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Cape Town – Perhaps the most fatal trap you can fall into in rugby, and sport in general, is to speculate too brazenly on the margin of victory whenever a superpower prepares to play a rank underdog.
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In the oval-ball game in particular, a quiet etiquette dictates that you not dismissively write off opponents before the first whistle has sounded.
So perhaps it was no surprise, when SuperSport presenter Peter Davies asked Jaco van der Westhuyzen, guesting on one of their RWC chat shows on Tuesday night, to predict the Pool D score-line between South Africa and Namibia at North Harbour on Thursday, the former Springbok utility back was suitably diplomatic.
He simply replied, sounding like the consummate politician: “The Namibians will be going out to enjoy themselves, in what (many of them) will treat as the biggest game of their lives, against the World Cup champions.”
You could hardly blame Van der Westhuyzen for his respectful stance; he will be as aware as anyone of the pride and defiance prevalent among minnow nations – certainly in evidence thus far at RWC 2011 – after his fairly lengthy experience playing Japanese club rugby.
Yet it remains irresistible in pub talk and elsewhere to gaze into the crystal ball and wonder just how emphatically the Boks will bury the neigbouring “biltongboere”.
Clearly many of the Namibian team, including their hard-as-nails captain and blindside flank Jacques Burger, are pretty familiar with the culture of South African rugby, if you like, and will thus have some shrewd ideas on how to keep the sluice-gates from opening too widely.
His men have certainly had their moments, both for defensive stoutness and attacking thrust, in respective defeats to Fiji (49-25) and Samoa (49-12).
And for all the talk of the minnow countries not getting a fair shake in terms of generally having more rapid turnarounds between matches, in this instance the Namibians can’t complain: they have had three days’ extra “prep” for the game against the Boks because John Smit’s team played as recently as last Saturday.
Then, South Africa won 49-3 against Fiji, so if you use the simple mathematics from each team’s fortunes against those particular Pacific Islanders, the Boks should beat Namibia by around 70 points.
But rugby doesn’t always work quite like that, and nor should the last and only prior international meeting between South Africa and Namibia – the Boks won 105-13 at Newlands in a warm-up fixture ahead of the 2007 World Cup – be considered a reliable yardstick.
This clash comes in the World Cup itself, with all the particular honour that brings – especially to the seldom-in-the-limelight minnows – and the glow of the entire rugby planet’s spotlight.
Also to consider is that generally speaking, the Boks don’t “do” cricket scores quite to the extent a free-running team like the All Blacks are capable of; their more earthy, confrontational style of play sometimes means underdogs are not disposed of by huge margins.
Just at World Cups, for instance, South Africa have occasionally made heavy weather of seeing off “weak” teams - while this not necessarily being an impediment to their productively smooth onward passage, it must be added.
The 1995 event quickly comes to mind: just five days on from crucially beating Australia in the opening game at Newlands, an admittedly more “dirt-track” Bok side really battled to subdue Romania at the same venue, only managing two tries to one in a 21-8 win.
Then Canada were only put away 20-0 in the infamous Battle of Boet Erasmus.
Similarly in 1999, when South Africa so nearly got into the final, the Boks “won ugly” in pool play against Uruguay (39-3).
I would suggest that, a bit like Fiji last Saturday, the never-say-die Namibians will prove a tough nut to crack for some 20 to 25 minutes, and will thus only lose by a near three-figure score if the Boks have instead crossed the whitewash ominously easily and repeatedly in the opening minutes.
I fancy that Namibia will ultimately surrender 50 points against their own name for the first time in the tournament … but perhaps not many more than that against a Springbok side that boasts five changes and thus may take a bit of time to establish rhythm and associated dominance.
Secretly, I’d like the minnow habit of not being too disgraced at this tournament to continue, whilst my patriotic juices also desiring a fluid, convincing enough Bok showing …
For interest’s sake, these are the predictions of several Sport24 staff members:
Mine: South Africa 60 Namibia 11 (49-point margin). Tank Lanning: South Africa 89 Namibia 10 (79 points). Garrin Lambley: South Africa 77 Namibia 3 (74 points). David Brooke: South Africa 58 Namibia 6 (52 points).
