On being wise before the fact

"What’s your prediction?" asked a fan wearing the finest in Colin Montgomerie hangdog looks at Sun City on Saturday evening.

The glow of one of the finest displays of par-busting yet seen on the course of the Gary Player Country Club in the third round of what the draw for round 4 described as the Nedbank Million Dollar Golf Challenge had just been destroyed by the Springboks losing 25-17 to England.

“Surely you mean my verdict?” I asked. “My prediction I made three weeks ago after the Boks played Argentina.”

At the risk of being accused – as I was in the chat room recently – of wanting the Springboks to lose, I have to admit that this defeat was hardly a surprise.

All those whose opinion I value have been predicting for weeks now that Harry Viljoen was doing an excellent job of preparing the Boks for defeat against England.

When he failed to act on the evidence of the test against Wales by including a heavier lock to make his pack more competitive the writing was on the wall.

In fact there was such universal consensus that the Boks could not beat England that a group of Ernie Els’ friends, chatting to the champion golfer on Wednesday, to a man advised him not to take a bet with Lee Westwood on the outcome.

This did not require any great wisdom, insight or knowledge. South Africans know their rugby and they could see Viljoen was on the wrong track – almost from the time he announced his choice in personal advisers – and that his approach to test rugby was fantastical.

Keen sports followers came to the same conclusion with the internet betting organization, Eurobet, yesterday taking bets on England to win at 4 to 9 on.

It is not Viljoen’s fault that South African rugby currently does not have a half-decent flyhalf, but we do have some pretty competitive locks in the like of Hottie Louw and Victor Matfield... even Andre Venter.

They are big, a strong man capable of holding and driving the ball but that was not the primary consideration. The Springbok scrum has consistently been under pressure on the current tour and the least Viljoen could have done was give his embattled frontrow some much-needed support.

What we’re witnessing is more self-destruction than re-building. Instead of adding clever touches to a team struggling to gain parity in the forwards the coaching gurus of Viljoen, Andre Markgraaff and all the rest have succeeded only in stripping them of some basic fundamentals such as a strong and secure defence and the savvy to chase kicks ahead.

Too often in Saturday’s test the Springboks were exposed because players seemed to do a double take on what they were supposed to be doing. If a lack of spontaneity and initiative were a problem under Nick Mallett they are now an epidemic.

In fact in Saturday’s vicious test that left Jonny Wilkinson, Richard Hill, Japie Mulder, Neil Back, Corne Krige and Phil Greening nursing head wounds – a poor reflection on the participants as well as referee Dave McHugh – one even got the impression that Clive Woodward came off the stand to pass his players a message - “just give them (the Boks) the ball because they’re bound to mess it up.”

In fact, under Viljoen the best thing the Boks seem capable of doing is making dramatic appeals to the officials.

What stands out after this debacle is that if Sarfu and certain sections of the media are to be consistent and apply the standards that were in place for Nick Mallett they should now be calling for Harry Viljoen’s head.

I may be far away but my instinct tells me there is something dreadfully wrong in this Springbok team. They have committed one PR gaffe after another and the back-stabbing that was evident when certain (conveniently anonymous) players turned on Joost van der Westhuizen after the World Cup is still going on.

Sadly for England, as they prepare for their coronation as world champions after beating a decimated Australia and a confused South Africa, they’re a long way from breaching the gap between the northern and southern hemispheres. What they have achieved, however, is to replace the Springboks in the world’s top three… and the French will have an enormous amount of shoulder shrugging to do over that statement!