Ex Supersport
The Springboks can’t possibly be clearer about their intentions for the coming season, with Bryan Habana in media interviews this week just continuing a thread that was started by Willem Alberts during the Sharks’ overseas tour.
“We want to go through the season unbeaten,” said Alberts of the Springbok aim in an interview during the Australian leg of his team's tour.
Habana wasn’t quite as explicit as that, but in spelling out why Saturday’s opening match of the international season against the World XV at Newlands was so important, he pretty much said the same thing that Alberts did.
“We set high standards for ourselves last season and to take a step back now from where we were last year would be disappointing,” said Habana.
Well, okay, that might come across as the glass half empty approach as opposed to Alberts’ more specific glass half full slant that spells out unequivocally what the Boks are setting out to do this year. They’re aiming high, and if they are going to improve on last season, Alberts is right – they will have to win just about every game because last year they only lost twice.
Of course, it doesn’t need to be spelt out that the main objective this year must surely be to break the current sequence of defeat against New Zealand. It might be folly to suggest that the All Blacks are the biggest obstacle to World Cup success in 2015 as the host nation are building nicely and at the time of the year when the event will be played, and noting the conditions that will probably be in evidence, they should be both equipped to win and fresh.
However, the All Blacks are the undisputed No 1 team in the world and champions to boot, and Heyneke Meyer did say when he took up his position as Springbok coach that he didn’t just want to win the World Cup, which he rightly noted can be a bit of a lottery, but wanted to win every test and be the best in the intervening years.
His first two years didn’t quite achieve that objective, but then it might have been unrealistic to expect them to. Meyer made no bones about the fact that there would be a building process, and historically his success has been built around long-term planning. Last year was a quantum step forward from 2012, and this year should be the one in which the Boks aim to graduate to the next level.
That though requires all the stars to be in alignment, and they haven’t been so far in 2014, with Jean de Villiers’ injury presenting a significant setback to his plans. But then Meyer is also wise enough and has been long enough in the coaching game to know that not everything works out as planned. And with a full Super Rugby tournament to be played over consecutive weeks next year, there can be no guarantee that the Boks will arrive at RWC 2015 at full strength and with everything in place.
So depth needs to be developed, and that is where the matches to be played during this month of June become particularly important. Last year’s June series gave us Willie le Roux, who was initially an experimental selection but then grew into the fullback role, and we thought it had given us JJ Engelbrecht until we discovered at Ellis Park later in the season that he still has some way to travel before he can be regarded as a safe defensive bet as an outside centre.
Engelbrecht’s best position may well be wing, which is where he played all his rugby when he was at Western Province. He has the pace for it, and it would be a pity if at some stage during these June internationals Meyer didn’t try him there. And that would be particularly so if, as is quite possible, JP Pietersen lays down the marker in the No 13 jersey which he apparently now covets.
The need to lay down a marker is why Meyer has resisted any temptation to go overboard with the experimentation this week, though there is an inherent gamble in several of the selections if you consider the questions of age and over-playing that have become the hot debating points of the moment. (Please note Dr Mozzzzz!)
We will only know on Saturday if the Sharks players who looked so tired against the Stormers last week will be similarly fatigued when they pull on the green and gold, and Newlands might partially tell us whether Meyer is wise to select players together in combinations that could just as easily be mistaken for the combination for a South African Classics team heading for the Bemuda tournament.
Most important though for Meyer will be the creation of a platform that can see his team build on the marker that is laid down against Matt Giteau’s team in the same way that his team did last year on the opening win over Italy in Durban.
Probably the ideal scenario for Meyer will be for his team to struggle a bit in the first half and for the World XV to test them in the key areas, with the hosts then taking control and winning comfortably enough in the end for him to be able to try a few things that will be used for the first time against Wales. There is also the question of confidence, and there are some players – Fourie du Preez, Johan Goosen and Flip van der Merwe – who will come onto the field in the second half and probably continue as the first choices the following week.
Fourie played a cameo role in his first test match back against Argentina at Loftus last year but his 20 minutes were the catalyst for him to return as an important member of the starting team after that. Meyer will be looking for something similar from those three players and maybe one or two others on Saturday.
Nothing is going to convince anybody unless there is real performance. Until then expect the oaks to be like rabid dogs with a bon e!
