Joost made it all worthwhile

So were the two training games against provincial opposition a worthwhile exercise for the Springbok squad so close to the World Cup? Opinions are divided, particularly after the latest spate of injuries, but for me there is no argument.

Injuries, as coach Rudolf Straeuli put it, can happen at any time. Rugby is a contact sport and injuries are always a risk, just as they will be in the opening game of the World Cup campaign against Uruguay.

It is pointless to wrap players in cotton wool as this has the effect of robbing players of their sharpness.

The debate over the relevance of these games is understandable. For a start, in neither match did the Boks play the sort of rugby we can expect them to play in the World Cup itself.

At least we should hope not, for if the Boks try to run the ball from all over the place without the forwards setting it up, thus offering no protection whatsoever to the scrumhalf, they will be sitting ducks not just for well-drilled England, but also the hard-tackling Samoans.

Despite this major flaw in their approach, there was a lot of positive comment about the Boks after the game. I saw one headline which proclaimed that the Boks had shown they would shock a few teams at the World Cup.

That was over the top, for the Falcons were not nearly the level of opposition that could provide an accurate yardstick of anything. The Falcons currently languish in the bottom half of the Currie Cup First Division and have lost many of the players who made tough rivals at home in previous seasons.

Any temptation to laud the Boks for their defence on the basis that they never conceded a try should be resisted at all costs, for the Falcons just never had any ball to run at the national team.

There were mistakes in both games - spilled and misdirected passes were still in evidence in Springs, certainly in the first half, and in Bloemfontein there was the odd missed tackle, not to mention a couple of disintegrating scrums.

But these problems are not a reason why the games should not take place. Instead, they justify why they should take place. For if the Boks had not played any rugby this month, the performance they delivered against the Cheetahs would have been delivered against England in Perth. And what a disaster that would have been.

Just as you have to run long runs when you train for a marathon, so you have to play the odd game of rugby if you want to peak on the rugby field. Skipper Corne Krige said after Bloemfontein: "We are in the best condition of our lives physically, but we may lack a bit of match fitness".

The point may not be the type of rugby the Boks played, or even the quality delivered on the playing field, but that they got out there and played. In my rugby writing career I have seen several warm-up games building up to a variety of different competitions at all levels where the rugby played was less than inspiring. But often it is a different story when the team gets on the field for the real thing because the time on the field proved beneficial.

The Boks' performances against the Cheetahs and the Falcons were definitely not worse than those turned in against Eastern Province and the SWD Eagles in 1999. The EP game in that year was possibly the worst I have ever watched and the Boks really struggled.

And they were not all that much better in 1995 either. Western Province had the better of the game at Newlands and Natal, severely depleted as they were, made the Boks look extremely ordinary. Yet that same Bok team went on to win the World Cup.

So if the warm-up games were worthwhile, what did the Boks get out of them apart from game time and those injuries? Well, as we saw between Bloemfontein and Springs, they provided an opportunity to pinpoint areas of weakness and a chance to rectify mistakes.

Let's not forget that the Uruguay game will pass as yet another warm-up game, so the mistakes made the other night can be further rectified in the 80 minutes they have before they come up against Martin Johnson's team.

The biggest fall-down remains the inability to get a forward blanket to the breakdowns. Northern hemisphere packs tend to hunt as a unit and the Boks appear not to have learned from their many defeats to those sides in the past few seasons.

Maybe this is an area they will get right though when it matters, for surely Straeuli will take them through the video of both games and identify the areas where improvements are necessary.

The matches also provided an opportunity for newcomers to wear the Springbok jersey and gain some confidence in it before they are pitched into the real thing. Jacque Fourie and Danie Rossouw should both have benefitted in this regard from their game against the Falcons, as should Derick Hougaard.

But for me the most pleasing aspect of the warm-up games was the much-improved form of Joost van der Westhuizen. Against the Cheetahs in particular Joost appeared to have regained that old zip and sparkle and I cannot recall a single pass not finding its target.

He also rediscovered his appetite for taking the break and his two tries against the Cheetahs should be a confidence booster for the most capped Springbok. There can be no denying that a fit and sharp Joost will be a massive boon to the Boks. There were signs in Bloemfontein that he is looking more like the Joost of old rather than just an old Joost. If the warm-up games were held to just establish that, they would have been worth it.