Weekend with Bernie

There was a time we laughed at him, the rickety guy with the unenviable burden of being nicknamed after a corpse!

I was reminded of that on Easter Monday as I delighted in Stephen Larkham’s command performance for the Brumbies against the Waratahs.

It was vintage Larkham; mixing up the options, changing the angles, varying the depth, twirling the passes, teasing the tacklers, breaking the line, defending the channel, going the aerial route and, yes, kicking for touch.

One of a handful of players who’ve been around for the whole journey since the start of Super Rugby in 1996, Larkham took a long time to gain our respect.

He was just so spindly-legged, knobbly-kneed and pigeon-chested and did nothing to allay the impression of frailty by playing in headgear – probably the first top-class flyhalf ever to do so.

To make his unprepossessing image even worse it turned out his nickname was “Bernie”, after the corpse in the hit comedy movie Weekend at Bernie’s! Larkham was first seen at fullback and there were sniggers when Rod Macqueen moved him to flyhalf in an effort to solve a problem with which Australia had struggled ever since the retirement of Mark Ella.

It turned out to be a prescient move – one which enhanced Macqueen’s status as the pre-eminent coach of his era and which helped to give the Wallabies the World Cup for the second time in 1999.

Larkham, it has to be said, was not an immediate success; struggling with the head-on defence in the corridors close to the forwards and being particularly timorous when up against Henry Honiball.

And, as it turned out, Macqueen’s masterstroke ended up being juxtaposed with a gambit Nick Mallett did not take – and let’s face it how could he have?

With Jannie de Beer having kicked a world record five dropped goals against England in the RWC quarterfinal at the Stade de France in Paris, the then Springbok coach decided to retain the ginger-haired Free Stater for the Twickenham semifinal against Australia instead of resorting, as some thought he should, to a fit-again Honiball to terrorise Larkham.

The match went into extra time, and then it happened… bloody Bernie kicked the only dropped goal of his entire career to knock the Boks out!

Larkham went on from there to become a master of his craft and watching him mesmerise the Waratahs I was struck by the similarities in the dilemma faced by Macqueen ahead of a World Cup eight years ago and the quandary confronting Jake White.

South Africa has not been able to call on a completely authoritative flyhalf since Honiball, with many fine players in the running but none offering the entire package; especially a lack of consistency plus Larkham’s most exceptional gift – the ability to constantly have the opposition guessing.

You might talk about those diagonal runs of his, pulling defensive structures out of shape with his deceptive pace, or his beautiful flat passes pulling runners up to the advantage line but to me Larkham’s greatest asset is the way he mingles all the flyhalf skills.

His kicking game was mediocre at the start but he is now an exceptional kicker, a reliable defender, an illusive runner, a superb passer and he fuses all these skills to be a constant and threatening playmaker.

And, lest we forget, he is also exceptionally brave having fought back from any number of serious injuries and also returning to the game after having a cancerous growth removed from the back of his left knee; a setback that means he faces twice yearly tests for the rest of his life to monitor his condition.

Weighing in at a mere 88 kilograms, “Bones” makes up for what he lacks in physicality with excellent vision and the confidence to trust his tactical nous.

All this was on display as he helped the Brumbies put the Waratahs to bed in the big Aussie derby and made for a great weekend with Bernie.

Jake White could do worse than ordering a few DVDs to be couriered to Messrs Pretorius, James, Grant, Hougard, De Waal, Steyn, indeed anyone who has aspirations to wear the green-and-gold No 10 jersey, with instructions for them to watch, and watch well for Larkham gave a master class in how flyhalf should be played.