Plotting to shock Rip van Winkel

The newspaper bill-board summed it up: Rugby world lauds running Boks. The story that followed was the stuff we could only dream about previously.

Dated 23 November 2003, and written by an over-excited, nearly tearful South African hack, it described the mood perfectly:

"It was a day for lumps in the throat, tears in the eyes. It was a day when we could be proud, immensely proud, to be South African. Not just because the Springboks had won, but because of the style, the panache and the flair that they employed in doing so.

"To put it simply, the Boks had taken all the talk of conservative, boring rugby and stuffed it back down the throats of their detractors so emphatically that we probably won't hear a squeak from the talkative coaches of Australia and England for some years to come.

"It was also a day of immense satisfaction for the long suffering Bok coach, Rudolf Straeuli. As he exited the press conference room on Saturday night, he swivelled around to address the South African media present. His words were simple ones: 'Wat se die manne nou oor ons groot plan?'

"Those who were duped by the subterfuge of the months leading up to the tournament had no answer. How could they? From day one of this tournament it was clear that Straeuli's rugby was not going to be the boring stuff we saw in the buildup. The retro-Boks of June and July were replaced by innovators. They played futuristic rugby and simply ran their opponents ragged.

"Brent Russell and Andre Pretorius, take your bow. You were as elusive on the field during the World Cup as you were in hiding from the media before it. The South African success owes a great deal to the way you two agreed to make a clandestine, unannounced entry into the Cup. You too, Robbie Fleck. The way you managed to be both playing for WP and training with the Boks on the same day was the sort of magic of which Houdini would have been proud..."

Okay, okay, I know, this is all now getting a bit carried away. And for one brief moment, I almost started to believe it. But where else do you go when you try to second guess what Straeuli might mean when he says he has a surprise or two up his sleeve for the English.

For it became abundantly clear from the day that the Bok squad was announced that there would be nothing really surprising about these Boks at this World Cup.

Unless the players in key positions are going to metamorphose into people that they clearly are not, the Boks will be relying on forward dominance, a kicking flyhalf and a lot of stopping and blocking from the men outside the No10. Any thought of the Boks being pretty can be forgotten. The real question only revolves around whether it will be effective.

The omission of Pretorius robbed the Boks of any idea that they may have two types of game available to them in Australia. The squad at the World Cup is very different from what I would have predicted back in June or July. For while Straeuli's team started the year with a style of rugby designed to put people to sleep, he always did seem to have another plan to turn to at a later stage.

After attending all his early press conferences, it was possible to come to the conclusion that Straeuli was looking to retain more than just a small vestige of the style that dazzled us all in the 2002 Tri-Nations.

Players who did well in that tournament were all on Straeuli's list when he read out the names that were part of his plan and would almost certainly be wearing the green and gold at the World Cup.

Most specifically, he spoke of an exciting flyhalf/fullback combination around which much of his plan would revolve. "Andre Pretorius and Werner Greeff are certainties and I will definitely be using them to swop between fullback and flyhalf as the game situations demand," he said.

About Greeff he was right, but Pretorius is no longer in the equation even though he has made his expected recovery from injury and would be ready to play for the Boks tomorrow if selected.

Russell's inactivity since the squad announcement suggests we owe the coach an apology for the criticism sent his way when he left the Pocket Rocket out. Maybe he knew something we didn't. But then there was also reliable information coming back from the camp long before Russell was injured that the man who made a difference in the only two significant wins scored by the Boks in the last 20 months was no longer in favour.

If this information was accurate, nothing better illustrates how far Straeuli has moved from any plan that he was working on this time last year. Of course, back then Tim Lane was still involved, and Lane has been quoted in the Cape press expressing disbelief that Pretorius is not part of the Bok squad.

Having let Louis Koen, now the first choice Bok flyhalf, go from the Cats, it did not take a rocket scientist to figure out that Lane would have had big problems with the composition of the current squad. His axing earlier this year from the assistant coach's position was the first indication that the Boks would be looking to keep it boring.

However, the fact players who would have been key to a more open style of play are injured (remember Marius Joubert is also out) does introduce a few nagging questions.

For instance, was it always Straeuli's plan to play conservative rugby, or has his current direction been influenced by Pretorius' constant injury problems this year? He did tell me during the home season that his game would be determined by the personnel available. Was it simply a case of Straeuli's initial plan being subverted by bad luck in the form of injuries? That he wanted to have a running game available to him was clear as recently as the aftermath to the Tri-Nations defeat to Australia in Brisbane.

"Louis (Koen) will admit that he did not play well today. We have Andre Pretorius ready to play and I would still like to play a more attacking game if possible," said Straeuli at the post-match press conference.

As it turned out, however, Koen was never dropped, and he is favoured to start the important group game against England in Perth next week. Derick Hougaard, the one man that England have not played against before and a prodigious kicking talent, looks destined to stay on the sidelines.

There are still some faint glimmers of hope for those who would like to see the Boks play a more attacking game. One of them would have to be having Greeff move up into the flyhalf channel on an almost constant basis. With Jaco van der Westhuyzen now in the squad, it is also a possibility that Greeff, highly rated as a flyhalf, could bring a whole new dimension to the Bok play.

Maybe that is why Straeuli opted for a fifth fullback rather than a specialist centre when Jean de Villiers was injured. But given how highly the Bok management seem to rate Koen, who has played every test this year, I reckon all hopes of the above scenario transpiring have to be left in the realms of fantasy - much like the opening paragraphs of this column.

Regardless of whether or not it was Straeuli's plan back in April, it is now abundantly clear that the Boks will be relying on the old South African ingredients of gees (spirit), physical dominance, aggressive tackling and a gifted kicker.

If that surprises England, then we can only assume they have been asleep for the past few months. If the Boks win the World Cup, the key matches will definitely not be remembered for pretty rugby.