What a year of would-haves, could-haves, should-haves and, ultimately, bitter underachievement for the Springboks in a year when the All Blacks enjoyed the delicious irony of at last winning the World Cup despite being outplayed in the final. After 26 years of being the best team on the planet but failing to land the Webb Ellis Cup because of the wicked vagaries of death-or-glory rugby, the wheel finally turned for the Kiwis at the global showpiece.
Mike Greenaway, The Star
France, a team that was wonderfully at Gallic war with itself over the seven weeks, but rallied when it mattered most, were the better team on the day and might have won it had there been a TMO review of an allegedly unsuccessful Yachvili penalty kick that actually slipped inside an upright according to slow-mo replays); New Zealand were the most consistent team and on balance of play over the tournament were the deserved winners; Australia flattered to deceive; England drank, danced and were merry, all of which upset dear Jonny Wilkinson, who resorted to blaming the balls for his poor kicking, as well as his teammates for their lack of focus. Of the big five that could have won the World Cup, that brings us to the defending champions, who after a misfiring 2010 and miserable Tri-Nations in 2011, fought a carefully planned rearguard action wracked and wrecked by “what-ifs?”
At this point it should be pointed out that the champions of 2007 should never have been in the position of having to scramble to find a way to salvage their crown. Three quarters of the relatively youthful 2007 squad were again on duty at Rugby World Cup 2011, and they would have walked it had their game been grown over the four years after the solid foundations laid by the Jake White era.
White and his school-masterly ways were ideal for rebuilding the Boks from the rubble of the 2003 disaster but the players needed a change post-2007; their apprenticeships were complete and they needed to flex their muscles, embrace an attacking game and take Springbok rugby into a brave new world.
Sadly, Peter de Villiers was not equipped to oversee that process. He had spoken a good game but quickly found that he was out of his depth and, having not been backed by Saru from the very outset (the President publicly said political reasons had come into play in his appointment), the coach sought allies in the senior players after a disastrous 2008.
The problem is that the seniors were set in their ways and while this participative management worked wonders in 2009, the soaring Springbok crash-landed in 2010 and battled to regain their feet in 2011 because the Boks stubbornly refused to adapt their game to the changing law interpretations while, at the same time, the hunger and/or form of some seniors diminished.
When the Good Ship Springbok needed a firm hand on the tiller, there wasn’t one – instead there were half a dozen semi-assured ones, and the problem was that some of those hands should not have been there at all.
The lesson the Springboks between 2007 and 2011 can provide for professional sport is that somebody has to be in charge. The buck has to stop with someone and players who are working alongside the coach are not going to drop themselves when their form dips.
In short, the Springboks should have been on an upward tangent post-2007 that should have scorched them ever upwards over the four years towards a second title given that most of the players were around the 25 year old mark when they won in Paris and should have been peaking in New Zealand four years later. Be that as it may, the Springboks had a plan to salvage the situation after losing five out of six Tri-Nations matches in 2010 to the teams they believed to be the main threat to the title.
The Springbok plan was a replica of the blueprint used by Jake White in 2007, which meant sending a B team overseas for the Tri-Nations while the “main manne” controversially rested and trained in their Rustenburg retreat.
The Aussies opted for the direct opposite, choosing to field their best possible team throughout the Tri-Nations, while the Kiwis went for something in between the two extremes and rested seven first choice players for the tour match in Port Elizabeth.
Well the Aussies won the Tri-Nations but then were terrible in losing a World Cup Pool match to Ireland, were fortunate to beat the Boks in the Wellington quarterfinal and were hopelessly outplayed by the All Blacks in the semifinal.
The Bok plan was all about peaking at the right time given that they were an aging team and that the Super 15 travel had, as usual, taxed the players. That meant fielding Tri-Nations match 22s in Sydney and Wellington that contained just four players that would be in the squad that would play the principle World Cup matches – John Smit, Danie Rossouw, Morné Steyn and Patrick Lambie.
The “Rustenburg 21” that had stayed behind then stepped up en masse for the home leg of the Tri-Nations, only to lose 9-14 in Durban. Underdone or not, this was a major setback that would have far-reaching repercussions.
Peter de Villiers now found himself under enormous pressure to beat the under-strength All Blacks in Port Elizabeth in the last action before the World Cup. Butch James had been the flyhalf in Durban and his failure with a crucial kick at goal from close range in that match enticed the coach to revert to Morné Steyn for the All Blacks game. Steyn responded with a brilliant performance with the boot, scoring all of the side’s points via five penalties and a drop goal. Until then, De Villiers and his assistants, not to mention some of the senior players, were convinced that James, the 2007 flyhalf, would give them the attacking edge required to win the World Cup, and that Steyn did not offer much beyond the boot.
But the relief enjoyed by that desperately needed win emphasised the case advanced by Victor Matfield and Fourie du Preez that Steyn was the man for the big World Cup games, and De Villiers back-tracked on his original plan to play James.
Maybe James would have done more with the possession the Boks enjoyed in the quarterfinal. Maybe not. There were just too many maybes about a South African challenge that gambled on peaking at the right time and that included not being at their best against Wales in their first match.
Interestingly, the Boks privately said before the quarterfinal that they were more worried about the Wallabies than the All Blacks in the semifinals. The feeling was that that the senior players were all coming into form at the right time and that if they could get past a “niggly” team like the Aussies, they were confident of beating the host nation and then beating either Wales or France in the final. When the Boks are in the mood for battle and it is death-or-glory stuff, such as World Cup knock-out matches, they do not fear the All Blacks because they are a team they can engage in toe-to-toe battle. The Wallabies are a more complex unit and the shadow boxing that is often required does not suit the Springbok mentality.
And so 2011 (and the World Cup) came down to arguably the most frustrating defeat in Springbok history given the utter dominance of the South Africans and that their World Cup crown was at stake.
In the build-up to the game, in the Australian hotel in Wellington there was often the incongruous sight of Braam van Straaten in an Aussie tracksuit taking James O’Connor and the other kickers out to training. Braam was a limited player but a fiercely passionate Springbok, and media observers wondered if old Braam was somehow going to play a fateful role in this showdown.
As it transpired in the match, the Boks should have won it long before O’Connor’s famous kick five minutes from time. The Boks had found holes all evening despite the heroic Australian defence and two tries were disallowed because of passes that were forward but might have gone a few inches backwards on a more fortuitous day for the South Africans. The Boks made just 53 tackles to the 147 of the Wallabies; they had 56 percent of possession and dominated territory to the tune of 76 percent. A Patrick Lambie drop goal glanced past an upright; Fourie du Preez had his elbow nudged (and lost the ball) as he surged to the line … so many ifs.
But there was nothing “iffy” about the penalty that won the Aussies the game. So much has been made about Bryce Lawrence’s failure to apply the law to the breakdown and that ultimately meant a smokescreen for Danie Rossouw’s blunder in injudiciously fouling an opponent at a lineout. If he had kept his discipline in a match that was excruciatingly tight, the Boks probably would have got over the line and they might have beaten the All Blacks and France a week later.
Ifs, buts and maybes … but what is certain is they would have been in a better position to lessen the role of chance had they not squandered the foundation laid from 2004 to 2007.