The return to fitness of Willem Alberts and the apparent quick recovery from a hand injury of Jannie du Plessis has served to lengthen the odds on Springbok coach Heyneke Meyer going beyond his established group when he names his squad for the end-of-year tour next Monday.
Schalk Burger, Frans Steyn and Johan Goosen have all returned to Currie Cup action in recent weeks, and their presence on the field naturally started to lead to speculation that maybe Meyer could use the tour to Wales, Scotland and France as an opportunity to try something different.
And when Alberts was stretchered off with a neck injury against the All Blacks three weeks ago, it seemed there might be an obvious gap for Burger to fill among the loose-forwards that will travel as part of the squad.
Young players such as Damian de Allende have also come through during the Currie Cup to put their hands up as possible members of the group should Meyer use the tour as an opportunity to grow his squad ahead of the 2015 World Cup.
However, unless there are injuries in the domestic final, it appears Meyer will be in the rare position for a Springbok coach of having all his top players available for November tour duty.(Well not Bekker for one!)
And the indications are that Meyer has already made up his mind on the question that faces every national coach at this time of year – how to find a balance between the need to win and the need to develop.
Rather than risk the winning momentum and the positive win percentages that started to build up during the southern hemisphere season, plus the continuity in the key combinations, Meyer is set to stick with the players, plus Japan-based JP Pietersen, who have taken his team to a comfortable second in the world.
With only 30 players slated to make up the squad for this tour, there isn’t likely to be much room for extras, which could mean the likes of Steyn, Burger and Goosen will stay home.
And if the signs are being read correctly and Meyer is going for what many would regard as the more conservative option, you can hardly blame him.
As Nick Mallett discovered when he was lashed by the critics following his first defeat in seven starts with the Boks at Twickenham in 1998, a Bok loss can quickly inspire forgetfulness about what came before.
At the start of the season, the end-of-year tour, which this time features matches against Wales, Scotland and France, presents itself as a potential opportunity to experiment and thus grow the squad and test out options in the build-up to the next World Cup.
But when the time arrives for the selections to be made, it is invariably the case that the Bok coach finds himself driven by the need to either retain winning momentum or find some winning form, depending on how the southern hemisphere season has turned out.
Jake White’s selection in 2006 was the most obvious departure from the usual script of sticking to the need for victory being the bottom line. But then his experience was also the object lesson to any future Bok coach on the dangers inherent in selecting with development and not victory in mind.
To refresh memories, White obtained sanction from the board of SA Rugby to leave his top players at home instead of taking them on that end-of-year tour, which was taking place a year before the 2007 Rugby World Cup. The administrators bought into the theory that the players should be rested in preparation for the World Cup.(Jake well ahead of the game as usual! Our second team came close to beating the abs as well))
At least that was the understanding White had when he left the country.
PUBLIC BACKLASH
It took one big defeat to Ireland in Dublin though to invoke forgetfulness among administrators who panicked in the face of the inevitable backlash from a public that doesn’t tolerate Bok defeats.
And when a week later the Boks lost narrowly in the first of two back-to-back tests against England at Twickenham, White was ordered to return home during the tour to answer to a motion of no-confidence.
The problem of course is the issue of over-playing. Meyer wisely would never criticise his bosses directly, but there was a statement he made in the post-match press conference after the defeat to the All Blacks at Ellis Park that should have been noted – the one where he remarked that the All Blacks would not be playing in the remaining matches of the New Zealand provincial season but his players would be. He said he was hoping no-one would get injured. (How stupid it is to see an opponent getting a big advantage simply through using central contracting and then doing nothing about it!!!)
If Meyer is concerned that players are being over-played and need a rest, he could take charge of the situation and do it himself. A November off might do wonders for the hunger and freshness that some key players might take into next season.
And even if he has resolved to take all the top players with on tour, surely there is a window of opportunity in the middle game, the one against Scotland, for players to be rested.(Scots are no pushovers - we dont want to be sent homeard to think again!)
Scotland have done well against the Boks at Murrayfield in recent times, but maybe the South Africans would be better off if that match was played by players motivated to make a full use of their one playing opportunity on tour.
Remember too that because the Edinburgh game is being played on a Sunday, there will only be a six-day turnaround between that match and the big one of the tour against France in Paris the following Saturday.
Mallett now regrets not mixing and matching his selections on the 1998 end-of-year tour, something that might have kept his top players fresh and prevented the fall-out that followed in 1999 when he felt that the captain Gary Teichmann had just played too much rugby and was thus no longer good enough to lead the team to the World Cup.
Even White wasn’t bold enough to leave his team captain, John Smit, out of the aforementioned 2006 tour, so Jean de Villiers would probably be a must regardless of the amount of rugby he has played and Meyer’s approach to the tour.
But if Du Plessis doesn’t get injured in what does come across as a gamble by the Sharks to try and get him fit for the Currie Cup final, surely there is a case for resting him given how much rugby he has played through the year.
Some players, such as Eben Etzebeth and Duane Vermuelen, have had truncated seasons because of injury, and are looking relatively fresh. There is no argument against them being part of the tour group.
But by the same token, Burger, if he regains his former influence – and it looks like he will – must surely be part of the Meyer plans for next year and the season after, and this tour offers an opportunity for him to build up momentum, even if only off the bench, after nearly two years of watching from the sidelines.
Pat Lambie reminded us in last week’s Currie Cup semifinal just what a potential match-winner he is.
He never got an opportunity to build during the southern hemisphere international season on the platform he laid for himself in the northern hemisphere last November.
Meyer knows what Morne Steyn can give him, and this might be a good time to give Lambie more experience and also to start reintroducing Goosen.
But the smart money says he will stick with the line he peddled in his first press conference after being appointed, that of playing with what he sees as the best possible team, and with winning as the bottom line.
Meyer will depart this year from the usual practice of naming the squad immediately after the Currie Cup final.
He has wisely decided to remove emotion from the equation and not to intrude on the domestic-season showpiece by delaying the selection until the Monday after the final.
Maybe Messrs Burger, Steyn and maybe even a young player we haven’t mentioned, will give him something to mull over between Saturday and Monday.
We wish you wisdom in making your selections Meyer. One suspects the abs will come up short again this tour and the wobblies as well so it could well be that we have to carry the SH flag again.
