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Cape Town - There has been a lot of heat on the front-row forwards during the first weeks of the Springbok overseas tour, and the focus will continue into Saturday’s clash with Italy in Udine, but maybe the examination of where it goes wrong needs to go beyond the hookers and props.
Anyone who has done it will tell you that scrumming is an eight-man effort, and while admittedly on their good days they may conveniently ignore this fact, most props will acknowledge that their locks also have a lot to do with how the scrum fares.
There have been a lot of excuses forwarded as to why the Boks have struggled so far, and why, regardless of what happens from here on in, this tour will be remembered as a failure. A world champion team does not go on a tour of the northern hemisphere and lose three out of five and see that as a success.
But while fatigue, referees, national anthems and injuries have been among the reasons forwarded for the non-appearance so far of the Bok team that thrived in the Tri-Nations season, there is another reason which some may find unpalatable and consider unmentionable but which simply cannot be ignored: The selection for this tour has been abysmal.
From the outset it was clear to many knowledgeable rugby people that the initial squad was fatally flawed. That view has been vindicated to some extent by the way players many thought should have been there in the first place have been flown out to slot in for the injured, and how those players have leapfrogged into the Test team above initial selections.
Adriaan Strauss and Wian du Preez, two members of the Cheetahs front-row that did so well in the Currie Cup but which was ignored in its entirety when the 37 man squad was selected, will start in Udine. On the face of it, you would have to say that they struggled in Tuesday night’s defeat to English club side Saracens.
But this might be a case where selection, rather than individual players, were to blame for the failure. To refresh memories, CJ van der Linde lasted just a few minutes before he went off injured. Heinke van der Merwe, a loose-head chosen for this tour as a tighthead, came onto the field to fill in on the right side of the scrum, and predictably he struggled. He was out of position.
But an even more fatal flaw was the change of plan immediately before kick-off over the lock pairing that would play together against Saracens. Alistair Hargreaves and Andries Bekker are both good players in their own right, but neither of them are scrumming locks. In retrospect, the Bok scrum never stood a chance with those two playing together, and it was hardly surprising that the Bok scrum as a unit should look so loose.
A lot has been said and written about John Smit’s scrumming this year, and by now it has become obvious to most observers that his switch of position, if not doomed to ultimate failure, is at the very least highly problematic.
However, is it a coincidence that Smit and the Bok scrum’s most unstable moments this season have come when Bakkies Botha has been off the field and when two players who can hardly be considered big contributors at scrum time, Victor Matfield and Bekker, have been paired up. And for that read the last Test of the Lions series and the last third or quarter of just about every Test match the Boks have played this year.
Botha has said a few times this year in the media that he will ensure that Smit won’t travel backwards in the scrums. For much of this season he has been as good as his word. It is up to him on Saturday against an Italian team that possesses little other than a combative scrumming unit to ensure that the platform is laid for a much needed victory.
Provided Botha stays on the field for most of the 80 minutes, the Bok scrum does look better equipped this time, with BJ Botha, a World Cup winning Springbok, answering what really was a belated call this week to join the squad providing cover from the bench.
Of course, Bakkies’ role extends way beyond the scrum. The first step to the French win last week was the neutralising of the big Bok enforcer, which in a sense was a back-handed compliment to the lock as it indicated just how highly he is respected by his opponents.
If the Boks are to win this one, and it is an indication of how alarmingly the Bok stocks have dropped that this time I am not even prepared to risk a prediction, then Botha is going to have to be at his fiery, commanding best.
Teams:
Italy:15 Luke McLean, 14 Matteo Pratichetti, 13 Alberto Sgarbi, 12 Gonzalo Garcia, 11 Mirco Bergamasco, 10 Craig Gower, 9 Simon Piccone, 8 Sergio Parisse, 7 Alessandro Zanni, 6 Simone Favaro, 5 Quintin Geldenhuys, 4 Carlo Del Fava, 3 Martin Castrogiovanni, 2 Fabio Ongaro, 1 Salvatore Perugini
Replacements: 16 Leonardo Ghiraldini, 17 Ignacio Rouyet, 18 Antonio Pavanello, 19 Josh Sole, 20 Mauro Bergamasco, 21 Tito Tebaldi, 22 Gonzalo Canale
South Africa:
15 Zane Kirchner, 14 JP Pietersen, 13 Jaque Fourie, 12 Adi Jacobs, 11 Bryan Habana, 10 Morné Steyn, 9 Fourie du Preez, 8 Ryan Kankowski, 7 Danie Rossouw, 6 Heinrich Brüssow, 5 Andries Bekker, 4 Bakkies Botha, 3 John Smit (captain), 2 Adriaan Strauss, 1 Wian du Preez
Replacements: 16 Tendai Mtawarira, 17 BJ Botha, 18 Victor Matfield, 19 Jean Deysel, 20 François Hougaard, 21 Ruan Pienaar, 22 Wynand Olivier
Kick-off: 16:00 SA time
Referee: Alain Rolland (Ireland)
