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Boks restore pride and passion

Cardiff - South Africans' passion for the Springboks has returned following their 23-21 win over the Irish last week.

Few Springbok supporters thought their team would come out tops against Ireland before they left, with calls to sack the coaches, and criticism of players as not being in good enough form.

Few experts also gave the Boks any chance of winning the opening match of their end-of-year tour, following the world champions' dismal performance in the Tri-Nations.

Instead of focusing on the number of stalwarts still in the squad - which is short of 14 key players - detractors painted a bleak picture of poor planning and incompetent personnel.

Among the few who backed Peter de Villier's squad for success against Ireland were SuperSport commentator Owen Nkumane and Sport24's JJ Harmse.

"I think it is time that we, as Springbok supporters, start backing who we are and what we are really about," Nkumane said on Friday.

He was speaking a week to the day after publicly expressing his disappointment at the rugby community's lack of faith in the team they were supposed to support through thick and thin.

"There are many reasons why a good Bok tour is more than a remote possibility," Harmse wrote in his column.

"How the management team will shape up only time will tell, but I have an idea that the adversity they have endured will pull De Villiers, Gary Gold and Dick Muir together," he said.

Critics suggested that the Springboks will be played off the park by their northern hemisphere rivals.

"The circus act travels to a new stage this Saturday. As was the case in the Tri-Nations, there's not much hope that the Boks will leave the scene to a standing ovation," a commentator wrote on the rugby website keo.co.za, which predicted the Boks would lose by "at least seven" points.

However, on the day, the Springbok pack rose to the challenge and delivered exactly what was required in conditions better suited for mud wrestling.

Nkumane said there would always be pressure on the Springboks to win all their matches, but he found it strange that there was such a tremendous lack of faith in the team as a whole.

"Generally speaking, northern hemisphere rugby cannot be compared to the standards we have become accustomed to in the south," he said.

"Our provincial league structures, like the Super Rugby competition and the Absa Currie Cup, are far better than most of their top competitions, so I could not understand why people weren't giving us any sort of chance to win last week.

"We have the players and what's more, we also had the luxury of fielding players (like Bismarck du Plessis) who have not played a lot of rugby this year."

The Springboks have lost to Wales only once in 104 years.

After the positive start to their quest to beat the Home Nations, another win is theirs for the taking.

What should scare the socks off Wales' coach Warren Gatland is that the Springbok team taking the field on Saturday is not the same experimental outfit they lost to in June.

In that match, which ironically marked the start of a downward spiral for the Dragons, the Boks fielded an untested loose-trio consisting of Francois Louw, Joe van Niekerk and Dewald Potgieter.

The halfback pairing of Ricky Januarie and Ruan Pienaar also opened the team management up for criticism, but the Boks still managed a 34-31 win after trailing 16-3 at one stage.

On Saturday, the Welsh face a Springbok side sporting fewer disruptions, less players played out of position and strong leadership at all levels.

Against Wales on Saturday, all players wearing the Springbok emblem on their chests will put their bodies on the line - as they always do when they have the privilege of playing for their country.
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