No Bok baubles on this Xmas tree

Let me get straight to the point. There are no Springboks in my World XV for the year 2002.

This being the season of goodwill I thought it would be easy to let my well-known warm and compassionate side run free and give a few Boks a Christmas pat on the back, but thoughts of Marseilles, Murrayfield and Twickenham are too raw to suppress the Scrooge in me.

A chat with the reclusive Rudolf Straeuli might have brought me to other insights but I’m afraid I can’t find room in my team of the year even for Joe van Niekerk.

I have included one South African – tighthead prop Pieter de Villiers – but even that is a source of frustration in that the best player in the world in a position in which South Africa is struggling is playing for France.

Picking a team of the year is always fraught with difficulties – not the least that some players you might have preferred sustained injuries and were therefore unable to make an impact on the tours which are freshest in memory.

This, for instance, is valid in the first position that requires filling; No 15. All Black Leon MacDonald, one of my favourites, did not go on his country’s year-end tour while the other front-runner, Chris Latham of Australia, hurt himself while playing with his daughter!

Now while I’m tempted to say who is this child? bring her to me, and she will be great and good she has yet to don the jersey of her country. So I will go for her dad. Socks around the ankles, a roustabout if ever there was one Latham is a player who can make things happen given the slimmest of chances.

Thus at fullback pencil in Chris Latham.

The other positions were actually quite easy, other than the pangs of conscience when I finally decided to leave out Big Joe.

On the wings I would have All Black flyer Doug Howlett, because the one thing you can’t coach is sheer blistering pace, and on the other side you simply can’t ignore the fact that England’s Ben Cohen scored at least one try against each of the All Blacks, the Wallabies and the Springboks.

My centres would be Ireland’s Brian O’Driscoll because, as the T-shirt says, in B.O’D we trust, while I would pair him with possibly the only specialist inside centre in the international game, New Zealand’s Aaron Mauger.

The halfbacks are always the biggest talking point – if only because flyhalves tend to be the show ponies of rugby – but I felt there really could be only two; England’s Jonny Wilkinson and his own “mate” in Matt Dawson.

Stalwarts such as Andrew Mehrtens, Justin Marshall, Stephen Larkham and George Gregan showed signs of wear-and-tear in the year gone by while I feel France’s first-choice flyhalf Gerald Merceron and Argentina’s scrumhalf Augustin Pichot share a common criticism in that they are not as consistently influential as they should be.

Dawson edged in because of his late-season form and the fact that he is the regular partner of the world’s best flyhalf, but I was seriously tempted to go for France’s skipper Fabian Galthie at scrumhalf. Wise, shrewd and versatile he is, however, starting to lack a bit of pace.

And so to the biggest difficulty… a loose forward trio that does not include Joe van Niekerk. It seems absurd when you consider that Van Niekerk was nominated as one of the IRB’s five players of the year and that he was also included in the Zurich World XV but I believe he is not yet “the best in the world.”

There is no doubt he will be once he is allowed to settle into one position (hopefully No8) and provided his progress is not harmed by the current malaise in South African tight forward play.

My loose forwards would thus be the tall Frenchman Imanol Harinordoquuy as eighthman complemented by Australia’s George Smith, still the best fetcher in the business, and France’s superb ball carrier and runner Olivier Magne.

Sorting out the loose forwards is always tough with the like of Richie McCaw, Serge Betsen, Lewis Moody, Scott Robertson and Toutai Kefu strongly in the reckoning.

At lock you simply have to have “The Man”, Martin Johnson, and I would partner him with New Zealand’s Chris Jack; a man likely to end up as the best second-rower of his generation.

Pieter de Villiers gets the No3 jersey in my team and there really is no debate about Keith Wood being the hooker. Loosehead was a little more problematic. Jean-Jacques Crenca and Tom Smith, the Frenchman and Scotsman respectively, who have given a succession of South African props such a torrid time (even though that might say more about the Bok props than them!) or the like of Argentina’s Mauricio Reggiardo, New Zealand’s Carl Hoeft or Greg Somerville and England’s Phil Vickery; even though he prefers tighthead. In the end I settled on Crenca.

So, with out further ado, let me run my colours up the mast. My World XV for 2002 would be as follows:

15. Chris Latham (Australia)
14. Doug Howlett (NZ)
13. Brian O’Driscoll (Ireland)
12. Aaron Mauger (NZ)
11. Ben Cohen (England)
10. Jonny Wilkinson (England)
9. Matt Dawson (England)
8. Imanol Harinordoquy (France)
7. George Smith (Australia)
6. Olivier Magne (France)
5. Martin Johnson (England)
4. Chris Jack (NZ)
3. Pieter de Villiers (France)
2. Keith Wood (Ireland)
1. Jean-Jacques Crenca (France)