Keeping pace with the Super Three

John Robbie has always had a knack for summing up a situation and he was true to his best form when he expressed relief that England had left South Africa out of their pre-World Cup tour.

We can only shudder to think what might have become of the Springboks had they been forced to play England at this stage of their development, although it would be perfectly correct to say that it could hardly get any worse than last time. How do you top 53-3?

But for me it was not so much the performance of England that was the revelation in these past two weeks, for I always knew they were awesome, but the standard of rugby played in both matches.

After watching New Zealand make short work of Wales in the buildup to the Melbourne match on Saturday, it became apparent that international rugby in this World Cup year might be separated into two different levels of competition - a super league made up of teams who can challenge for the World Cup and then one made up of the also-rans.

On the evidence of the past two weeks the super league includes England, the current World Cup favourites, and New Zealand and Australia. Yes, the Wallabies did just about enough even in defeat to suggest that they may belong in an echelon away from the rest of the mere mortals.

France, who are nothing if not enigmatic and appear to be playing the slippery eel with rugby analysts at the beginning of the buildup to the World Cup, may come into the reckoning later but for now they have to be lumped with the chaff rather than the wheat.

The reason the Aussies make the big three is because like England and New Zealand, the rugby they produce is so much closer to faultless than the other error-ridden national teams. Anyone notice how little kicking Jonny Wilkinson had to do in the first half? Yeah, the Aussies showed the folly of thinking you can depend almost exclusively on a goalkicker, like so many South Africans appear to be at the moment.

As this column argued some months ago, the best teams at international level do not give away as many penalties as the poorer provincial and Super 12 teams and these teams, with the right discipline, can nullify goalkicking as a factor. The Aussies did give away a few later in the game when they were playing catch-up, but the point is that their discipline in the first half ensured that they were still in the game when they shouldn't have been.

Of course, England were able to overcome the disciplined approach of their opponents by scoring the tries that are possible when you have a flyhalf and a strategy which asks questions of the nearly impregnable modern defensive systems (and they don't normally come much better than Australia).

Apart from sussing out further evidence that modern rugby requires a modern approach, the watching Boks, who are admittedly in an embryonic stage of their buildup in comparison to where a team like England is at the moment, could have used the past few matches to ascertain which areas they need to improve.

One thing is for certain after the Melbourne game - England's skill extends way beyond their forward pack and the halfbacks.

Indeed, after myself attending a school match in Durban during an old boys reunion weekend, I have myself become more sure than ever of where South African rugby may lack at the moment. It is in the ability to pass the ball through the contact, something England have begun to perfect under Clive Woodward and which has made them such an extemely difficult side to stop once they have the ball.

We in South Africa, as the Michaelhouse boys did with the steady stream of possession they received but wasted before a last minute winning try against Northwood, tend to be incapable of passing the ball while in the act of being tackled.

Invariably being tackled means the ball is either killed or turned over or a loose scrum ensues.

At all levels of the game in South Africa there appears to be far too much charging with heads down to set the ball up and far too little effort to make sure that the ball is transferred to the different points of attack with the necessary haste.

Dick Muir and Henry Honiball were two examples of South African players of the post-isolation era who could keep the ball alive from the contact and it is small wonder that in the 1996 Currie Cup season their Natal team was perhaps the best local example of modern rugby we have seen in the past decade.

Neither is it a coincidence that they were together at flyhalf and inside centre when the Boks enjoyed their purple patch at the beginning of the Nick Mallett era with those record away wins over England and France.

If there are some out there who want to argue that South Africa simply does not have such players at present I would probably have to accept the point. But we should at least make an attempt to find them and teach them before we fall even further behind the international rugby eight-ball.