A defeat is a defeat

It’s funny how situations change. In 1994 when the Springboks lost 14-22 to the All Blacks in Dunedin it was seen as a disaster. In 2003 a 19-11 defeat is being hailed as a watershed.

Dunedin. The Edinburgh of the south, right in the centre of New Zealand’s south island. It’s rugby stadium is called Carisbrook, is nicknamed the “House of Pain,” and following Saturday’s Tri-Nations loss the record is intact – South Africa have never won there.

Dunedin was the setting for the first test on the 1994 tour and the match set the tone for subsequent events.

The Boks lost a test match they should have won. Captain for the day Tiaan Strauss twice opted to go on his own and was held up when a teammate might have scored, and poor discipline resulted in penalties that effectively handed it to the All Blacks.

South Africa were without regular captain Francois Pienaar, who had been concussed in the match against Wellington. No one tried to pass this off as an excuse.

It was this match that set then Sarfu president Louis Luyt and Ian McIntosh at loggerheads and was probably the start of the coach’s demise – especially after talk started of “Mac” having no fall-back once his Plan A failed.

Luyt was furious that the Springboks’ own misdoings had cost them victory and demanded that the team’s discipline had to improve.

The second test, the one in which Johan le Roux bit Sean Fitzpatrick, was played in Wellington and amidst a media storm the Boks traveled to Dunedin to play Otago in a mid-week game.

The team was feeling set-upon and unfocused and it was no surprise when they were beaten and had to hand over the Springbok head (awarded to the first provincial team to beat the tourists) to Otago.

In those days the reception facility at Carisbrook was a dank, gloomy cavern under the stands and it was galling to note that when Jannie Engelbrecht, the Bok manager, handed over the head, Otago’s president was able to immediately hang the plaque on a screw that had been drilled into the wall in anticipation.

Although the Boks would go on to get a very good 18-all draw in the final test, scoring two tries to nil and missing the victory because Brendan Venter responded to Sean Fitzpatrick’s baiting (there’s the discipline thing again!), the death-knell of McIntosh’s tenure as coach had been sounded and the rest, as is so typical in South African rugby, is history.

The next time the Springboks visited Dunedin, in 1999, it turned out to be an equally desultory affair. That was the test match in which Nick Mallett effectively threw Dave von Hoesslin and Gaffie du Toit to the wolves and the Boks went down to the biggest defeat in their history up to that point – 28-0.

It is sometimes forgotten that Gary Teichmann was made the Boks’ man of the match and that it would also be the last time he would play for South Africa. He was injured for the next week’s test against Australia in Brisbane and Mallett was about to make the biggest mistake of his career by axing his skipper ahead of the 1999 Rugby World Cup.

Now we have lost again in Dunedin. Like most South Africans I didn’t think the Boks had much chance of beating the All Blacks on Saturday.

Like most I was pleasantly surprised by their spirited performance but the fact is we lost again – for the sixth successive time against New Zealand.

The last time we lost six straight tests to the same opponents was when we played the first tests in our history against the British Isles in 1891 and 1896.

In the midst of a run in which the Springboks have suffered four record defeats – to France, Scotland, England and New Zealand – conceded two 50-point scores and finished bottom of the Tri-Nations table for the fifth successive time it will be interesting to see what fallout a Dunedin test produces this time.

To paraphrase a phrase emanating from the Springbok camp after some of those fortuitous wins over Scotland and Argentina “a defeat is a defeat.”

The performance against the All Blacks was much better than the thrashing we took at Loftus while the absence of the truculence that marred the previous week’s game against the Wallabies was commendable. But the result was unacceptable.

The day we’re happy to lose is the day the Springboks become truly second rate.