Examination of The Rugby Championship table with just 1 Round to go hardly suggests the Springboks may be inching spiritedly toward a prosperous new era.
South Africa lie 3rd, winless, and already out of the running: when they tackle Argentina in Durban in just under a fortnight it will simply be a battle to avoid the wooden spoon as the Wallabies and All Blacks slug it out for title glory a few hours earlier in Sydney.
Fortunately it had been widely accepted by the most astute of rugby observers before the 2015 tournament even began that its bragging rights are of secondary importance this year, given the scheduling just a few weeks shy of the 8th World Cup in the United Kingdom.
Local enthusiasts prepared to prioritise the bigger picture will also be fully aware that the Springboks could so easily be lying at the top of The Rugby Championship pile right now, as they bossed the Wallabies for 50 minutes in Brisbane and then the All Blacks for considerably closer to 70 minutes in Johannesburg on Saturday.
If rugby is a game of inches, then Tevita Kuridrani’s debated, last-gasp try made the critical difference 2 weeks back and Lood de Jager not being able to stretch his lunging arm just a couple of centimetres further against the All Blacks for a 55th-minute Springbok touchdown possibly denied them in the latest instance.
In the final analysis, lack of composure and 1 or 2 errors in tactical decision-making at vital times by a rookie-laden team thwarted them more than anything else on Saturday – it was not as though the Springboks looked light years behind for pure competence and skill in either instance, and that is a firm plus to bank in the run-up to the Rugby World Cup.
Perhaps also, a cranked-up emphasis on conditioning and durability will work wonders over the next couple of months as Heyneke Meyer’s charges get progressively used to the new ball-in-hand culture they are embracing with some gusto and swelling promise.
It is worth bearing in mind, too, that they still have ample time to fine-tune ideas and formulas ahead of the all-important knockout phase of the Rugby World Cup, with successive Tests against the Pumas (1 as part of The Rugby Championship) and then the relatively stress-free – hopefully – Rugby World Cup group games against Japan, Samoa, Scotland and the United States.
Personally, I trust what the coach is trying to do with his current resources – even if Naas Botha may have had a point in the SuperSport studio on Saturday night when he rued the new, more enterprising formula not having taken firmer root 2 years ago, which might have made the Springboks look that key bit more settled, polished and confident for this Rugby World Cup.
Critics of this template may still try to contend that the best Springbok route to eclipsing Richie McCaw’s ongoing global dominators is by frustrating them through murderous, unsubtle physical commitment, ox-like carriers and unrelenting, all-hands-to-the-pump defence.
But rugby moves on and that approach only looks increasingly archaic and, frankly, unsustainable from 1 week to another in a major tournament because of the immense bodily and mental sacrifices it requires.
Yes, every now and then the Springboks win a red-letter clash via those hallmarks, but they have also had a great many depressing, video nasties using that approach against the All Blacks in the professional era when they have been exposed as dinosaurs for ambition.
At least after Saturday’s nail-biter you got a sense of a Springbok team in the throes of evolution, and could feel gladdened by some of the zesty, fleet-footed raids on the All Blacks defence that gave the visitors headaches aplenty.
That is not to say that the Springboks shouldn’t vitally temper their game-plan at times, taking points (off the tee) when they are on offer and winding down their tempo with a tighter approach every now and then to take the frantic nature out of their attack and give certain hard-pressed troops a mini-breather.
As evidenced by the grunt from the likes of Bismarck du Plessis, Eben Etzebeth, Lood de Jager and Schalk Burger on Saturday, the Springboks can still make notable gains the more “direct” way, to balance the exuberance of their expanding youth brigade in wider positions on the park.
An impediment on another day when the Springboks ticked many boxes despite a defeat was the very limited effectiveness, broadly speaking, of their bench resources.
Yet this seems sure to change anyway when they re-infuse such steely, proven characters as Victor Matfield, Fourie du Preez, Duane Vermeulen, Jean de Villiers, Frans Steyn and others to their match-day mix, whether it is as starters or otherwise, calming old heads as substitutes in certain instances.
Let’s acknowledge 1 thing: the All Blacks silencing a full house at Emirates Airline Park, even with an experimental combo and given their back-foot status for significant portions of the match, helps confirm this cerebral, classy side as reasonably firm favourites for Rugby World Cup retention fairly shortly.
But we already knew that, didn’t we?
The Springboks looking like transformational, potentially dangerous party-spoilers at the Rugby World Cup is no bad thing at this bend in the road.
Panic stations? Ridiculous…
(Sport24)
Springbok injuries:
Opposing coaches Heyneke Meyer and Steve Hansen appeared to agree that a slew of 2nd half injuries sustained by the Springboks played a big role in setting up the 27 / 20 win scored by the All Blacks over their traditional rivals in Johannesburg on Saturday.
For the second successive week the South Africans dominated the first hour of the match, but just like against Australia the previous weekend, Meyer’s Boks succumbed in the last 10 minutes to Hansen’s No 1 ranked All Black team.
There was some poor decision making that let the Springboks down in that period, just as there was some poor play and lack of composure that cost them at Suncorp Stadium 7 days earlier.
However, in Brisbane the Springboks were hurt by the loss of Marcell Coetzee in the 2nd half, and at Emirates Airline Park it was the loss of key forwards that changed the whole nature of the game.
“The injury situation tonight was very frustrating and it cost us,” lamented Meyer at the post-match press conference.
“We were brilliant at the breakdown and our plan worked perfectly. But it was a big blow when Jannie du Plessis went off, and then Vincent Koch, who did well as his replacement, also went off. If 2 tightheads go off the referee has to protect the players, and it was probably the right call to order uncontested scrums, but it did change the game for us.
“Lood de Jager also went off in the 2nd half with an injury and also Francois Louw. Warren Whiteley came on as a replacement and then cracked ribs. That was why we ended up with Adriaan Strauss on the flank towards the end.”
Meyer said that team doctor Craig Roberts considered the Jannie du Plessis and Francois Louw injuries as the biggest concerns.
“The doctor is worried about Jannie as it looks like an MCL and Francois went off with a shoulder problem that the doctor is also very concerned about.”
Meyer said that the Springboks would probably have won the game despite the injuries had they been awarded the decision off a 50 / 50 TMO call when Lood de Jager reached out to dot down what would have been the Springboks’ 3rd try. There was also a call that went against Heinrich Brüssow earlier on when he was over the line.
“These 2 teams are so close together that it is small things that make the difference. There were 2 millimetres in it this week if you think about Lood’s try, and it was the same last week when we lost and there were 50 / 50 TMO calls. Had that try been awarded that would have been the game.”
Hansen appeared to concur with Meyer’s view on both the TMO decisions and the injuries when he pinpointed the 5 minutes when his team was under severe pressure at the time of the Lood de Jager TMO call as what made the difference between his team winning and losing.
“It was that 5 minutes of defending our hearts out that won it for us,” said the All Black coach.
“Had they scored then it would have been really difficult for us to come back into the game. They also had injuries that led to golden oldie scrums. We had Sam Whitelock off at that point due to a Yellow Card and had we been scrumming 7 against 8 we would have been in trouble. That was crucial.”
(SuperSport)