Anatomy of a test match defeat

There was an omen of what was to be thoroughly deflating afternoon when Jaco van der Westhuyzen asked for one of the match balls at Lansdowne Road to be pumped up.

The Springbok flyhalf received another, kicked off deep, and set in motion an opening 20 minutes so riddled with errors that it would eventually cost the Boks a disappointing defeat.

What transpired in the Irish test was an object lesson of what should not be allowed to happen if John Smit and his Class of ‘04 are to overturn an overlong run of defeats against England at Twickenham on Saturday.

Jake White, before both the Welsh and Irish tests, spoke of the importance of the first 20 minutes, of the need to start well, and while this was accomplished at the Millennium Stadium the Boks, in Dublin, seemed to have slipped all the way back to that awful night of the RWC quarter-final in Melbourne a year ago.

This is how it went:

3 minutes: Paul Honiss shouts “No3 not binding!” and penalises Eddie Andrews.

4 minutes: Schalk Burger penalised for not rolling off (the man on the ground).

6 minutes: Ireland get another penalty, Honiss, with the help of one of his touch-judges calling the advantage for “No6” (Burger) being off-sides in the defensive line.

9 minutes: Free-kick to Ireland for the Springbok scrum “pushing over the mark” – i.e. early.

10 minutes: Penalty to Ireland. High tackle on O’Gara by Burger.

18 minutes: Penalty to Ireland. De Wet Barry pinned for playing the ball on the ground.

19 minutes: Springboks penalised for going into the side of a maul. Ireland kick to the corner.

20 minutes: Victor Matfield steals the lineout but Joe van Niekerk is penalised – Honiss shouting “No8 off your feet!”

20 minutes: Honiss tells Smith that “next time someone will be off, it won’t be a penalty,” and instructs him to “go talk to your players.”

21 minutes: O’Gara takes advantage of confusion in the Springboks ranks by tapping the ball to himself and scoring.

Add in inaccurate passes, poor communication and laxity at the breakdown and you see why Ireland thought they should have won by 15 points.

Now you may question the even-handedness of Honiss in all of this but what it also shows is just why the Boks struggled so to find their range and build up some rhythm.

The Boks just could not get going and when you add in an unthreatening scrum and the re-appearance of a tendency not to get numbers to the ball, defeat to the fired-up Irish was perhaps not so surprising – especially as their slack start created the desperation of having to play catch-up on the scoreboard.

Opposing the firm of Robinson & Robinson at “headquarters” on Saturday, Smit and his men must avoid a repeat or we will have to come to terms with the fact that much is still wrong in the South African game and that the Tri-Nations was merely a blip brought about by one team recovering from a World Cup hangover and getting back into the swing of things and the other in the midst of an uncommitted re-building phase.

The Boks will be up against a team who have lost only once – to Ireland in the last Six Nations – at Twickenham since going down to the All Blacks during the 1999 World Cup and yet another away failure against one of the big teams will cause all kinds of doubts to re-appear.

In many ways this will be the game in which we see what we really have in this promising team and in coach Jake White. Do they represent the future or was the Tri-Nations a false dawn?

And, to accomplish what would be a rare achievement, they have to not only start well but re-kindle their passion to gain control of and hold onto the ball – an aspect of their play that has fallen away alarmingly in the these two tests in colder, greyer, soggier climes.

By my method the Boks won the ball retention count 52-49 against the All Blacks at Ellis Park (after conceding an incredible tally of 126-29 in Christchurch) and were just out of it (61-68) against the Wallabies when they won the Tri-Nations in Durban, but against Wales they were shaded 34-65 and against Ireland it was 43-53 after they had put in a strong second-half showing.

So here’s another pearl from Kitch Christie’s home-spun repertoire of adages to take to heart: “If you’ve got the ball the other team can’t play.” At the end of the Tri-Nations I thought the Boks had cottoned onto the notion of being control of the ball but they’ve let it slide and unless there is an improvement they will definitely not have the beating of a confident England side.