Best of British basics

Some of the most heartfelt shouts of encouragement for the Wallabies as they tried to save themselves from being utterly overwhelmed by the red tide in Brisbane on Saturday would probably have been heard in a hotel room in Port Elizabeth.

Springbok coach Harry Viljoen, having invested so much faith and effort in the pre-eminence of Australian rugby, must have watched in horror as the Lions dismantled the Wallabies in the opening 50 minutes of a keenly competitive test match.

The way the Australians fought back to score two tries and gain an ascendancy in the possession stakes would have come as a relief but not before, one hopes, some awkward questions arose in Viljoen’s mind about the wisdom of slavishly following the Wallaby way.

With Graham Henry at the helm the Lions are playing a winning brand of rugby based on the fundamentals of a strong pack who scrum well, win their lineout ball and ceaselessly work on getting numbers to where the ball is – either in support of their own players on attack or by swarming into defensive situations to provide a greater physical presence and forward momentum.

Added to this they are superbly fit, play at pace and are street-smart when it comes to making it difficult for their opponents to build quick phases – often by the time-worn method of simply putting their bodies on the line.

But most of all the Lions are impressive because their forwards are so impressive. The Aussie scrum was under the gun from the word go and by working hard, and in numbers, at the breakdown the Lions have succeeded in exploiting the Southern Hemisphere tendency for teams to defend rucks and mauls with three or four players while the others stand out.

The driving, or rolling, maul is nothing new and by using it the Lions were able to achieve that forward motion that causes backs to run onto the ball and find gaps in back-peddling defences such as those that opened up for Brian O’Driscoll and Rob Henderson.

Although the All Blacks are a fresh, resurgent team they also suffered massively at the hands of France’s expertise in the tight phases and this test might have been a lot tighter had Bernard Laporte not decided on making wholesale changes to the team that made the Springboks struggle so.

As outrageous as it might sound, the members of the Tri-Nations may well be suffering from maladies brought about by the Super 12 where the virtues of solid primary phases have been sacrificed to the desire for quick re-starts – this and the fact that forwards in the Sanzar nations have slowly developed a low impact, minimum involvement style in the interests of self preservation.

With Viljoen having been seduced by all things Australian, one fears that the underlying problem in Springbok rugby – the fact that our forwards are no longer as competent, and thus as feared and respected, as they once were – could continue to go unaddressed.

With the Lions having downed the world champions an interesting thought arises – how long until the marketing mandarins decide to promote a series between the British and Irish Lions and the best of the Tri-Nations?

And, if that did happen, who would be the coach and what would be the team?

I had a crack at it and discovered that a combined Sanzar team would suffer from much the same problems as the Springboks in that it would be difficult to settle on a specialist inside centre, a flyhalf (seeing as Stephen Larkham was so ordinary with his pack on the back-foot) and rock-hard prop forwards.

Another familiar poser would be the one of goal-kicking with a compromise having to be made to ensure that the team would not lack in this department.

This would by my Tri-Nations team:

15 Matt Burke, 14 Breyton Paulse, 13 Tana Umaga, 12 Butch James, 11 Jonah Lomu, 10 Stephen Larkham, 9 George Gregan, 8 Deon Muir, 7 George Smith, 6 Rassie Erasmus, 5 John Eales (capt), 4 Norm Maxwell, 3 Cobus Visagie, 2 Anton Oliver (Jeremy Paul having been injured), 1 Carl Hoeft.

Replacements: John Smit, Ollie le Roux, Troy Flavell, Bob Skinstad, Byron Kelleher, Andrew Walker, Joe Roff.