The chickens come home to roost

When during the Super 12 Harry Viljoen admonished coaches Alan Solomons, Laurie Mains and Phil Pretorius for not giving dark-skinned players enough opportunities one wondered whether he was cutting a rod for his own back.

Given that he would soon be picking a Springbok team it seemed ill-advised of him to be putting the number of black players whom he might select on the agenda.

Of course, Viljoen might have had no choice. We do not know what preconditions might have been attached to his accepting the job of national coach.

But by drawing attention to the issue of transformation, representivity, development or equity, or any of the buzzwords that mean that teams have to include more black players, he ensured that his own selections would be placed under acute scrutiny.

And when he named his team he came up with the long-term solution of picking raw youngsters such as Conrad Jantjes and Adrian Jacobs, instead of the like of Deon Kayser, Wylie Human and Ricardo Loubscher who had proven themselves in the Super 12, and, because he wanted so much to include Dean Hall, made room for Etienne Fynn among the forwards.

He was unable to simply pick his best team because of the peculiar South African, and inarguably racialistic, requirement to include black players.

And this selectorial proviso, with which his predecessor Nick Mallett also wrestled, played a crucial role in the Springboks losing to France at Ellis Park.

With South Africa’s forwards not having dominated any of the major nations in the last three season, the selection of test rookie Fynn played into the hands of the French; giving them a psychological advantage at scrum time that spread to other areas of their game.

Viljoen tried to rectify this problem by sending on Willie Meyer at halftime, but he had another dilemma. Percy Montgomery was experiencing a nightmare at fullback, but with the Springboks trailing and struggling this was hardly the kind of game in which to introduce 21-year-old Conrad Jantjes; on the bench instead of Thinus Delport.

The awkward situation imposed on coaches because of the quota is never more clearly illustrated that by the fact that Jantjes was on the bench and not Delport – the one a highly talented youngster with a modicum of Super 12 experience and the other a test and Super 12 veteran.

Thus Viljoen was stymied. The French were in the ascendancy and it might have been ruinous to the future development of Jantjes to send him out under those circumstances. Equally, when it comes to tighthead prop there are very few knowledgeable rugby men who would pick Fynn ahead of Meyer.

But thanks to overt demands, from among others the minister of sport, and subliminal expectations from rugby’s constituency, Viljoen’s selection was flawed and when the French cockerels refused to present their necks for slaughter the Springboks paid the price.