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Comment: Rob Houwing, Sport24 chief writer
Cape Town – Round about the hour-mark against Italy on Saturday, the Springboks took a massively important step toward regaining battered scrummaging pride and, almost simultaneously, their more general mojo.
Off went hooker Adriaan Strauss and Test debutant loosehead Wian du Preez, who had been part of a South African eight once again in mortifying reverse at the set piece, and on galloped BJ Botha - out of both holiday mode and a long absence from the international picture - and Beast Mtawarira.
Captain John Smit, perhaps most pertinently of all, shifted in from the right to his trusty old posting in the middle of the front row.
Voila! In a dramatic about-face from earlier experiences on the bleak Udine paddock, suddenly the Bok pack had the audacity to spit the medicine back in Italian faces, as it were, getting one or two quality heaves on that had not been evident since mid-year and even cheekily baiting their much-vaunted opponents as they buried their backs unceremoniously in the turf.
It is probably way too early to speak of a profound scrum-time revival by the world champions, based on a few minutes against the traditional Six Nations paupers, but there was ample, clear-cut evidence that “stability” in this vital area - so profoundly absent hitherto on this tour – is best achieved with Smit reoccupying his old sentry’s hut at No 2.
Could it just be that the tight-head experiment, where he has toiled manfully but often awkwardly, will actually be banished to history?
Even if that question isn’t answered for a while, I’ll bet a case of shiraz that Smit, in an initiative charged with symbolism, actually starts at hooker against Ireland in the tour finale next Saturday.
If he doesn’t, I might hurl the package in bottle-shattering disgust in the direction of the Bok brains trust, for they are not incapable of eccentric defiance of blindingly obvious solutions.
Similarly, it’s got to be odds-on that Botha, after an inspired quarter that included not only a sturdy right shoulder but some spirited clean-outs too, will also feature in the run-on XV in Dublin with a seemingly rejuvenated Mtawarira back at No 1 for a decidedly Sharks flavour -- even if it’s “old boy” in Botha’s case -- to the front row.
Maybe there will be some concern about the tight-head specialist’s ability to last the duration of a particularly demanding Test, considering his “off-duty” status until his belated call-up to the squad, but if the Boks can coax 55 or 60 minutes out of him upfront, that may be manna nevertheless.
Insisting on Smit’s bulk at hooker, to negate fears of the scrum fracturing, was a key cog of Jake White’s strategy in the lead-up to the successful assault on the 2007 World Cup, and there would be both irony and some common sense in Peter de Villiers and company seriously considering a return to this tactic as they contemplate retention in 2011.
Yes, you might be compromising anew on your hooker’s mobility, and many would feel for the largely bench-curtailed talents of Bismarck du Plessis, but a three-props-in-the-front-row formula may well be the best escape from South Africa’s alarming 2009 brittleness in the scrum.
Was it a coincidence that the Boks finally put the tenacious Italians “away”, ensuring a credible 22-point win margin and four tries to one, soon after the revitalisation of the engine room?
It was peculiar, too, that when the wholly restructured front row found belated momentum, it was with the supposed no-no combo of rangy, less-than-juggernaut troopers Andries Bekker and rare substitute Victor Matfield behind them in the second row!
So the Boks, overall, ended this match in rather more satisfying fettle than they had started it: remember that the All Blacks only a week before had struggled to prevail against Nick Mallett’s charges by a lesser 14 points.
There were moments -- at long last on this problem-plagued adventure north of the equator -- of undoubted world-champ feel about some of the South African backline play, with trusty old-firmers Fourie du Preez, Bryan Habana and Jaque Fourie regularly to the fore and Zane Kirchner starting to look like the international deal at fullback, into the bargain.
It bodes well for a possible champagne finish to this never-ending year against the Irish, even if we cannot lose sight of the fact that the Italians might have run the Boks closer had Craig Gower and Luke McLean not been near-comically inept at times in place-kicking.
But first the Bok wise men must take on board the educative pointers provided by their remedial steps to the pack in the closing stages against Italy.
Rugby union, after all, whatever the merits and demerits about the ways it has evolved, remains very much about go-forward, not back-pedalling …
Cape Town – Round about the hour-mark against Italy on Saturday, the Springboks took a massively important step toward regaining battered scrummaging pride and, almost simultaneously, their more general mojo.
Off went hooker Adriaan Strauss and Test debutant loosehead Wian du Preez, who had been part of a South African eight once again in mortifying reverse at the set piece, and on galloped BJ Botha - out of both holiday mode and a long absence from the international picture - and Beast Mtawarira.
Captain John Smit, perhaps most pertinently of all, shifted in from the right to his trusty old posting in the middle of the front row.
Voila! In a dramatic about-face from earlier experiences on the bleak Udine paddock, suddenly the Bok pack had the audacity to spit the medicine back in Italian faces, as it were, getting one or two quality heaves on that had not been evident since mid-year and even cheekily baiting their much-vaunted opponents as they buried their backs unceremoniously in the turf.
It is probably way too early to speak of a profound scrum-time revival by the world champions, based on a few minutes against the traditional Six Nations paupers, but there was ample, clear-cut evidence that “stability” in this vital area - so profoundly absent hitherto on this tour – is best achieved with Smit reoccupying his old sentry’s hut at No 2.
Could it just be that the tight-head experiment, where he has toiled manfully but often awkwardly, will actually be banished to history?
Even if that question isn’t answered for a while, I’ll bet a case of shiraz that Smit, in an initiative charged with symbolism, actually starts at hooker against Ireland in the tour finale next Saturday.
If he doesn’t, I might hurl the package in bottle-shattering disgust in the direction of the Bok brains trust, for they are not incapable of eccentric defiance of blindingly obvious solutions.
Similarly, it’s got to be odds-on that Botha, after an inspired quarter that included not only a sturdy right shoulder but some spirited clean-outs too, will also feature in the run-on XV in Dublin with a seemingly rejuvenated Mtawarira back at No 1 for a decidedly Sharks flavour -- even if it’s “old boy” in Botha’s case -- to the front row.
Maybe there will be some concern about the tight-head specialist’s ability to last the duration of a particularly demanding Test, considering his “off-duty” status until his belated call-up to the squad, but if the Boks can coax 55 or 60 minutes out of him upfront, that may be manna nevertheless.
Insisting on Smit’s bulk at hooker, to negate fears of the scrum fracturing, was a key cog of Jake White’s strategy in the lead-up to the successful assault on the 2007 World Cup, and there would be both irony and some common sense in Peter de Villiers and company seriously considering a return to this tactic as they contemplate retention in 2011.
Yes, you might be compromising anew on your hooker’s mobility, and many would feel for the largely bench-curtailed talents of Bismarck du Plessis, but a three-props-in-the-front-row formula may well be the best escape from South Africa’s alarming 2009 brittleness in the scrum.
Was it a coincidence that the Boks finally put the tenacious Italians “away”, ensuring a credible 22-point win margin and four tries to one, soon after the revitalisation of the engine room?
It was peculiar, too, that when the wholly restructured front row found belated momentum, it was with the supposed no-no combo of rangy, less-than-juggernaut troopers Andries Bekker and rare substitute Victor Matfield behind them in the second row!
So the Boks, overall, ended this match in rather more satisfying fettle than they had started it: remember that the All Blacks only a week before had struggled to prevail against Nick Mallett’s charges by a lesser 14 points.
There were moments -- at long last on this problem-plagued adventure north of the equator -- of undoubted world-champ feel about some of the South African backline play, with trusty old-firmers Fourie du Preez, Bryan Habana and Jaque Fourie regularly to the fore and Zane Kirchner starting to look like the international deal at fullback, into the bargain.
It bodes well for a possible champagne finish to this never-ending year against the Irish, even if we cannot lose sight of the fact that the Italians might have run the Boks closer had Craig Gower and Luke McLean not been near-comically inept at times in place-kicking.
But first the Bok wise men must take on board the educative pointers provided by their remedial steps to the pack in the closing stages against Italy.
Rugby union, after all, whatever the merits and demerits about the ways it has evolved, remains very much about go-forward, not back-pedalling …
