The point of no return

Let’s be honest about it – the Springboks got what they were looking for in their opening game of the World Cup, but for most of the game their performance was diabolical and they looked more like chumps than champs.

Although it started well, it wasn’t a performance to silence those who bleat that the Boks haven’t grown their game since the last World Cup. While the obvious improvement of the defensive system is a positive, this one bright spot was outweighed by the disorganisation that seemed so prevalent in other aspects of their game.

Doubtless there will be those who will wonder why there is need to be negative when the team won. And they wouldn’t be completely wrong, for if you can beat Wales by only playing for 10 minutes, why complain about it? There is also some merit in that old theory that winning playing badly is the sign of a champion team and is what separates the front-runners from the also-rans.

It did take some composure, which comes with experience, to come back and win in the final quarter after looking so out of it when they fell behind for the first time in the match. And the need for experienced heads at a World Cup has been what has underpinned so many of the selection decisions that have been made in the last couple of years.

Bok coach Peter de Villiers is also right when he says that he would rather not be Wales right now. By conspiring somehow to lose the match when really they should have won it comfortably, the Welsh confirmed their own status as a team that just doesn’t quite know how to win against the big teams.

But what is relevant here is that the Welsh lost the game rather than the Boks winning it, which is the reason why some hard questions do need to be asked at this juncture. After this comes the point of no return, and any hard decisions that need to be made must be made now or any chances of making history by retaining the World Cup would have disappeared.

It is too late to completely overhaul the Bok strategy of the starting team. But it is not too late to make a decision or decisions that can make a quantum difference to the Bok chances of success. At every World Cup there are turning points for teams that do well and for teams that do badly. In 2007 the England players reacted to their Pool defeat to South Africa by opting to shun the style of their coach Brian Ashton and revert to the most basic “boring, boring England” formula.

It meant they made the final instead of going home early. Four years previously their winning campaign was helped in no small measure by the decision, made during the World Cup itself, to play Michael Catt at inside centre.

What the Boks need to do now is be honest with themselves in assessing whether the perception we critics got at the Wellington Regional Stadium on Sunday, that some of the old guard are just past it and need to be replaced by more energetic players, is the correct one or not.

During the build-up to the international season there was a lot of talk from the coaches about the intent to be more scientific in selection by working on the measurables rather than just perception in deciding who plays and who doesn’t.

Everyone knows, or assumes, there is a plan in place with regard to the most contentious selections, and a lot of thought has gone into the timing of when some players will start or not start, but it took way too long for the Boks to send Bismarck du Plessis onto the field in Wellington.

The coaches know that with Juan Smith missing Du Plessis’s attributes have become even more crucial than they were already, and it was one of the reasons the Boks came such a poor second in the collisions in the first hour. Some of the other 2007 World Cup veterans have been slated to play a role at this World Cup ever since 2009, but are they really indispensible or are there players who might just offer a bit more?

If the management does what they said they were going to do, which is to take the emotion out of the selection by heeding the stats and the empirical evidence before them, then the last part of Sunday’s performance might prove to be the Bok turning point of 2011. But that is not going to happen if the decision makers bury their heads in the sand and let the end result avert the facts.

The coach said after the Durban test against Australia that the match was only lost on the scoreboard but not on the field. Many questioned whether such a thing was possible, but if it is, then Sunday's game was one which was won on the scoreboard but lost on the field.