Lots for Boks to think about

If the Springboks watched the match between Ireland and Australia at Croke Park on Sunday afternoon, they should have done so with mixed feelings.

While the running of the Irish backs and the all-round attacking play of the home team, who did well to break down a strong Australian defensive effort to score two tries, sent out a warning ahead of the clash between the two teams on 28 November, there was also something for the Boks to cling to.

It came in the form of an Ireland scrum that struggled against the Australian unit to the extent that it made you wonder if French coach Marc Lievremont’s contention that the Wallaby scrum is far more “spiteful” than that of the Boks was really meant as the insult it came across as.

The Wallabies, by conceding the final try to Brian O’Driscoll – and what a great player he remains – that allowed the game to end with scores level, have surrendered the Grand Slam opportunity that coach Robbie Deans required to salvage the year.

But there can be no denying the massive step forward that the Wallabies have made in some areas of their game. Their physicality has improved hugely in the past two seasons, but it is probably the quality of their scrumming that has been most impressive.

The way the Wallabies went against the Ireland scrum could offer an opening to the Springboks. That is not to imply that the Boks can go out and target the Irish scrum as a weakness, but it at least suggests that the final match of this tour need not be one where they should be dominated.

There were lots of reasons why the Boks lost to France in the opening test match of their tour in Toulouse last Friday, and it certainly did not all come down to the scrums. To put it simply, the Boks were sent the same message that was delivered to them in the last test against the British and Irish Lions and in the Brisbane game against Australia – if the opposition are able to front them physically, then the South Africans become extremely mortal and ordinary.

Had it not been for the Herculean efforts of openside flank Heinrich Brussow, who operated as a one-man show on the night, the scoreline would surely have been as one-sided as the Lions win at Coca-Cola Park or the Wallaby win in Brisbane. The big question after the game should not have been so much how the Boks lost, but how they managed to get within seven points.

The French did what the Wallabies did two test matches ago – they beat the Boks at their own game by getting in the physical intimidation first. The ferocity of the French onslaught in the rucks was frightening and it has to be said that the Bok decision to fly out just three days before the game did not help.

As Victor Matfield said afterwards, the Boks did seem a second or two slower than the French at almost everything they did. The justification for flying to Toulouse so late that they arrived on Wednesday afternoon of a Friday night game was that the Boks had done the same thing in the Tri-Nations when they travelled to Perth.

But the flight from Johannesburg to Perth is just eight hours, there is no connecting flight required, and more importantly, in August there is not a quantum difference in the climate between those two cities.

There is a massive difference though between the climate in Johannesburg in the South African spring and that in the south of France in early winter. It was small wonder then that the Boks looked like they were playing on a different planet, not just in a foreign country.

Yet the scrum did also play a part, and if the Bok management are to continue denying that they have a problem in that phase then they are guilty of burying their heads in the sand. The commentators got excited about the one wheeled scrum that went the Bok way in the first half, but for the most part the French were completely untroubled on their own ball and the Boks were often under pressure on theirs.

I have read reports which contend that the scrumming was better than it has been, but for me that only tells me how poor it has been generally. The next big goal for South African rugby is the World Cup in New Zealand in two years, and this is an area that needs to be sorted out if the Boks are to stand any chance. Clearly there are a few difficult selection issues that require confronting.

Other aspects of selection also need to come under close scrutiny, for there are elementary mistakes being made that should not be. For instance, is the rangy Ryan Kankowski the right man for northern hemisphere conditions and the sort of physical dog-fight that the Toulouse test was always going to be?

And how long are the Boks going to persist with Adi Jacobs as an inside centre given the way he was run over by the French in the first two minutes at a time when they desperately sort early momentum? The French, with their selection, made no secret of their intentions, and Jacobs’s lack of physical presence was sorely shown up.

Zane Kirchner was generally solid in his second test appearance, but the first match without Frans Steyn and Jean de Villiers was not a great advert for the Bok ability to continue their winning ways without them.