Bok lineout stock fast emptying

Comment: Rob Houwing, Sport24 chief writer

Cape Town – Springbok coach Peter de Villiers has been quick to defend the Springboks’ debatable, kick-heavy formula by pointing partly to the effectiveness of his team’s lineout.

“Sometimes people think that kicking is forfeiting possession, but we have a strong lineout; we compete  for the ball and managed to steal a couple of their throw-ins,” De Villiers said after the Boks had scraped home 17-16 in their World Cup Pool D opener against Wales in Wellington.

He was right to a certain degree -- but may well have also overlooked the fact that his team’s best-quality resources in that phase of play are being depleted at an alarming rate of knots.

In a nutshell, it is my own belief that the country is presently deprived of its four best international options at lineout time, considering the enforced non-presence at this World Cup of Andries Bekker and Juan Smith, and now the jitters also around the health of longtime, first-choice lock pair Victor Matfield and Bakkies Botha.

Let’s not forget that not much more than a couple of months ahead of RWC 2011, some critics were talking up the possibility of a Bok starting alliance of Matfield and Bekker … not an ideal foil in terms of the gnarl-and-grunt factor, perhaps, but potentially a havoc-wreaking combo in the “sky” and hardly short of general athleticism.

And until a couple of weeks short of the event, most rugby-loving South Africans still held out forlorn hope that Cheetahs loose forward favourite Smith, that polished jumper at the back of the lineout, would be fit in time for the passage to New Zealand.

So the injury question marks of late around both Matfield and Botha (the latter in particular, it seems) are an unkind aggravator of the situation.

Matfield, it hardly needs saying, is much the more revered of the two at lineout time, but Botha – especially considering his own rich knowledge of the Bok codes and systems – is also a good banker at the front, partly because of his great body strength which tends to act as an impenetrable buffer to his opposite number being able to snatch away his ball.

Now both veterans are creaking and you have to wonder about the medical wisdom of Matfield taking to the field against Wales and then apparently aggravating a known hamstring problem.

At least it seems the bearded Bulls icon will only miss the next two outings against Fiji and Namibia respectively, where South Africa should get past the post without too much overall trauma.

But his situation obviously remains a source of some concern: any further setbacks to arguably still the world’s No 1 lineout ace could be disastrous to the Boks’ title defence.

I suspect that South Africa peaked as a lineout unit some two years ago, anyway. Remember how the All Blacks and Wallaby hookers got the throw-in yips time and time again en route to the Boks’ deserved 2009 Tri-Nations success, when South Africa unapologetically pinched lineout ball with all the zeal of people descending on a toppled beer truck on the freeway?

Then, South Africa were blessed with all of their aforementioned, top tools in the lineout shed and really made it count.

The Bok lineout has never quite matched those giddy levels subsequently, and although De Villiers was correct in saying his charges managed a couple of “steals” against Wales, one or two of their own lineouts went awry and the Welsh main jumpers also bagged a great many of their throw-ins extremely cleanly.

If Matfield’s injury turns out to be rather more troublesome going forward than is budgeted for at present, there is a danger, I think, of the South African lineout simply becoming no less or more competent than that of several other contending RWC nations.

It would be the surrender of a traditional strength.

And we don’t seem to have too many of those left right now, do we?