Looking to the next two years

We are now roughly halfway between Rugby World Cups, with two years separating us from the last event in France in 2007 and the next one in New Zealand in 2011.

Nick Mallett once contended that too much of a fuss was made about preparation for a World Cup, and his view that you could get away with an eight week preparation was partly vindicated by the experience of England in France.

England arrived as champions, but they had struggled to beat major opposition since they won the title. Their lack of preparedness was shown up by the Springboks in the first week of the competition.

But the type of rugby that prevailed at that World Cup turned out to be to their liking, and they were good enough in the knock-out fixtures to make the final.

New Zealand by contrast arrived at the tournament as overwhelming favourites, with their preparation being a massive talking point following their coach Graham Henry’s decision to pull top players out of that year’s Super 14.

But when they reached their first real pressure game, France in Cardiff, they found that the level of opposition they had faced in the pool stages left them horribly under-prepared. The streets of Marseilles, where I was based, reverberated to the sounds of people shouting the 2003 words of George Gregan “Four more years, guys, four more years!”

We are halfway through those four years, and where are South Africa? The Lions series was the immediate focus after 2007, and that has come and gone with no-one knowing for sure quite where the Boks are placed.

The new coaching regime has retained the core of the World Cup winners, and up to now that was a wise decision, as it has enabled the Boks to retain a relative degree of winning momentum. The experience of John Smit certainly played a big role in the win over the Lions, both on and off the field.

But some soul-searching and deep thought will be necessary as the Boks plot their way forward. The current players were part of the youngest group ever to win a Rugby World Cup in 2007, but it does not automatically follow that because they will be young enough to play in 2011 they will still be good enough, hungry enough or fresh enough.

Being young in terms of years spent on the planet does not necessarily translate into being young in rugby years. Schalk Burger is a young man, but during his career he has taken some massive hits, and so have several of his World Cup 2007 teammates. If they go through to 2011, Burger and his ilk would have been playing international rugby for at least eight years, which in the modern era is a long time.

Jean de Villiers’ imminent departure for Munster also brings up the issue of the captaincy. De Villiers’ agent was quoted in a Cape Town newspaper earlier this year saying that it was the centre’s dream to captain the Boks.

At the moment Victor Matfield is the second in command at the Boks, but as the oldest member of the current team, will he still be around when Smit retires? The Stormers played poorly in the most recent Super 14, but De Villiers impressed with his captaincy in 2008, and in terms of his leadership ability, his level headedness and his ability to speak well, he has all the right attributes.

Smit was quoted after the last Lions test as saying that he wanted to go to the next World Cup, but he has since clarified that statement. He is taking it one year at a time, and will decide it is time to go when his body decides it is time to go. That could be at the end of this season, as it would be counter-productive for Smit to bale just six months before the next World Cup.

Frans Steyn and JP Pietersen showed in 2007 that you can be a young player and new to international rugby and still excel at a World Cup. But Pietersen played as part of an established back three, and the men standing on either side of Steyn were Butch James and Jaques Fourie.

You might well be able to build up for 2011 in eight weeks, but to do that effectively you have to have experienced leaders to help the inexperienced newcomers. One of the big secrets to White’s success was the way he nurtured his combinations and built the experience of the players so that by the time the World Cup came he had insurance in case of injury.

The Bok performance at 2011 might well be dependent on decisions made now, and the selectors and management might have to become quite ruthless over the next few months in assessing which players are likely to still be at the top of their game when the next World Cup arrives.