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Cape Town – Let’s start with the “glass half full” part: by hook or by crook, a fair part of me still believes South Africa could successfully defend their World Cup crown, and thus create history by doing so.
Click to BUY the Springbok Kitchen recipe bookWe are simply too established and endearingly stubborn and resolute a rugby nation to be summarily dismissed as likely also-rans ... anywhere, and at just about any time.
But a “fear factor” is also building with alarming stealth within me -- I suspect I am not alone? – in terms of the Springboks’ prospects at RWC 2011, just a few weeks up the road.
Maybe it is because this will be the Boks’ second World Cup in Antipodean territory and the first, in Australia in 2003, also counted as comfortably the country’s worst in four otherwise notably successful stabs at the event.
Even in Nick Mallett’s hot-and-cold 1999, remember, South Africa were only edged out at the semi-final stage in extra time to Stephen Larkham’s highly unlikely dropped goal for the Wallabies, and then went on to satisfyingly knock over old enemies the All Blacks in the playoff for third place.
So 2003, the year of Kamp Staaldraad and Rudolf Straeuli, has really been the only genuine World Cup “clanger” tournament thus far for the Boks.
And with Peter de Villiers denying reports, roughly at the same time as this was written, that various senior Springboks are in a “secret camp” in the North West Province, it is hard to banish all memories of the controversial Staaldraad – even if suggestions that staunch rugby man Rassie Erasmus has charge of things come as greater reassurance than the command of Adriaan Heyns, a former police task force supremo who masterminded the ill-fated “spanbou” exercise eight years back.
Like 2011, 2003 was also a year in which the earlier Super Rugby final had failed to feature a South African side, major doubts existed at the time about broad SA skills levels and coach Straeuli often stood accused of handing out caps willy-nilly – something Peter de Villiers has probably also raised some eyebrows about as his “second team” containing some questionable personnel lost heavily in the Tri-Nations opener to Australia last Saturday.
The Boks succumbed in Sydney with a flyhalf – Morne Steyn – often rightly open to criticism for playing too much in the relative safety of the “pocket”; there was little difference at the World Cup of 2003 with Louis Koen and Derick Hougaard (also men renowned far more for their tactical and place-kicking strengths than any offload wizardry or attacking X-factor) the main No 10s in the squad.
The 2003 Springboks never really got out of the blocks at the World Cup, ending second in Group C to eventual champions England because of the 25-6 defeat at Perth that condemned them to an unwanted quarter-final meeting with the All Blacks; they were duly outwitted and outclassed by three tries to nil and a 29-9 scoreline in Melbourne.
Even the Boks’ anticipated whippings of Uruguay (72-6) and Georgia (46-19) weren’t too much to get exhilarated about: England saw off these respective foes 111-13 and 84-6.
There will be seven probable Springbok survivors from the 2003 group at this year’s New Zealand-hosted World Cup: captain John Smit, Jaque Fourie, Bakkies Botha, Victor Matfield, Schalk Burger, Danie Rossouw and Juan Smith.
At the time most of them were relative rookies and thus largely peripheral, although Matfield and Botha (the latter in only his second season of Test rugby so not as much of an “enforcer” by reputation then) had started together in the second row in the key game against the English.
At least the Boks are more heavily favoured to top their group this time, and also go at least one step further than in 2003 by probably meeting the All Blacks at the semis juncture.
Even so, these are unnerving times, with the Bok reserve barrel not looking too smart, judging by events at ANZ Stadium, and an increasingly likelihood that the nucleus of cocooned Bok veterans from the victorious 2007 campaigns are going to have to truly play out of their skins to stand any chance of the risky, clearly minimally-shifted template from four years ago bearing fruit anew.
With a still strongly conservative game-plan for RWC 2011 in the offing from the Boks, there must be an increasingly widespread suspicion that it could be blown out of the water against quality opponents who might get ahead by, say, eight to 10 points early on.
Especially with the prospect of obvious forward supremacy against the likes of the All Blacks or even Wallabies looking less and less assured these days, would the Boks then be able to muster the nous, flair and inventiveness to turn around a notable deficit when kicks off the tee alone would probably not be enough to do the trick?
So yes, I am nervous – more so than a few weeks back -- about the Bok challenge at the World Cup.
What is badly needed on Saturday, I believe, is a far more fire-and-brimstone and dynamic performance from the second-stringers.
They must somehow give the All Blacks a fright in Wellington, even if it is in a relatively narrow defeat, just to remind them that South African rugby has not, despite many critics’ beliefs, slipped behind the times at an inconvenient bend in the road.
After all, New Zealand are supposed to be famous World Cup chokers.
Wouldn’t it be handy if some fresh little seeds
of trepidation could be sown in that department?
