Smit shift leaves headaches

But while by returning Smit to the position from which he led South Africa to the World Cup title in 2007, Springbok coach Peter de Villiers will be giving Bok fans what many of them were asking for even before last week’s match against Italy, it would not have been an easy decision for him and his fellow selectors to make.

And neither will it be the end of his headaches when it comes to front-row selection, for it is hard to see the prodigious talent of Bismarck du Plessis being ignored and made to wait in line for the next two years.

Smit played well when he moved to hooker in the last quarter against Italy. With BJ Botha coming on to provide specialist tighthead expertise alongside him, the Bok scrum stabilised and even started to look dominant. Smit also showed that he had lost none of the other skill that made him arguably the world’s best hooker in 2007 by finding all his lineout jumpers with his throws from the touchline.

But there are attributes Du Plessis brings to the game that the Boks might be desperate for in a game that is being approached as a war by a home team which has followed the predictable recent trend of opposition combinations by talking up the physical aspect of the Croke Park crunch.

Physicality is one of those attributes. If Bakkies Botha is the enforcer, Du Plessis is the pit-bull in the Bok pack, and when he is on form he must be close to being the best hooker in world rugby.

Another of those attributes is of course mobility, and the Springbok captain would probably be the first to admit that right now he is not the ideal weight for a hooker. At least he is not the ideal weight for a hooker who has the role of getting around the field and fulfilling the role of an extra loose-forward by making a tireless contribution in all aspects of the tight-loose.

Smit was outstanding when he played hooker for the Sharks in their first match of the year against the Stormers in Cape Town back in February. Let’s not also forget that when the Boks scored their record win against England just 12 months ago, Smit was wearing the No2 jersey as Du Plessis had gone home injured.

But Du Plessis is highly rated as a player by his coaches, and for good reason, and even if Smit can be expected to perform the role of an international hooker for the next six to eight months, expecting him to do it through to the 2011 World Cup, when he would be 33 years old, is a different story.

There is a view that a horses for courses policy should be adopted. In other words, in games where mobility is going to be a requirement, and the opposition scrum has a make-up which might enable Smit to survive at tighthead (in other words, if the props are not short), then Du Plessis should play hooker and Smit at prop. Smit would then revert to hooker with a specialist tighthead coming in for the more difficult scrumming opponents.

If you were to adopt a horses for courses approach, however, this Saturday’s game might be one of those where you go with Smit at tighthead in order to accommodate Du Plessis. The Irish have a lot of strengths, but on the evidence of their recent match against Australia, scrumming is not one of them, and this might just have been a game where the Boks would have been able to get away with the front-row that started against Italy.

Du Plessis was missed almost as much as Bakkies Botha was in the war of attrition that the Boks lost hands down in the first half of the final Test against the British and Irish Lions, and Paul O’Connell and his fellow forwards might be licking his lips at the prospect of him being absent from the Bok starting lineup again.

The team for the Croke Park game will only be named on Thursday, but it is expected to include several changes, with Wynand Olivier getting an overdue call-up to replace Adi Jacobs at inside centre and Danie Rossouw, because he is better suited to the anticipated wet field and conditions, slotting in at No8 ahead of Ryan Kankowski.

Probable Bok starting XV:

Zane Kirchner, JP Pietersen, Jaque Fourie, Wynand Olivier, Bryan Habana, Morne Steyn, Fourie du Preez, Danie Rossouw, Schalk Burger, Heinrich Brussow, Victor Matfield, Bakkies Botha, BJ Botha, John Smit (captain), Beast Mtawarira.