Don't use form as only yardstick

With the Super 12 now behind us, South African rugby attention will become more sharply focussed on the looming announcement of the first Springbok squad of 2003.

As always, opinion seems to be divided along geographical lines. Judging from some of the e-mails I have received, many long-suffering Bulls fans believe that the Bok selection should be based around what has worked for the light blues.

The composition of the weekly Super XV selected by this website has been used by some as justification for a Bulls-dominated Bok squad.

As the Super XV is drawn up to reflect the form displayed on a given weekend, it was predictable that the Bulls should figure this year far more than players from other less successful teams.

One reader wanted to know, for instance, on what basis Corné Krige was seen as a certainty for the Bok squad when Piet Krause of the Bulls had earned more selections for the Super XV during the course of the tournament.

Apart from the obvious fact that Krige was injured for more than half the competition, what sets the Super XV apart from the Springbok team to be chosen by Rudolf Straeuli is that our team does not get to play.

If it did, it would not be changed every week, and aspects such as past history and proven international ability would have to be given greater consideration.

An example of a player who last year was an almost constant presence in the Super XV yet never ranked when it came to the Springbok barometres later in the competition was Hottie Louw.

The Stormers lock was selected six weeks in a row on the basis that over those six weeks he displayed better form than any other player in his position in the Super 12. When it came to considering him for Springbok selection, a call had to be made as to whether he could make the grade at test level.

Naturally a team like the Super XV does not include players who are injured. But if a Springbok team is being selected to play an important test match and a player with proven ability at test match level becomes available after an injury lay-off, it would be stupid not to pick him.

Besides, Rudy Joubert did not expect Joost van der Westhuizen to go and play club rugby to prove himself again after he came back from his injury lay-off.

It would have been laughable had he done so, and it would be just as laughable to expect Straeuli, who feels he spent enough time with the country's top players last year to know their capabilities, was expected to do the same.

Of course, when the lay-off has been for several months or more, and the injury was serious enough to possibly impact on ability, they should prove their fitness and spend some time getting match fit. But that is a different issue.

As their team was the most successful South African franchise in the competition this year, it is understandable that Bulls fans think their players should dominate. After all, if they played for the most successful Super 12 franchise in the country, they must have something going for them.

But it was precisely this sort of thinking that many of these same people found so abhorrent when Nick Mallett chose his squad at the start of the previous World Cup year in 1999.

There were many in the northern provinces who complained then that Mallett's teams had too much of a coastal flavour. They argued that he was making too much of the second place finish that the Stormers managed in that year's Super 12.

If Straeuli was to make the same decision with the current Bulls lineup, he would be making the same mistake. Maybe an even bigger one, because unlike the Stormers of 1999, the Bulls season can only really be regarded as a success if you look at it relative to what went before.

Unlike the Crusaders, who last year provided the bulk of the All Black squad after going through an entire Super 12 season unbeaten, they were never convincing enough to justify domination of the Springbok team.

For while the Bulls were better than their countrymen as a combination, they still finished below three of the New Zealand teams and two of the Australian sides. Along the way, they conceded half centuries against both the Blues and the Brumbies and at one stage went a month and a half without recording a single victory.

And though their forwards were invariably impressive, last year's late-season Springbok tour, when some seemingly invincible Currie Cup players were shown up to be anything but that at test match level, demonstrated the folly of reading too much into the form displayed in a lower form of competition.

For examples, think Bakkies Botha and Wessel Roux. Both those players were awesome in the Currie Cup final and on that form they thoroughly deserved their selection. But when Botha played his test debut against France in Marseilles, it was rabbit-caught-in-headlights time, and it was not much different for Roux on the following weekends in Edinburgh and London.

The problem is, as Mallett discovered in 1999 and to an even greater extent in 2000 with some of his Stormers players, that Robbie Deans is right in pointing out that there is a huge difference between Super 12 and test match rugby.

When Straeuli spoke a few weeks ago about Louis Koen's immaculate goalkicking record, he mentioned that it was in the same league as Jonny Wilkinson's.

What was not mentioned, but is important if you are going to consider the player for test match rugby, was whether Koen matched Wilkinson, or any other top international flyhalf, in any other department.

Like Braam van Straaten with the Stormers in 1999, Koen was good for the Bulls at Super 12 level, but both of them have been found wanting at international level.

If Koen was good enough to play international rugby surely he would not have been dropped for André Pretorius by Frans Ludeke at both the Lions and the Cats last year and overlooked again by new Cats coach Tim Lane this season.

Pretorius is not a perfect footballer but he has that something special as an allround player that Koen hasn't and the Springbok flyhalf should not be chosen on the basis that he kicks penalties and the occasional drop-goal for his regional team. It is not as if Pretorius is a poor goalkicker.

Neither should talented players be overlooked simply because they played for the Cats, who came last in the Super 12. Rugby is a team game, and the form of the players from numbers six through to 15 are dramatically effected by what happens in the engine room.

What might Pretorius, or for that matter Andre Snyman or Brent Russell, have achieved in the Super 12 if they were playing behind the Bulls tight forwards rather than the Cats and Sharks packs?

These considerations have to be taken into account by Straeuli before he makes his decisions. To select a Springbok team based purely on the form of the most recent Saturday would just lead to lack of continuity and more disaster.