A shocker

An old mate of mine once got right to the point when a guest speaker, who had just delivered a torridly boring talk, returned to the main table by exclaiming “a shocker, my mate, a shocker.”

And you don’t have to be clairvoyant to realise why this incident came to mind as I sat down to coax yet another column out of a PC that, if it had a real mind, would probably have been thinking why not just go into the documents file and pick any one of the many you have written about the decline of Springbok rugby that, we now know, started in 2000.

Saturday’s test against Ireland was a shocker. There is simply no other word for it and the Boks were a disgrace to the traditions and standards of the 100-year-old emblem they were representing.

One of the biggest surprises, though, is that there was so much surprise at how incompetently and, finally, how timidly the Boks succumbed.

Nothing could be as bad as the 49-0 drubbing we took from the Wallabies in July but this Irish test will go straight into Springbok rugby’s Hall of Shame and the great pity is that it was all so predictable.

Ireland have a settled team at the peak of their powers; a fact amplified by harsh weather and their being at old Lansdowne Road.

That Jake White, on his own or abetted by his fellow coaches and selectors, chose to play Ireland with a prop who, in spite of numerous chances, is not up to standard; another prop whose reputation, thanks to a run of injuries, far exceeds any ability he has shown; a hooker and captain who at best must be as tired as those left home; an elderly lock who was out of action for most of the season and who was outplayed by younger opponents when he did play; a physically unimposing No 5 often shown to be far removed from what a Springbok lock should be; a flank who had not played any rugby (at all) for six months; a lock-to-flank conversion that has never worked and a rookie No 8 beggared belief.

Added to that he selected a scrumhalf who had become his province’s second choice; picked a centre on the wing, a wing in the centre, a flyhalf on the wing and a fullback making his debut. On a perfect day at Ellis Park that would have been taking a gamble; in Dublin it was suicide.

White was asking for trouble but team selection alone does not account for the team’s complete lack of passion or the fact that they were so poorly prepared for the kind of challenge Ireland would throw at them.

André Pretorius’s frailties on defence are well-known, lapses in the defensive armoury of Jean de Villiers were becoming more and more apparent while Bryan Habana, up against the peerless Brian O’Driscoll, was obviously going to have to make a big adaptation to revert to the head-on defending he would last have experienced as an under 20. Yet, there appeared to be no discernible pattern in place for the loose forwards, none of whom was a fetcher, to add to the screen of defence or to plug the hole in the inside channel that Gordon D’Arcy quickly exposed.

White has shown himself to be a glib dispenser of excuses but there is little doubt that the time has come for tough questions to be asked of him, the selectors, his fellow coaches and captain John Smit.

There have been numerous strange selections (Meyer Bosman, Andre Snyman, Gaffie du Toit, Danie Coetzee, Jaco van der Westhuyzen, Johan Ackermann) and other oddities but more worrying is that the shortcomings that were exploited by Ireland have been all too apparent since the test against France in Paris in late 2005 signalled the end of White’s honeymoon.

When last have South Africa’s tight forwards dominated? How good is our lineout really and, if it is one of our strengths, why do we make so little use of it? Why has it taken so long to realise that the so-called rush defence (if it exists) has been found out by the major nations and, for that matter, even Scotland?

Our backline organisation is poor; we give the ball up too easily (those infuriating chip-kicks); our communication is poor; we can’t hold the ball through successive phases because we don’t get enough players to the break-down or too many stand out and game after game we see players becoming isolated or taking options that make them more vulnerable.

It is one thing to rest players, and there is apparently enough medical evidence to suggest that this is necessary, but White has erred in not taking on tour a team of players who might have been some use to him in next year’s World Cup. The flaws or weaknesses (actual and potential) have been all too apparent but we are on tour without an obvious understudy for Os du Randt, for Bakkies Botha, for Victor Matfield, for Schalk Burger or do White and the selectors, Ian McIntosh and Peter Jooste, really believe the combinations available on this tour will be competitive in France next year?

Why are players like Jannie du Plessis, Barend Pieterse, Luke Watson, Kabamba Floors, Wian du Preez, JP Nel, to name a few, who might make a difference in some of the areas the Boks are struggling, not on tour while others who have had numerous chances without ever showing that they have international class are still there.

The record so far this season reads played ten, lost six and it includes such wretched performances (49-0 against Australia, 35-17 and 45-26 against New Zealand and 32-15 against Ireland) that a former Springbok captain phoned me on Saturday night to say he felt like giving back his blazer.

That’s how bad the mood is and I fear that against an England side desperate to avoid an eighth successive defeat but chasing a seventh straight win over South Africa it could get even worse. And if it does, rightly or wrongly, Jake White, who started his dramatic fall from grace ahead of the French test by suggesting there was a better job for him in England, will be in the firing line.

Whatever the problems of chaotic administration and racial manipulation rugby test matches are attended by a single, unforgiving reality – they are there to be won – and that is the benchmark by which coaches, captains and players are judged. Defeat, accompanied by brave determination and pride, is acceptable but defeat marked by poor planning, worse execution and feeble capitulation is not. More of what we saw in Dublin and the Twickenham double header may come to be recorded as the graveyard of a number of careers.