Only one way to get Boks fit

There was something a little bit disturbing about Joost van der Westhuizen's observation that the Springboks need to get fitter as their first step towards the World Cup title.

It is not so much that someone within the camp can intimate that the players are short of fitness that made his statements disturbing, but the fact they were redolent of the things that used to be said in a bygone era.

In the old amateur days rugby success was often dependent on size, strength, attitude and fitness. It was not unusual for teams to place a heavy emphasis on fitness in their buildup to a tournament, almost relegating everything else to insignificance. Sometimes it was enough to turn mediocre teams into good teams.

But few who have watched the Boks, and indeed the South African Super 12 sides, compete against foreign opposition in recent years will be fooled into believing that what we lack is fitness. Quite clearly, the biggest problem is skill and the identity of the players selected in crucial positions.

I hope then that Van der Westhuizen's comments are not the prelude to a return to some neanderthal spartan-like training regime which will see the Boks running up and down mine dumps and generally behaving like soldiers in the first weeks of basic training in an infantry camp.

Kitch Christie did get away with it in 1995, when he was severely criticised by some sports scientists for sending the players up and down sand dunes. But this is a different era and this is also a stage of the season when players should be fit from playing.

Several times in my rugby writing career I have seen good teams blow their chances by concentrating too much on fitness at stages of the season when they should be doing something else.

The most notable was back in 1993, when Natal under Harry Viljoen, after an excellent start to the season, suddenly lost their way about two months before the decisive part of the Currie Cup.

Viljoen and his fitness adviser Chris van Loggerenberg decided after a trip to Bloemfontein, where altitude was clearly a factor in Natal's second-half demise, that the players weren't fit enough. So the training sessions became more spartan, the workload on players bodies became more arduous, and injuries were the result.

What was really wrong with the Natalians was that they had been over-trained, and they got caught up in a horrible vicious cycle when their management decided that the answer to the problem was to train them even harder.

Ultimately there is only one way for the current crop of Springbok players to become really match fit, which is surely the type of fitness we should be looking for, and that is to play lots of rugby.

In the past few weeks I have interviewed the following players returning from injury: John Smit, Breyton Paulse and Jean de Villiers. All of them have had one wish in common as they look ahead to their World Cup chances, and that is to play as much rugby as possible.

Smit, if he had his way, would like to play for Natal right up until the World Cup actually starts, just so that he can get used to the idea of playing rugby consistently week in and week out.

By his own admission the hooker was blowing bubbles in the second half of his recent excellent performance against Griquas. There was a simple reason for this: He had not played a full 80 minutes in several months.

No amount of hard work on the training field and in the gym had prepared him for the stress of actually playing. Hopefully he will get fit now by playing a lot of Currie Cup rugby in the coming weeks.

The same should also surely apply to Werner Greeff and Faan Rautenbach, two players believed to be World Cup certainties by virtue of he fact that Western Province have been told that they will be going straight into the national group, rather than becoming available for the province, when they are ready to play again in August.

Yes, playing Currie Cup is a risk in that players can get injured. As Bob Skinstad has discovered, you can even injure yourself playing at club level. That is one of the things rugby players just have to accept - it is a tough contact sport (okay, the Aussies might prefer it if it wasn't) and injuries come with the territory.

While on the subject of Skinstad, there is a cruel irony in his situation. It will be recalled that there was some controversy in May when the Springbok management decided he should be rested for the last Super 12 match.

At the time when he was pulled out of the Newlands match between the Cats and the Stormers, there was no official injury. But we were told that he was to be sent into the rehabilitation camp, where he would be made stronger and would be ready to explode onto the scene once he returned to the Boks.

Sadly for Skinstad, whatever strength or fitness he picked up in that rehab camp has been wasted. He saw just 10 minutes in the test against Argentina and was then left out of the Tri-Nations squad because he lacked match fitness.

Now why was it that he lacked match fitness? Those who made the decision to wrap him in cotton wool should know the answer to that one.

Ultimately there is only one way to get the fitness and sharpness needed for a key World Cup match such as the one the Boks face in the early stages of the tournament, and that is to play rugby.

Let's just hope the Bok management understand that and don't make the same mistake the national cricket management did earlier this year by sending the players on a survival course at a time when they should be honing their playing skills.