Looking out for third best

No, this is not an appeal for you to go easy on a Springbok team who would have to improve miraculously if they are not to finish third in this year’s Tri-Nations.

There is, in fact, no play on words for the thrust of this column is really to aim a little lower, look a little deeper.

The idea came to me when I realised that those “Incredible Schalk” headlines that used to litter our publications were more accurate that anyone could have imagined.

Why else would the national coach declare his absence a disaster and why else would the Springboks fall apart at the seams now that the blond destroyer is no longer dispensing his special brand of mayhem?

But then I got to thinking: If Schalk Burger is so important for the success of the Springboks how come there isn’t another player like him waiting in the wings… or, more pertinently, in the flanks?

If Burger is so indispensable to the way we play then how come we have only one of him? – especially given how often Jake White delivered warnings about how concerned he was that it was only a matter of time before his one-man demolition squad would be incapacitated.

As dreadful injuries are an unavoidable fact of modern rugby this line of thinking prompted broader contemplation.

Do we, for instance, know who our second-best flyhalf is? Okay, I know we don’t even know who our No 1 flyhalf is but you get what I’m driving at.

Given the rate of injuries how come we don’t seem to have an organised line-up of designated substitutes – a ranking list of No 6a, b, c, d & e if you will so that if No 6a goes down then No 6b will automatically move up?

Not just any No 6 mind you, but a specialist able to perform the job (or close to it) that had been done by his stricken teammate.

If that were the case we would not have had to witness a fine player such as Joe van Niekerk embarrassed into mediocrity or, in Jaco van der Westhuyzen, stay committed to flyhalf who, for whatever reason, has struggled to look the part.

Don’t get me wrong. This is not me getting on the Luke Watson bandwagon, a player whose somewhat frenzied approach (or OTT as the text generation would say) worries me, but merely questioning how come the Bok coaches failed to cover a position they thought to be essential.

And, given that nature of being a fetcher flank, what if Watson (if he were to be selected) were injured? Who would then be the next openside flank in line? This lack of logic is also apparent when you consider the loss of Bakkies Botha. Now I would readily concede there is only one Bakkies but how come we are backing up a 122 kg lock with one who weighs 108 kg? Equally, how come we are battling so to find a flyhalf? The argument that André Pretorius is again injured holds no water because those of us who have been on the periphery of the Bok team know that the Lions pivot was, until the intervention of the selectors, not at all favoured.

What are we doing to understudy Percy Montgomery and Os du Randt, who these days limps on as well as off? Is there really only one Jean de Villiers throughout the length and breadth of this land?

Who is the back-up goal-kicker? I hear you say Meyer Bosman.

But then why was he not even in the Tri-Nations squad when it was announced? Oh, because André Pretorius was meant to be there? But the team management, who according to the Lions had not even telephoned the flyhalf to find out how his most recent operation had gone, did not even know that he could hardly jog, let alone kick a rugby ball!

A spate of injuries can be difficult to overcome (just ask Eddie Jones) and South Africa’s selectors and coaches also have the vague and undeclared quota system to cope with, but the massacre in Suncorp Stadium, which goes straight into the bottom five of worst-ever Springbok performances, shows to what extent we have taken our eye off the ball.

Pride and passion worked for a while but little was added and, to judge by what happened in Brisbane, our players now believe they are like standard eights up against matrics.

If that is true third-best is as good as we can hope to be.