Send Aussies packing in Perth

The Springboks would probably have preferred it if the Wallabies had beaten the All Blacks in Sydney but they got the next best thing in that the “Whingeing Mathildas” in the Aussie Press have been silenced.

A great effort was made to talk up the quality of the Test between the antipodean neighbours but in truth the scoreboard said it all – 19-18, a total of 37 points and just five from a try.

The All Blacks won thanks to kicks – the ones Dan Carter put over and the one Drew Mitchell failed to execute – and all the Wallabies’ points came by way of penalties.

It means that even the sanctimonious Aussies will find it hard to send up a chorus of how poor Springbok rugby is because we don’t run the ball – a tactic with which they have so often in the past suckered the English.

So the Boks will be able to prepare without the usual taunts while Peter, Smitty, Dick, Gary or Victor, whoever else happens to find himself before the microphones, will have the perfect retort when pressed about a season in which they have won important Tests while not crossing the goal line as regularly as they might have liked or their overall dominance suggested: “Perhaps you had better direct that question to Robbie Deans.”

Ironically, though for me it seems the ideal opportunity to go out and play a bit of free-wheeling rugby.

The aim of the Boks must surely be to eliminate the Wallabies and pile up so many points in their two matches in Perth and Brisbane that their first ever Test match against the All Blacks in Hamilton will no longer have any bearing on the outcome of the Tri-Nations.

And this may be the game to have a go at scoring those four tries for the bonus point that will take them nine points clear at the top of the table and just one bonus point away from a certain victory.

The Boks have executed their constricting pattern to perfection this season but the victories mask the fact that in six tests they have not once reached the four-try mark. They scored three in the second Test against the Lions at Loftus while caught up in an all-out chase to save the match and win the series but for the rest the role of the backline has been to chase rather than pass and carry the ball.

Subiaco presents the opportunity to go over to the attacking game they’re well capable of in an effort to belt a Wallaby side severely disrupted by injuries and playing at a venue they don’t really like.

Not with helter-skelter rugby, mind, but with the kind of play that brought them record victories over the Wallabies and England last year – clinical forward basics, intense contesting, suffocating defence, sound kicking but also making the effort to put the ball in front of the like of Jean de Villiers, Jaque Fourie, Bryan Habana, JP Pietersen and Frans Steyn to show what they can do.

And, I have to say, I really like the chances of the Boks upping the ante in this one. John Smit will be able to channel the team’s understandable annoyance at being disciplined by the IRB into focus and effort in the game while the presence of a Kiwi referee in Bryce Lawrence is a plus.

There was a time Lawrence irked South African sides (especially the Sharks) but in recent times he was in charge when the Boks beat Australia 53-8 at Ellis (Coca-Cola) Park last year and also when they downed the Lions 26-21 in the first Test at the Absa Stadium in Durban in Durban this year.

Lawrence is typical of New Zealand referees in that he likes to engender a flowing game so if the Boks want to have a go he would not get in the way as a northern hemisphere official might.

There could be no better one-fingered salute to officialdom, no better way to make a stand for justice for all, than for the world champion and No1-ranked side to turn it on comprehensively.