Let’s be reasonable about this

It was interesting to read the various Sunday newspapers from around the world on the internet after the Springbok game against Tonga at the weekend.

The Sunday Times in London, for instance, made Bob Skinstad the man of the match. But back home in South Africa, Skinstad did not get similar acknowledgement and was criticised by some sections of the media for his contribution in the Lens match.

This is nothing new. Opinion on Skinstad has always been divided, and it is often divided down the lines of language. To some his flash has been a sign of brilliance, of rare flair and talent, but others slam him for standing in the backs and not providing the grunt that we tend to expect from South African forwards.

My own view after Saturday was that Skinstad had a good game, and was a different player to the one who made so many mistakes against Connacht. Yes, he missed two tackles which by his own admission he should have made, yet there were other players who missed tackles. When the Boks played Samoa a few weeks ago, Henry Tuiligi ran through the first attempt almost every time he touched the ball.

But there were also times Skinstad showed what benefit could be derived from having a No8 who could handle well off the back of the scrum and bring skill and finesse to the position. Had Ashwin Willemse possessed the pace to round off Skinstad’s good work from the base of the scrum, it should have resulted in at least one try in that first half.

It was noticeable too that later in the game, when some of the Bok first choice forwards joined the fray, Skinstad came more into his own. When the big guys are there to provide the grunt, he may just provide the subtle variation the Boks need from their third loose-forward, and the try he scored in the corner was as good a try as any the Boks have scored a this tournament.

So while I may have hestitated to make him the man of the match, my leaning is certainly more towards The Sunday Times appreciation of his game than that of some of my fellow South African scribes.

To me there was a bit of an overreaction to the closeness of the scoreline. Had André Pretorius landed his early penalty attempts, the Boks would probably have knocked over the Tongan challenge and been out of sight at halftime.

Pacific islanders, as Michael Jones acknowledged after the Bok match against Samoa, do tend to be a lot more dangerous when they are in with a sniff and are encouraged, and the Bok second string gave them to many let-offs early on.

Pretorius didn’t play the game he should have been asked to play by his coach. What was required was for the Boks to play it up the middle, but Pretorius seemed intent on throwing everything wide, which just played into Tongan hands.

This though is not a criticism of Pretorius, for this column is not about that – it is about the unreasonableness of the expectations of a Bok second string team simply doesn’t play together often enough to be judged in the same way as the first choice side is.

Over four weeks separated the Connacht game from the one against Tonga, and for many of the players, the interim was spent carrying tackling bags. It is a fact that the first choice combinations train together a lot more than the second string, and it is obvious why this is so.

The apparent failures of the Bok second string combination are not necessarily an indication that South African rugby lacks depth, as some would have it, but more a by-product of Jake White’s policy of continuity in selection.

The team that will contest the playoff stages of the World Cup has a basic structure to it because it has played together so often. It is not completely unreasonable to speculate that had Pretorius come back for his first start in the regular team with settled combinations, his performance would have been a lot more steady against Samoa.

The phenomenon of the second string appearing to be some way behind the first choice is not confined to South Africa. New Zealand rested all but five of their top players in the recent match against Portugal, and although they won comfortably in the end, they did not always look that flush.

The bottom line though is that the Bok team that played Tonga will not be the one that plays Wales in the quarterfinal or in the matches that will hopefully follow after that. This is not a time to be wearing sackcloth, and those who rate this the worst ever World Cup performance by a Bok team must have forgotten the match against Spain in 1999, or for that matter Romania and Canada in 1995, the year they won the tournament.