bound to be getting less of it, this year, than ever before, because of the Smit-Du Plessis rotation system at the Sharks.
Danger exists
It certainly seems as if Smit is consciously bulking up in likely preparation for deployment at tight-head against the might of either Wales’ Gethin Jenkins or Englishman Andrew Sheridan.
Again, the danger exists that it leaves him even more in an “in-between” situation: he may become too heavy to be fully effective at hooker; he may never get quite heavy enough to genuinely meet the needs of a dominant No 3.
He reminds one a little of the great Argentinean Federico Mendez: an awesomely strong hooker who could competently play at prop in a crisis -- though not nearly to the same degree of awe.
No, the legend of the bajada was always best served when Mendez was smack in the middle of it, his own brawn only enhancing the belief and mettle of the specialist props alongside him.
I have a lingering fear that the Springbok scrum will be vulnerable without the reassurance provided by Smit at its epicentre, rather than its right side.
Bok coach De Villiers -- immediately before contradicting himself, really, by justifying his ongoing experimentation with Smit at No 3 -- told Ashfak Mohamed of the Cape Times in a wide-ranging interview at the start of the Super 14: “I will tell you today that John is the best hooker in the country.”
Right then, that’s settled. Actually, it probably isn’t.
But it’s about time it was.
Cape Town – The British and Irish Lions have certainly laid down the gauntlet with their squad selection: if they’re going to win the series against the Springboks, they will do it the industrial way.
And fair cop to them for that – they have figured that their best muti in a faraway land of thorns is to match the Boks at their own uncompromising and sometimes pragmatic philosophy.
Indeed, I am secretly relishing a return, for a few weeks, of good, old-fashioned “blunt instrument meets blunt instrument” after a general overkill in the past few years of southern hemisphere-culture frisbee.
That’s not to say that the three-Test series will automatically be ponderous and devoid of tries or bursts of electric hand-to-hand play – two of the Tests will be on the highveld, where spring-heeled assaults on the whitewash can happen in a flash of blinding light.
But a high premium on quality set-piece ball, field position and the forcing of penalties may well be the dominant theme in determining who grabs the laurels.
It’s odd that Bok coach Peter de Villiers was “surprised” by the selection of Paul O’Connell above Irish compatriot Brian O’Driscoll as captain: I’d have staked my house on the Lions opting for the second-rower as they’ve won two of their last three series here with gnarly locks at the helm and in South Africa, of all places, it’s prudent to have your skipper in the fiercest heat of the cauldron.
So the Lions’ first major strategic chore, the assembling of the soldiers and their on-field commander, has been completed.
Premature
Of course it would be a tad premature at this stage to expect all the key components of the Bok gunnery to be irreversibly installed, but it is my own strong wish that De Villiers make a call as soon as possible – bearing in mind that the first Test is only some eight weeks out -- on his precise positional intentions for incumbent captain John Smit.
And it is with similar fervency that I hope it is yet as first-choice hooker.
This makeshift (for at the end of the day he will still be makeshift) tight-head prop thing? Sorry, it’s an increasingly loony tune, especially when you assess the formidable slabs of front-row meat assembled by the Lions.
It probably sounds a bit rich for me to be passionately punting the No 2 claims of Smit: I admit I was among the lobby not too many years ago fatally seduced by the claims of more lightweight, “run-around” hookers like Schalk Brits (when he was still a particularly free-spirited Lions player) and Gary Botha.
I also concede now that it was one my stupider sporting judgments -- something Jake White, even if I am no apologist for the ex-coach, put to poppycock by his religious insistence on Smit as both his leader and No 2 which bore such great fruit at the 2007 World Cup.
Simply, his thoughts steeled by the slightly worrying decline of South African scrummaging on the global stage, White realised that the bulky Smit in the middle of the front row meant less likelihood of turbulence at the set-piece for the props alongside him and the pack more generally.
So if not actually dominating compellingly at scrum-time, Springbok eights of the White era tended at least to hold their own.
And “not go backwards” may well be the best we can expect of the Bok eight against a Lions team clearly hell-bent on havoc and front-foot momentum in this phase.
Flexible warrior
Personally, I think a front row of Beast Mtawarira at loosehead, Smit at No 2 and CJ van der Linde or Jannie du Plessis for the right shoulder is capable of just about neutralising the big, literal Lions “push”.
Proud, gritty and admirably flexible warrior though he is, I fear for Smit’s comfort if he is forced into the No 3 jersey against the Lions after so laughably little exposure, frankly, to the role in his 12-year first-class career.
Smit has an aura about him – an essential, Morne du Plessis-like gravitas -- as national captain. He must start against the Lions (Victor Matfield as leader is just not nearly so palatable an option, I think) and he deserves to do so in the position best suited to preserving his playing reputation.
That position, with respect and great regret to Bismarck du Plessis and his own bullocking biceps, is hooker.
The younger player’s time as a shoe-in Bok No 2 starter cannot be far away, let’s face it. He is 24; Smit a near-twilight 31. (Du Plessis will improve his own credentials, too, if he curbs a not-yet-purged penchant for needless over-robust play and concession of penalties.)
For the task at hand against the best of the British Isles, though, Du Plessis must be cajoled into introduction to the paddock after 50 or 60 minutes in the manner of a grumpy rhino let out of a transit cage, with Smit only then making the switch to tighthead if necessary.
Right now, with the Lions countdown clock ticking ever louder, Smit is in a potentially hazardous, undercooked situation for the Sharks: smatterings of time at hooker, dollops of exposure at tight-head. Yet probably not enough of either, if we think national interest in this red-letter year.
The former position, in particular, with its emphasis on precise lineout throwing (and that had become an ever more pleasing Smit forte up until this season) requires tons of dedicated preparation.
He is bound to be getting less of it, this year, than ever before, because of the Smit-Du Plessis rotation system at the Sharks.
Danger exists
It certainly seems as if Smit is consciously bulking up in likely preparation for deployment at tight-head against the might of either Wales’ Gethin Jenkins or Englishman Andrew Sheridan.
Again, the danger exists that it leaves him even more in an “in-between” situation: he may become too heavy to be fully effective at hooker; he may never get quite heavy enough to genuinely meet the needs of a dominant No 3.
He reminds one a little of the great Argentinean Federico Mendez: an awesomely strong hooker who could competently play at prop in a crisis -- though not nearly to the same degree of awe.
No, the legend of the bajada was always best served when Mendez was smack in the middle of it, his own brawn only enhancing the belief and mettle of the specialist props alongside him.
I have a lingering fear that the Springbok scrum will be vulnerable without the reassurance provided by Smit at its epicentre, rather than its right side.
Bok coach De Villiers -- immediately before contradicting himself, really, by justifying his ongoing experimentation with Smit at No 3 -- told Ashfak Mohamed of the Cape Times in a wide-ranging interview at the start of the Super 14: “I will tell you today that John is the best hooker in the country.”
Right then, that’s settled. Actually, it probably isn’t.
But it’s about time it was.
