Boks to bank on a choke

The Cricket World Cup has left the Springboks with some things to mull over ahead of their World Cup later this year, and if you are one of those people who believe in omens, it’s not all good.

The last time that the Proteas ended up playing a play-off against a country that the Springboks were due to clash with in a knockout fixture later in the year was 1999. Remember that? The Proteas played Australia in their unforgettable semifinal, which was tied, but the Australians advanced because of a superior record before that.

That World Cup was played in England, and as chance would have it, the Springboks also ended up playing their semifinal in England, though Wales were the hosts of the tournament. The match was also a tie, or a draw, after regular time at Twickenham, but Australia won it with a drop-goal in extra time.

So with New Zealand easily dispatching the South Africans at the Cricket World Cup last week and the All Blacks almost certain to feature in the Springbok play-off schedule, probably the semifinals, those of us who are superstitious had that same creepy feeling running up the spine that you get when you are being chatted up by an alien that has just climbed off a spaceship.

It’s unlikely the Springboks and All Blacks will meet in the quarterfinals, as the cricketers from the two nations did, but still, the portents are not good.

Neither are they good though for New Zealand, for I have had a strong hunch for a long time that the All Blacks will beat the Boks in their semifinal but then go onto lose to Australia in the final. Maybe Sri Lanka, in their win over New Zealand in the cricket semifinal, played the role of Australia…

Not that it's comparing apples with apples, for the New Zealand cricketers went into their semifinal as rank underdogs, whereas we all know that if the All Blacks are going to be tripped up at their World Cup it’s going to be the pressure that will do it.

They will go into every game they play at the World Cup as favourites with the weight of expectation on them, but like the Proteas last week, they are only going to know how equipped they are to deal with the pressure once the knockout fixtures arrive. If you look at their history at World Cups, they haven’t had that much more success in knockout matches than the Proteas have, and considering the talent they have, they are every bit the chokers to rugby that the Proteas are to cricket.

So maybe there is a good omen in there somewhere – at least the Cricket World Cup has shown us that the pattern of teams with a reputation for choking is still in place.

Rugby can learn from cricket’s mistakes by resisting any temptation to ditch experienced players who are known for their ability to be calm in a pressure situation just for the sake of it, as appeared to be the case with Mark Boucher.

And the rugby team can also be emboldened by the thought that there is no choker tag hanging around their neck, chiefly because they won the first ever World Cup they ever played in.

I have seen it written that the choker label is not so easily applied to rugby, but that is not entirely true if you look at New Zealand, while the Sharks, through their long sequence of defeats in major finals, were battling with it until they finally broke through the barrier in the 2008 Currie Cup.

It will be many years before the Springboks could ever be regarded as chokers as two wins in four starts at World Cups is some distance better than the overall record of the nation in the 16 years in question. New Zealand has certainly been the better team for most of that period.

Fortunately for South Africa their first ever World Cup final, back in 1995, happened to be against the champion chokers. So you could say the rugby players have been given a leg up that the cricketers have never had. And it’s a good thing too, for right now, with Sonny Bill Williams adding to their awesome arsenal of lethal attacking players, mental strength is the only question mark over the All Blacks' ability to win the World Cup at a canter.