Straeuli's chances of success depend on No10

Now that Rudolf Straeuli has become the most talked about person in South African rugby, perhaps this is an opportune time to honour a request from Supersport commentator Andy Capostagno.

The name of the new coach is not pronounced Strawlee, Stroalee or Strowlee. Neither is it Straauwly (my pronunciation). In Switzerland it would be pronounced Stroylee, which considering it is a Swiss name, is the way it should be spoken.

Now that we have that out of the way, let's get to the big question everyone keeps asking: Will the bloke make a success of the Springbok job? My answer is a simple one - give me the number of Butch James and Butch James' doctor and I should soon come back to you with an answer.

The problem faced by Straeuli is the same one faced by just about every Springbok coach of the post-isolation era. He needs a flyhalf that will do for South Africa what Henry Honiball did a few years back and Joel Stransky before him. He needs someone to become for the Boks what Jonny Wilkinson is for England.

Actually, he may require a little more than that. The flyhalf with talent must have alongside him an inside centre with a brain. If Straeuli is confused about what sort of person we refer to here, perhaps we can give him a hint: There is a blond guy who used to play for Natal and Western Province currently coaching his former alma mater in Pretoria.

Yes, someone like Dick Muir, or even better, Michael du Plessis. We have not seen the like for several years now and unless we have all been missing something, there are not too many in the current bunch who boast the credentials.

Maybe Robbie Fleck could fit the bill, but the last time I saw him he was watching the game from the Capetalk commentary box and before that he was wearing a plaster cast on his ankle.

But back to Straeuli and James. My take on Straeuli's appointment is that the right man has been given the job, but with one proviso.

That proviso is that we must see rather more of the Straeuli rugby circa last year's Super 12 and significantly less of the turgid stuff that was thrown at us by the Natal Sharks for much of the last Currie Cup season and by the Sharks in the first two weekends of this Super 12.

There are some living in the city where I reside who have infamously dubbed the Sharks the Durban Dinosaurs and there are others who claim they know only how to bully and not how to play.

These are views which I did not share before but which I am finding harder to fight against with each passing week. A Stormers player told me last week that he and his teammates were under the impression that the Sharks team they beat in Durban the other day were more intent on hurting than on winning.

If that is true, then we have to hope that Straeuli will recognise the need to add a couple of dimensions to that strategy or we could see the Boks playing a game that will differ little from the lamentable testosterone driven style that was employed with such disastrous consequences on Harry Viljoen's last tour as coach.

But I don't believe that Straeuli is bereft of ideas outside of the forwards, just as I don't for a moment believe that he condones the way his team have played in these last few games.

Those who accuse Straeuli of being a one-dimensional coach who employs a one-dimensional strategy are dealing in myth rather than fact. They may also be suffering from dementia, which is not an uncommon condition among sports fans and critics.

People who do possess memories should perhaps turn back the clock to this time last year and recall what type of rugby the Sharks were playing then. It may have been different in the final against the Brumbies, when they were denied the ball and thus unfairly compared to pre-historic monsters, but for most of the competition they played a vintage running game which netted them a stack of tries in matches against the Blues, Hurricanes and whichever other Kiwi team crossed their path.

No-one could possibly refer to the classy allround performance which buried the Cats in the semi-final as a boring strategy. It was the sort of rugby which we used to classify with the term "total rugby".

It was Straeuli's opinion that the best way to beat a New Zealand team was to start off at a frenetic pace and retain that tempo for the entire 80 minutes.

It was an approach which worked to perfection.

That we have seen little of that sort of rugby from the Sharks since then may have everything to do with the absence from the Durban team of Mr James, a flyhalf who looked for all the world this time last year to be the answer to every South African rugby fan's prayers.

That James never quite made the step-up to international level last year may be because the Springboks had Viljoen as a coach, and not Straeuli. Those who disagree that James is the business should erhaps approach the aforementioned Fleck for his opinion. The WP centre reckons he's the best thing to hit South African rugby since the retirement of Honiball.

Of course, all of this might appear quite irrelevant if you consider that we will not be seeing James in action until the start of the Currie Cup season and hence he won't be there for the home international season. But the point is that Straeuli just needs to get the right mix of players in the decision making positions.

Step two may be to employ a backline coach who can do for him what current Border coach Cobus van der Merwe did during that heady period when the Sharks were playing out of their skins during the 2001 Super 12.

But his priority must be to unearth a player or players who can ignite those around him like James did 12 months ago. In that sense he faces the same challenge as that which was faced by Messrs McIntosh, Christie, Markgraaff, Du Plessis, Mallett and Viljoen before him (John Williams had Naas Botha for all of his five tests).

Christie got it right in 1995 and Mallett in 1998 and those just happen to have been the two years in the 10 since our comeback from isolation that South African rugby has reigned supreme.

If Straeuli does not find the perfect No10 no amount of fitness, discipline or professionalism from the support staff will be enough to extricate South African rugby from its current low position on the world rankings.