Give Jake a period of grace

There are many who say aspects of the latest Springbok selection make little sense and, on the face of it, they are right. Leaving out players who have proved themselves in the cauldron of a strength versus strength Currie Cup for players who either haven’t played or have only had bit parts in the season just isn’t logical.

If I was sole Springbok selector, Gary Botha would certainly be there, and there would be three hookers, not just two. Richard Bands, after his impressive performances of the past few weeks, would also have been part of the equation.

Now I have to admit I am not 100% sure of Ettienne Botha for the simple reason that if I was sole selector, I would not be taking 33 players on this tour. This being so, there would be only place in my squad for the incumbent midfield combination plus Jean de Villiers.

Botha would miss out then for the simple reason that, good though he is, he is not quite as good as the guys who are in the team already. Those who disagree should perhaps note the opinion of New Zealand critic Patrick Innes, who in his weekly email column rated De Wet Barry and Marius Joubert as the “turn-around of the season” and said that in his opinion they might be the best centre combination on the planet.

Comparisons in games where players go head to head are always odious, but Barry has consistently got the better of Botha in those head to head clashes, and should have been the man of the match in the recent thriller at Loftus between the Bulls and Western Province.

But I digress, for the reality is that it does become a joke when a player like Botha misses out to another who has been out of the limelight for most of the season not just because of injury but also because of form.

In my ideal world the Currie Cup would be competed for by just six teams in a super-competition, and the Springbok players would always come from that tournament. Those who prove themselves elsewhere can come into the system through an apprenticeship with the South African A team or the Bok sevens, which is what should be the case now with Boland’s Jonghikaya Nokwe, the biggest surprise in the 33 man squad named at the weekend.

The Bok team, in the ideal world, should be an exclusive club inhabited only by those players who have already attained excellence and had their potential realised by performing as near to the top level as you can get during the domestic season.

But this is not an ideal world, and this is not an ideal country in the sense that there are many social inequalities which still have to be addressed and rectified. When Jake White took over as Springbok coach he said he recognised that being national coach in this country carried other responsibilities, and it is not just about winning. It is also about selling the game to all the groups and cultures which make up this multi-cultural land.

With this in mind, it was interesting to note that the first thing that White pointed out when he was interviewed on television after the announcement was that most of the squad was made up of the players who won the Tri-Nations. And this is indeed the case.

The core of the squad has been there and done that, and it is unlikely that White will be looking much beyond those players in the tests that count during the forthcoming trip to Britain, Ireland and Argentina.

For the rest, it is, as White says, a bit of a learning trip, with several of the players going along in a capacity that is not completely unlike the one that Hansie Cronje, Herschelle Gibbs and Hussain Manack occupied on the South African cricket team’s first post-isolation trip to India.

It will be recalled that the selectors chose a squad on that occasion, and that the young developing players going along for the ride to gain experience were named separately.

Ideally, this is what should have happened in the case of the latest Springbok selection too. At a media open day at Newlands back in September, White told me he was going to keep his squad as small as possible. He even mentioned an ideal figure of 25 players, arguing that having too many players on tour who were not playing led to problems as boredom set in and he would be pressed to find ways to keep the non-playing members occupied.

He also said that, because the Boks would have just come out of an arduous Currie Cup season, he would be keeping the training days to a minimum. He said he would assume the players were fit, and would be looking for fun ways to occupy everyone’s minds between tests.

Now he suddenly has eight extra players going on tour with him, and you have to assume that unless he has picked up a Straeuliesque penchant for changing his mind unexpectedly, somewhere along the line his mind was changed for him.

I read with interest on Sunday the suggestion in one of the Cape newspapers that perhaps the sudden aggressive commitment to transformation on behalf of the selection convenor was linked to criticism dished out by the ANC Youth League last week ahead of a certain Sarfu election on Friday.

There may be something in this, there may not be. What I do know though is that so far, in his short tenure as Bok coach, everything that White has done has worked out. Remember the criticism dished out when Bryan Habana was added to the Tri-Nations squad? Now that we have seen Habana play Currie Cup rugby, how many people still think that selection was so left field?

And this is so often the case when it comes to players of colour who are added to squads seemingly out of nowhere.

For instance, and admittedly this had nothing to do with White, many were wondering back in January who this Tonderai Chavhanga was who had been selected to the Stormers squad. By the end of the competition we knew, and Gert Smal had it on the money. Perhaps it will be the same with Nokwe, and so far White has not tripped up enough in his selections for us not to grant him a period of grace and give him the benefit of the doubt.

As I wrote when he was being slammed after the initial selection back in May, let’s just wait and see his team play before we judge him. He had it right then, maybe he has it right again. The team that will play the big matches will be the same one that won the Tri-Nations. We know they are good enough to challenge England and Ireland, and that is what this tour is all about.

So what is all the fuss about? Give White his period of grace and let’s see what happens before we pillory him. A word of advice to those who run the game though – an easy way to avoid all this controversy is just to be honest and upfront about what you are trying to do and stop treating the rugby watching public like they are idiots.

If a 33-man Springbok squad is not meant to be made up of the top 33 players in the country, and a component of that squad is to be selected on potential rather than proven ability, then say so beforehand and don’t pretend otherwise.