Time to play follow my leader

Of the many clichés that have become part of the idiom of sport the most appropriate for the Springboks and the impending Rugby World Cup is to “lead from the front.”

In many ways Corné Krige is the key member of the squad for much will depend on the leadership and form of the captain.

Krige, who has already stepped on a media landmine by making unguarded, and ill-advised, disparaging remarks about England captain Martin Johnson, will have to display motivational leadership as well as the touches of a skilled diplomat but most of all he will have to excel as a player.

Occupying the habitat of the like of George Smith, Richie McCaw, Olivier Magne and Neil Back, Krige has not been up to speed in recent test matches - put another way he has not been able to get his hands on the ball quick enough or often enough to satisfy the demands of the position – fetcher flank – he occupies.

In fact, it would not be unwarranted to nominate the skipper as the weakest member of a pack who will have it all to do if the Springboks are to pull off an upset on the scale of little-known Ben Curtis winning the British Open.

Thus the greatest example Krige, described in a SA Rugby communiqué as “one of the most resilient characters to don the green-and-gold,” could set for his embattled and unfancied team will be to lift his performance to the levels that made him one of the players of the Super 12 in 2002.

One suspects that the blame for some of Krige’s dalliances on the dark side of the fine line that separates hard play from dirty play – as seen in the infamous tape the English technocrats delivered to British television stations – can be traced to the inability of a body tortured by many injuries to get him to the point of break-down (double meaning intended) quick enough.

But he has not played for some weeks now. He should be fully recovered from his many and varied ailments, he should be fit and his speed should be, well, what it should be.

And, if this proves to be the case, a strong and speedy Krige could well be the catalyst needed to carry the Boks beyond the point of quick return – that bridge further than the quarter-finals which most pundits believe is beyond their capabilities.

Krige has, in the last year, presided over the two greatest defeats ever suffered by the Springboks – 53-3 against England at Twickenham and 52-16 against New Zealand at Loftus – and also watched as the Boks conceded four record defeats.

Thus the man who has recovered from a serious road accident and five different surgeries to keep his rugby career going will not only have to pick himself up (again!) and lead from the front. He will have to provide the grit that galvanizes a shattered team and a disillusioned nation.

It’s a challenge he says he’s up, and ready, for. “Losses like those (England and the All Blacks) are obviously very difficult to handle, especially when you hate losing as much as I do,” he says. “It’s hard to take (the defeats), but I’ve tried to put it in perspective. At Twickenham we had a young and inexperienced side who learnt a harsh lesson about test match rugby from a very good side and at Loftus we ran into an equally good All Black team who had one of those days in which they just put it all together.

“What happened was a steep learning curve for the younger players and a reality check for those of us who have been around for longer. We’ll all be stronger for it, though, and it will not happen again. Of that I’m sure,” he vows.

You sense that it is hard for Krige to make big promises for he is the Martin Johnson type of leader; strong, silent, committed and not given to hyperbole, but he is stung by the general view that his team can’t win the World Cup.

“A lot of work was done behind the scenes preparing for the World Cup. We had a lot of time together as a squad, a lot of players were involved, and everyone knew it was all part of a bigger plan. There was good communication and even if some players didn’t hear what they wanted to hear no-one was left in any doubt about where we were heading. Since the naming of the squad we’ve worked exceptionally hard.

“The reality is that anything can happen in any game in the World Cup. We beat Australia when people said we couldn’t and, in spite of our results, there is a belief among us that we can beat any of the sides we’ll be up against.

“And that’s something we’ll all have in common because to win the World Cup you have to go out and win seven matches and at least three of those will be against the best teams in the world. There’s no other way to do it and we’re right on board with that,” he added.

Krige disagrees the Springboks might be making too much of the crucial Pool C game against England in Perth on October 18. “I prefer to see it as being realistic,” he says. “Both England and we know that the reward for a win in that game is avoiding New Zealand in the quarter-final so it is the first big hurdle that has to be negotiated,” he says, adding that wiping the slate clean of that 50-point humiliation to which the Boks were subjected at Twickenham will add extra motivation.

The man who was installed as captain as far back as April does not agree the Springboks will have an advantage playing before a Subiaco Oval crowd that could largely be made up of ex-pat South Africans.

Perth is reckoned to have the largest population of expatriate South Africans anywhere in the world but Krige says “that whatever small advantage we could have running on could be negated if we play badly. We have to perform well to get the crowd behind us, but just having them there is not going to make much of a difference.”

So, if rising above adversity is the key ingredient, South Africa have the right man in charge for Krige, still only 28, has been a regular visitor to the surgeon’s table and come back from a number of setbacks that might have persuaded others to pack it in.

Look at any picture of him in action and you will see the strapped right hand with its permanently misshapen finger – the legacy of a serious car accident - and the bandaged knees. South Africa’s leading exponent of the get-your-hands-on-the-ball type flanker, hence the cuts and abrasions, Krige missed his first Springbok cap when he suffered his first knee ligament injury in the Currie Cup final of 1997.

What was meant to be a night of celebration with his triumphant Western Province teammates became one of a plaster cast and crutches and an operation the next week while the Springboks left on their tour of Italy, France, England and Scotland.

He recovered, but then had the motorcar accident that left him with a permanently damaged hand, and it was not until 1999 that he made his debut with the unique distinction of not only captaining the Springboks in his first test but leading them to a 101-0 win against Italy in Durban – thus giving him the unenviable record of having led the Boks to their best victory and also their worst defeat.

But instead of him settling into his test career he was again hurt during the Tri-Nations in 1999, causing him to miss out on the World Cup, and since then he was again forced out for long spells; once with a broken jaw and during this year’s Super 12 with another knee injury.

Known for his unflinching approach the man who captained every representative side he ever played in is philosophical about the setbacks. “I accept there’s a higher power that controls your life. All these things have made me a stronger and better person and contributed to whatever I have achieved as a leader,” he says.

Having as a seven-year-old been sent from his family’s farm in Zambia to school in the Cape (a distance of 3500 kilometres) Krige said he had to learn “to look after myself from a very young age.” His school, Paarl Boys High near Cape Town, is one of South African rugby’s great nurseries “where you simply had to play rugby” and the combination of being far away from home and of necessity independent, allied to natural talent, resulted in his captaining Western Province at every level from the under 13 age-group.

These formative years resulted in Krige forming a philosophy towards captaincy based on “setting a natural example and doing the right thing on and off the field” and, of course, “never giving up.”

And, it goes without saying, that is a quality the Springboks are going to need in abundance over the next few weeks.