Mental strength may be missing element for Boks

It may sound like an odd thing to say about a team that has fallen just short of pulling off one of the great comeback victories of all time, but mental strength may have been as much to blame for the Springbok failures Down Under as poor tackling.

While Saturday's comeback, in which they outscored the Aussies in the second half, was encouraging, it is hard to escape the feeling that they still need to conquer an important psychological barrier before they can be considered serious contenders.

For now the barrier of winning a test match in Australasia will have to remain in place - at least for another 12 months. But hopefully this young team will some time in the next three weeks make the first turn of the key needed to unlock the psychological hold that Antipodean teams appear to have over teams from this country.

I hear those who point out that the Boks dominated the first 20 minutes in Wellington and perhaps the first 35 minutes of the second half at the Gabba.

But those who say that are only illustrating my point. The Boks, who are dwarfed by both Australasian opponents when it comes to experience, are definitely a great team in the making and do not lack for talent.

Some of their better moments on Saturday might have been the result of the Aussies becoming less frugal once they had built up a substantial lead (remember, they play the All Blacks in Sydney this week), but Bob Skinstad is right in saying that it takes something special to score four tries against the Wallabies.

What we cannot ignore, however, is the four tries scored against them, many of them being tries which were made to look so easy. Coupled with the five conceded against the All Blacks, it means that the Boks had nine tries scored against them in two matches. That is just not good enough. And if you turn to the number of points given away or attacking opportunities wasted through silly penalties conceded, it becomes even more disturbing.

It would be easy to say that the Boks lost because they are indisciplined and because they cannot tackle. But it may be more complicated than that. The truth is they are a young team and they still have some growing to do in a mental sense.

In both matches the Boks were guilty of conceding many of their points in little patches of time when they appeared to go walkabout and took on the appearance of a team unable to shake off the inevitable slices of misfortune.

In Wellington it was that "soft" try to Mark Hammett that appeared to knock the resolve out of the Boks. In the most recent test they launched an impressive rearguard action, but for me the critical score in the match was the second Aussie try, which was scored courtesy of two missed tackles. Although the Boks regrouped after halftime, let's be honest - the match was over at the break, when the Boks appeared to be carrying serious question marks over their temperament.

Question marks, I hasten to add, which are perfectly understandable if you look at the youthfulness and greenness of the team.

So what do the Boks do about all of this? As I wrote last week, you cannot buy experience, and there are not a lot of experienced players around worthy of the green and gold at this stage. The guys in possession are in almost every instance the best available.

One option is to wait until the team breaks the psychological barrier by winning a Tri-Nations test. That may happen in the next few weeks, we may have to wait until next year. Even then, it may take more than one victory to break through (remember the Boks did beat the Aussies last year).

The other option is to try and hasten the process by adopting the American approach of employing a full time sports psychologist who could help make the inevitable growing pains so much easier to bear.

By all accounts Jannie Botha did an excellent job with both the sevens Springboks and with the under-21s at the recent World Cup. I know the proposal was on the table before the Tri-Nations tour and Rudolf Straeuli will look at it again shortly.

It may not be a miracle cure for the Tri-Nations, but certainly it is something that needs to looked at seriously before the end of year tour, which includes tests against France and England.

As they say, no stone (or expense) should be left unturned or unexplored in the attempts to make this Springbok team the best that it can possibly be.

Did I hear someone say that we do not have a psychological problem against New Zealand and Aussie teams? If that is the case after all the beatings our players have suffered in the Super 12 and Tri- Nations over the past few years, then it has to be classified as a modern miracle.

And he who does not believe in the usefulness of modern sports psychology should perhaps put in a phone call to Ernie Els...