Phew! Geech got it wrong

A win is a win, ou pal, or so that old saying goes, and the Springboks and their fans are right to be celebrating.

Just how much they would be celebrating if it were not for the unexpected series defeat 12 years ago is an interesting question. The memories of the 1997 series distorted the magnitude of this battle, which is now effectively over, and made some people think the Lions were more of an obstacle than they were.

A theory was offered by a foreign scribe at a function on the eve of the first test that is worthy of consideration. It revolved around what Carel du Plessis, the Springbok coach in 1997, offered the world of rugby. He reckoned that Carel’s greatest gift was the lifeline he gave to the game in Britain, and also to Lions tours.

No-one really gave the Lions a hope before that tour, but Du Plessis was new to coaching and he made some strategy and selection decisions that played into the Lions’ hands. They were decisions such as the one that allowed Neil Jenkins to come here and enjoy our red wine without being tested by a single high ball in his unfamiliar position of fullback.

For all that, though, the Boks came tantalisingly close to winning the series. Current Bok coach Peter de Villiers was right to remind everyone last Saturday night that it was just a drop-goal that separated the teams 12 years ago. The Boks actually outscored the Lions by three to one in that rubber, which isn’t bad if you consider how hard their coach made it for them.

So the Lions win might have given British rugby a false sense of itself, and a false sense of where a Lions series really stood. That rugby was at a low ebb in the UK, and indeed in the northern hemisphere, in 1997 can be illustrated by remembering what happened later that year, when new coach Nick Mallett took the Boks on a triumphal and completely one-sided romp through Italy, France, England and Scotland.

It started coming right later in the decade, with some of the key members of the 1997 Lions team, most notably the skipper Martin Johnson, galvanising a rebuilding process at England that culminated in them winning the 2003 World Cup.

Since then though, the northern hemisphere game has again been on its ear, perhaps because there are too many foreigners clogging up their leagues. And since 1997, the Lions have won but once, which was the first test in Australia in 2001. In their last nine appearances, starting with the final test of the 1997 tour, they have won only one test – and I hardly need to convert that into a percentage to illustrate how poor that is.

So victory over the Lions, in two closely fought games where both coaches made mistakes, but where the individual superiority and experience of the Springbok players eventually won through, needs to be seen in perspective.

A Tri-Nations series lies around the corner, and that is the real testing ground for a team that wants to be No1 in the world – which is what the world champions should be aiming to be.

Some soul-searching needs to be done, and the Bok coaching staff must acknowledge how close they came to making this a repeat of 1997.

As I wrote in another story on SuperSport Zone immediately after the Pretoria test, had the Boks lost, a flock of chickens would have come flying in from the Loftus stadium rafters ready to roost, for the match showed up some severe selection blunders from the hosts.

Why was Heinrich Brussow’s important contribution to the come from behind 28-25 Bok victory dependent on the 53rd minute clash between Danie Rossouw and Brian O’Driscoll? Why did it take so long for Morne Steyn to get onto the field when it was clear that this was a week when the Ruan Pienaar gamble did not work?

And why weren’t Jaque Fourie and Morne Steyn playing from the start, like most critics thought they should have been? You could argue too that playing a player in such an important test who hasn’t had any kind of match practice since April, this time Schalk Burger, was another decision that was shown up.

But ultimately, for all the faults of the coaching staff both in Pretoria and Durban, it was Lions coach Ian McGeechan who was left to ponder where he got it wrong. And get it wrong he did, starting with the selection for the first test, where the emphasis on mobility allowed the Boks to start the series strongly.

If you want to know how much of a factor this was, look at the following fact: In the time that the Lions fielded a pack emphasising physical staunchness rather than mobility, which was from the 50th minute in Durban to when the props left the field in the 50th in Pretoria, the Lions scored 30 points to eight in 80 minutes.

When you look at it like that, it is clear that what South Africans should really be doing now is thanking their lucky stars that at last Geech got something wrong.