Fourie the key to Bok success

Those Springbok fans who were still feeling depressed this past week over the results of the away leg of the Castle Tri-Nations should have had their mood considerably brightened by one of the highlights packages SuperSport ran as part of their build-up to the World Cup.

The 1995 tournament was too long ago and this year’s squad will include no survivors from then. It was also played on South African soil. So as a marker for this World Cup, it has little relevance apart from possibly providing motivation to the players as a reminder of how much that win meant to their country.

It was the highlights package of the 2007 event that got me enthused. And not because the Boks won that World Cup, which makes them reigning champions as we head to the next edition in New Zealand next month. The reason I sat up and noticed as the Boks ran in their tries in the crucial games played in France four years ago was the role played in all the big moments by Fourie du Preez.

Yes, I know Bryan Habana won the IRB Player of the Year award after that tournament. And some would say deservedly so after equaling Jonah Lomu’s record with eight tries. But I remember at the time feeling that as the creator of the opportunities that Habana thrived on, Du Preez was unlucky not to pip his teammate to the award.

Even many of the overseas media were writing up Du Preez as the best player on the planet during that World Cup, not the least of them former England flyhalf Stuart Barnes, who was glowing in his praise after the big Bok pool win over England. Barnes wrote that it was Du Preez, more than any other player, who made the Bok team.

And the highlights package from that World Cup would suggest he was right. We have become so used to extolling Du Preez’s kicking strengths that we sometimes forget that he is a damn fine exponent of other aspects of the game, and the runs and moments of inspired genius that sent Juan Smith in for the first try against England and JP Pietersen in for the third sandwiched the brilliance that netted the second.

In the semifinal too Du Preez was to the fore with his attacking skills, one such moment being the try he set up for Habana. Throughout the World Cup, in the really big games, Du Preez cooked, and it was an illustration of what he told SA Rugby Magazine he did with them earlier this year: “In the big games I don’t want to just be one of those who survives, I want to be the difference between my team winning and losing.”

Du Preez returns to Springbok action this weekend in Durban after a long absence. Those who wonder why the Boks slumped like they did last year should not forget that Du Preez wasn’t there for any of those failures, and while his last game in the green and gold, against Ireland at Croke Park in November 2009, did not see him end on the winning team, he is one player who should still carry the aura that the Boks enjoyed in that triumphant year.

The importance of Du Preez to the Boks was probably underlined by a question that skipper John Smit was asked at a press conference after the second defeat to the All Blacks in 2010 in Wellington. He was asked if his team was losing because it was missing Du Preez.

“I think if I took that line and made that excuse then we would not be giving ourselves much chance of success at next year’s World Cup,” said Smit.

That was his way of saying that his team could not expect to go to the World Cup and win it if they were banking too much on the contribution of one player. And he was right, for Du Preez would be so much more effective behind an advancing, physical pack like the one that the Boks had at their disposal in 2009.

For Du Preez to weave his magic at this World Cup it will require the Bok big men to wind back the clock and rediscover their finest form. But if they do manage it, then the accuracy of the scrumhalf’s kicking game coupled with his genius as a decision maker will make the Boks a damn difficult team for any other side to beat. And that includes New Zealand, who went down three zip to the Boks when the South Africans, with Du Preez calling the shots, got their strangulation game right two years ago.