Plenty to be positive about

There is nothing like a good Springbok victory to sweep away negativity and for once rugby was not treated like a swear word in the pubs around South Africa on Saturday night.

There was a lot about the Bok 26-22 victory over the Wallabies to be positive about and if anyone was to charge the South African sporting public with being fickle you would have to counter that there is reason for the change in mood.

In comparison with previous matches, the passion was clearly back, and so was the willingness to play positive rugby. Yes, the Boks did still kick for position, but this time they mixed up their approach and it paid handsome dividends. There may have been just four points in it at the end, but the Boks were emphatic victors.

Those who read this column last week will know that I did see it in the water - the Boks have in the post-isolation era tended to confound the critics (at least those who ignore history) by bouncing back from poor performances against mediocre opposition to win the big ones.

Those big ones invariably tend to be the home Tri-Nations test against Australia, and it is because these wins over the Wallabies have become something of an annual once-off celebration that we should tread with caution before elevating the Boks to the status of world champions in waiting.

Even in the darkest periods for the Boks they have somehow conspired to beat the Wallabies at home (witness the 61-22 win at Loftus in the Carel du Plessis era as well as the past two seasons) and the cynic who pointed out after the Newlands game that the only thing that has changed now is that "we have scored our win at the start of the competition instead of at the end" did have a point.

Fortunately coach Rudolf Straeuli and skipper Corné Krige know that and that is why they were taking such effort to keep their feet firmly ensonced on terra firma on Saturday night.

They should know from experience that the sudden change in mood to the positive can just as easily be swivelled in the opposite direction. Listening to people say things like "De Wet Barry has booked his place for the season" prompted me to think back to the number of occasions similar pronouncements were made in previous years only for the same player to become the villain just a few weeks later.

The column has been written before. After the 2001 win at Loftus, I warned the Boks not to allow their Braam van Straaten-inspired win to be remembered as yet another false dawn where success was shortlived.

Sadly for that team, it proved to be exactly that and by the time the Boks got to Twickenham for their final match of that year, the Loftus triumph had been long forgotten and relegated into the realms of the irrelevant.

But this is not a column which intends to dwell on the negative. The above is mentioned just to temper and balance out what is to follow. For make no mistake, there was plenty for South Africans to be elated about, even more so than at Loftus and at Ellis Park in the two most recent home wins over the Wallabies.

Regular readers of this column will receive no prizes for guessing that the most positive aspect of the win, as interpreted by this pen, was that it disproved the theory that the only chance the Boks have of success is to dominate at forward and play a conservative strategy.

Brent Russell did of course have a lot to do with the flair and panache that was suddenly inflected into the Bok backline play at Newlands. When he is on the field he does tend to confuse and disorganise opposing defences and his periodic incursions into the flyhalf channel made it possible for the Boks to carry their goalkicking genius, Louis Koen.

It was written after the Port Elizabeth test against Argentina that the Boks had to find a way "to play around Koen" and on Saturday they started to do just that. Did anyone notice the effect that the sudden appearance of Thinus Delport in the flyhalf channel had on the Wallaby defence at a stage of the second half? It very nearly led to another Bok try and as long as Koen is in the side ahead of André Pretorius this is a policy that the Boks will persist with.

Talking of Pretorius, who remains my World Cup flyhalf provided that his two-month crash course in tactical kicking has paid dividends (the bloke is no monkey when it comes to kicking for goal), there is another option open to the Boks apart from the obvious one of starting with Russell in the No15 jersey.

Pretorius switched with some success to fullback for the second half of his first test against Wales last year and Straeuli did mention earlier in the year that he favoured this as a possible option. At the time the idea was to switch Pretorius and Werner Greeff around during the game depending on the match situation, required strategy and field position, but in Greeff's continued absence he can just as easily do this with Pretorius, Russell and Koen.

Not that there should be any problem with Russell continuing at fullback, it is just that I do fear the All Blacks may make more of an effort to go out and rough him up physically than the Australians did and it is great to have another option if one day Russell does not emerge unscathed from one of those rucks.

With Pretorius in the team at fullback, it also becomes possible to move Russell into flyhalf without the side sacrificing a top-class goal kicker.

The other big positive about Saturday's game was the performance of Barry. The centre thoroughly vindicated the view of at least one provincial coach. The source shall remain anonymous, but he did express the view quite a while ago that Barry had been the key to the exciting attacking play of the Bok backs in last year's Tri-Nations.

Think about it for a moment - the Boks were renowned for their ability to attack, particularly off turn-over ball, during last year's Tri-Nations.

They rediscovered it on Saturday. Who were the two players that made regular appearances in last year's Tri-Nations who have been absent during the entire intervening period, when the Boks have not exactly been flush on attack?

That the answer is Barry and Russell must say something. But the Newlands victory was not scored only by the backs. Far from it.

The forwards laid the platform with an excellent performance, with the lineout formation leading the way.

With Barry's help the big men also turned over a lot of Australian ball in midfield. Straeuli deserves some credit for the way he and his management planned for this game and maybe this does partially explain why the Boks were able to play so well against Australia after being so poor against Scotland and Argentina.

Australia, like most of the other top teams, have a playing style that is less of a secret than the so-called minnows of the game. Ask the average layman how to go about beating Argentina and the chances are that apart from saying the Pumas have a strong scrum that needs to be negated, he won't have a clue as to the best strategy that should be employed.

But we know the Aussies well enough to know what to expect from them. Most of their moves start off the lineout, so it made sense for the Boks to use that as their starting point and how well Victor Matfield and Bakkies Botha responded to the challenge. The Wallabies also build a lot of their momentum around ball recycled quickly in the midfield, which is another area that the Boks played on at Newlands.

Hopefully the Boks have studied the All Blacks as closely as they have the Wallabies and also have a plan in store for them at Loftus.

One final thought - the Bok victory on Saturday was achieved without two players that I believe will be key to their World Cup challenge. Krige said a few weeks ago that his side will suddenly click at some stage of the buildup and be transformed into a very good team.

If that did not happen at Newlands, my bet is that it will happen once Bob Skinstad and Joe van Niekerk have returned to add an even more dynamic look to a team that was a revelation on Saturday.