Many questions to answer for Boks

The Springboks will return to South Africa on Monday having endured one of the worst ever end of year tours of the post-isolation era – and it is going to be interesting to see if the hard questions that need to be asked by their bosses will indeed be asked.

Four losses in five starts against Northern Hemisphere opposition is just not good enough for a world champion nation and while everyone seems to be buying into the excuse that the players are tired, which undoubtedly they are, that does not come close to telling the full story.

While the Boks were ending off their season with a five point defeat to Ireland that could well have been 20 points were it not for the fact that for once they started with the right scrum configuration, New Zealand were comprehensively winning their second last game against France at Stade Velodrome in Marseille.

The All Blacks played a home series against France when the British and Irish Lions were in South Africa. They also played against Italy. They played an extra match against Australia en route to Europe a few weeks ago. Three of their Super 14 teams advanced to the playoff stages, whereas only one South African team did.

So if the Boks are tired, the All Blacks should be as tired. After all, Springbok coach Peter de Villiers has been praised for the liberal amount of down time they were given this year, and John Smit, in his book, Captain in the Cauldron, even ascribed the Tri-Nations triumph to the ten days the players were given off after the Lions series.

Remember too that several of the top players were rested in the last week of that series as De Villiers rotated his players by making ten changes. And they also had quite a substantial break between the end of the home leg and start of the away leg.

So New Zealand had as much reason to be physically tired as the Boks, if not more, and yet their 39-12 win over France was quite possibly their best performance of the season. They do have a game against the Barbarians to come, but the test match phase of their tour has now ended, and for the second successive year they ended it without conceding a single try.

Wind the clock back to 2005, when the All Blacks smashed the British and Irish Lions 3-0, and it was a similar story. They sneaked home in one of the toughest Tri-Nations seasons ever, and yet on their end of year tour they completed a Grand Slam – and did so quite comfortably.

The French team that New Zealand outplayed in Marseille was basically the same one that reduced the Boks to rubble in Toulouse a couple of weeks ago. And yet they never looked like coming close to the Kiwis, who appear to have rejuvenated themselves through a change of designation for the members of their management as well as a return to a more territory based game driven by Dan Carter.

Let’s not forget that Carter wasn’t there for two of the three matches South Africa played against New Zealand this year, and it was really Frans Steyn’s freakish long range penalties that got the South Africans home against the All Blacks in Hamilton.

The All Blacks were not the only Southern Hemisphere team who managed to find top gear in their final test match of the year at the weekend. Australia joined South Africa in giving the Six Nations teams what up to this year was regarded as a rare win when somehow they conspired to lose a game they dominated in Edinburgh last weekend.

Prior to that they had made Ireland look far more ordinary than they were made to look by the Springboks in being held to a last gasp try draw in Dublin. But on Saturday the Wallabies joined the All Blacks in showing that maybe there is still a chasm between south and north, for they completely outplayed a Welsh team that won the Six Nations two years ago and came second this past season.

So while the fatigue aspect maybe should be looked at when planning future schedules, and only a complete fool would suggest that the current system is a healthy one for rugby, it cannot possibly be used as the sole reason the Boks lost on this tour.

If they really are the top team we thought they were in September they should have been able to do what the All Blacks did by firing on all cylinders in their big match of the tour.

To suggest that it is all down to fatigue is disingenuous when the reality, according to my perception, is not that they are tired, but simply out of condition. No names, no pack drill, readers who have watched the games should know who I am referring to.

Apart from the second half of the second test against the British and Irish Lions, the Boks were outscored in the second half in most of their games. That surely is not because they play too much rugby, but maybe, just maybe, because under the current player-driven system they are not spending enough time on the training field.

Pointing to fatigue also ignores the obvious shortcomings that were showcased through the substitution blunders that cost the Boks the game against Saracens and which made their job of beating Ireland so much more difficult. When you are down 12-10 and it could quite easily come down to a last minute pressure kick, like it was when Ruan Pienaar came on at Croke Park, you don’t substitute your first choice kicker. You just don’t.

Neither, on the confirmation that was provided over the past few weeks, do you ignore specialist tighthead props in favour of hookers that you want to accommodate because of their leadership.

Some have suggested to me since Saturday’s game that the fact the Boks lost while outscrumming Ireland is an indication that this aspect is no longer important. That is just rubbish. If it were not for the Bok scrumming, they would not have scored their only try, which started with good front foot ball which allowed the backs to run onto it.

And they would not have still been in the game in the last 10 minutes against an Ireland side that inflicted rare damage on the Bok lineout.

That the lineout woes were almost completely down to the presence in the opposition coaching dug-out of a man who coached the Bok lineout for so many years, brought on another thought that some might find unpalatable to mention but which I find impossible to ignore: What would have happened to the Boks had the Lions been clever enough to appoint Jake White as their coach for the recent series?

If Smal’s knowledge of the lineout, which clearly has not changed much since when he was involved two years ago, could inspire such panic, imagine what White’s presence in the opposition management would have done to the rest of the Bok game. After all, their current play-book was largely written by him.