Rugby for dummies: ‘Fatal Distraction’

How many hundreds of thousands of different opinions and versions are out there of what the Springboks need to do to win at home? It is a veritable blizzard of furious opinions and passionate theories of player combinations and styles that makes the vein thump in the temple and brings on a migraine.

Winning is everything. Winning at home is essential.

To quote John Gainsford: “Nice guys come second.” Well, the Springboks are third-placed on the Tri-Nations table with little to no hope of recovery with one game to go, Australia with two games (Boks and All Blacks) and the All Blacks with one against the Wallabies.

So what in heaven’s name has gone so awry?

Firstly, the absurd notion that we are the 2007 rugby world champions and that we should be winning is long gone. That was 11 months ago, without playing the All Blacks, Aussies or French — besides which, the Kiwis and the Aussies have long since sorted themselves out and are living and playing in the present and the future, using ELVs and beating us South Africans on home soil, as opposed to the wailing from the South African fans and media that we are the world champions. It is time to snap out of this delusional thinking and realise that to look continuously over your shoulder is a liability. The future is now, today, and there must be a call for immediate action.

Secondly, these Rugby World Cup champions of yesteryear are failing South Africa and if they do not cut the mustard with world-class performances at training, or on the day, drop them. Simple. Drop them from the team, or pull them off the field if they so much as mess up three times. “Three strikes and you are out” should be the mantra, as there is no margin for error at this level of competition. Let them loose; the players will soon decide how badly they want to win and get competitive, not at the expense of the Springboks, but back at their province.

I would send Butch James, Juan Smith and Dries Bekker home today. Replace them with Earl Rose, Cobus Grobbelaar and Danie Rossouw tonight. These are form players at the top of their game right now, week in and week out, each with a spectacular individual contribution to their provincial sides’ victories. If you follow rugby, you will know this.

Thirdly, the pre-match entertainment of a two-bit circus, with ballet dancers prancing in the air in a pas de deux followed by two wannabe singing nightingale troupes, with the Bala Brothers and a breathy nightclub trio singing a whispering rendition of the national anthem, is hardly the prelude to a fight-to-the-finish rugby Test match. Just last week the throat-slitting action of the All Blacks haka versus the Foo Foo Dolls of the Springboks summed up what was to follow.

This on-field farce, called pre-match entertainment, emasculates the Springbok team and is a fatal distraction. The players hear the corny music of When the Lion Sleeps Tonight in the change rooms and look each other in the eye like they are about to go on to the stage, and they wonder: “What the …?”. Our national anthem needs to be sung with gusto and power and passion. Surely anything that does not meet the criteria of gusto, power and passion in the hours, minutes and seconds leading up to a Test match kick-off should be banished? These are our modern-day gladiators fighting for our nation’s pride and honour. The dance routine has no symbolism, nor place in modern-day rugby Test matches. It makes a mockery of the players.

Fourthly, Peter de Villiers has to blitz the cultural sensitivities of black, white, coloured, Afrikaans and English into oblivion and choose his players on high-octane performances. Not some third-gear putt-putt, stop-start selection of a player because he is senior and was in the Rugby World Cup squad. If the player has lost his edge, and there are 10 that have already gone south, send him home to mommy, because his brain is soft and there is no killer, junkyard-dog instinct of survival.

I would rather watch Cobus Grobbelaar and Earl Rose be stretchered off the field because they laid their body on the line, giving it their all. These are guys with F-16 fighter-pilot instincts whose synapses are stretched to the limit and are firing on all cylinders. Fourie du Preez and Butch James as a combo are as slow and predictable as cart horses and telegraph their intentions as if in a slow-motion movie.

Take a chainsaw to the dead wood in the Springbok team and roll out the terriers and assassins.

Here we are in August 2008 and the British and Irish Lions coaches of McGeehan and Davies are taking an up-front and in-depth look at the predictability of the Springboks’ play and “World Cup” playmakers against the Australians on August 23 in Durban and August 30 at EPRS, in advance of the Lions tour to South Africa in just 278 days’ time.

In case you did not know, the Lions schedule to South Africa is:

Sat 30 May: Highveld XV v British and Irish Lions, Royal Bafokeng

Wed 3 Jun: Golden Lions v British and Irish Lions, Ellis Park, Johannesburg

Sat 6 Jun: Cheetahs v British and Irish Lions, Vodacom Park

Wed 10 Jun: Sharks v British and Irish Lions, Absa Stadium, Durban

Sat 13 Jun: Western Province v British and Irish Lions, Newlands, Cape Town

15/16 Jun: Coastal XV v British and Irish Lions, Port Elizabeth

Sat 20 Jun: South Africa v British and Irish Lions, Absa Stadium, Durban

Tue 23 Jun: Emerging Springboks v British and Irish Lions, Newlands, Cape Town

Sat 27 Jun: South Africa v British and Irish Lions, Loftus Versfeld

Sat 4 Jul: South Africa v British and Irish Lions Ellis Park, Johannesburg

Roll on Ellis Park, August 30 2008 at 3pm.