Gavin Rich

Johannesburg - Victorious Springbok skipper John Smit has answered a question many were asking before the British and Irish Lions series - he will be playing on, at least for now. 

That is great news for Springbok fans, for Smit is a massive figure in the Bok set-up, both on and off the field. With the coaching staff inexperienced for this level, Smit, who captained the side throughout the Jake White era and led them to the World Cup triumph in 2007, has had to take on a much greater responsibility than other international captains, and in many ways doubles as an extra coach.

It is understood he is working on his biography, which is due to come out later this year, so it was understandable that there was speculation that Smit might call it quits after the Lions. After all, with a Lions series win now next to his World Cup winners medal, and a Tri-Nations winners medal from 2004, what is there left to achieve?

“Yes, this series win over the Lions was special. In my career I have already had two cracks at the World Cup, but I only get to play against the Lions once,” said Smit.

But that does not mean he has no more worlds to conquer, and Smit says he will be playing on just so long as his body can hold up.

“I just want to take it one year at a time, it all just depends on how my body holds up. I have been privileged to be a part of this set-up for quite some time, and as long as I am still enjoying it and can make a contribution I would like to continue,” said Smit.

“It was great to win the series, and most of those of us who after the last World Cup looked ahead to this series would have been happy to buy a 2-1 win. But there is still so much more for us to achieve, many more things to come. This team is young enough to go all the way to the next World Cup.”

Asked if he would be there for the World Cup in New Zealand in 2011, Smit was non-commital, instead looking sideways at his coach with a broad grin: “It depends if he wants a 40-year-old captain”.

Smit is contracted to the Sharks until the end of the 2010 season, and it seems he will continue playing until then. While the World Cup may seem like the ultimate goal for any player, Smit has already been there and done that. A bigger motivation right now could be a personal one, for he is closing down on 100 test caps, and is also in the reckoning for the world record for captaincy at international level.

The next challenge for Smit is the Tri-Nations, and while his coach, Peter de Villiers, claimed that the final test against the Lions was the start of the buildup to that competition, Smit contradicted him by saying that he had not yet even given the Tri-Nations a thought.

“The Lions series was always going to be the big thing for us this year. We now have ten days off to freshen up, and then I will start to think about the Tri-Nations. There are obviously lessons for us to be learned by us from this series, which ended with a defeat.

“We will take the Tri-Nations one week at a time. That is the only way to tackle that competition, which extremely tough. When it comes to goals, it would be naive of us to say that we should not be aiming to win it, because we have a strong team. We let ourselves down last year, when we were confident of doing well, and we won’t repeat those mistakes.”

By that last point Smit is obviously referring to the onfield strategy, which was confusing to both players and fans last season, when De Villiers was talking so much about new games and expansive rugby.

In the recent series the Boks stuck mostly to the principles of traditional test match rugby, although the strength of the Lions forward showing from the second half of the Durban test onwards meant that the South Africans were still often on the back-foot, and had to dig deep to win the rubber through a late Morne Steyn penalty in the second test.

“I do have mixed emotions,” admitted Smit after the Coca-Cola Park defeat, which equalled the biggest ever suffered by the Boks against the Lions.

“The target was the series win, but today we have to be frank. The Lions were all over us in every department. We didn’’t respect our ball enough, they counter-rucked us extremely effectively, and we are going to have to get a much better balance going forward.”