The question of the jersey's effect

If anyone was trying to justify the all-pervading depression that fell on many South African rugby followers at the end of the away leg of the Tri-Nations, All Black coach Graham Henry summed up why they were feeling that when he arrived in the country at the weekend.

“It has been going well so far, because there was a feeling in New Zealand after the Super 14 final that we would not be able to match the Springboks,” said Henry.

Yes, and that was only two and a half months ago. Henry's words are a reminder that the South African expectations were not based on false hope and were completely justified. This was not a year when the Springboks should have been so emphatically outplayed away from home.

The Super 14 final was a massive advertisement of the strength available to South African rugby – not just the fact two South African teams made it that far, but the quality of the rugby produced. It had New Zealand and Australian writers expressing a sense of foreboding about what would become of their national teams at the hands of the Boks.

But the dark days that the Kiwis and Aussies were predicting for themselves have not materialised. It's the Bok season that has gone pear-shaped, with the downward slope that started with the last end of year tour being continued.

There have been a lot of excuses peddled about. There can be no doubt that the Boks got their selection horribly wrong in every overseas game, and I do agree that there was probably complacency going into the tournament. As has so often been the case, the results were as much to do with the Boks taking out the old 12-bore shot-gun and pointing it at their own feet as the strength or form of the opposition.

But perhaps the most confounding aspect of the away leg of the Tri-Nations was the one that so many of those looking for excuses seem to overlook – why was it that players who were average in the Super 14 could pull on the All Black jersey and suddenly become world-class, while the opposite was true of so many Boks?

Dan Carter was a player who wasn’t anywhere near his best in the Super 14. He won a few games for Crusaders, but there were times when the question was asked if he had lost his mojo. And it was asked even more often of Richie McCaw. By his own standards, the flanker had an average tournament. We wondered whether the new laws had taken him out of the game.

Come the Tri-Nations, however, and McCaw is suddenly the best player in the world again, and Carter is not far behind him. Virtually every All Black player who struggled in the Super 14 is suddenly a new player again now that the All Black jersey is back over their shoulders.

It has been the converse for the Boks. Players who were magnificent for their franchises have looked extremely ordinary in the green and gold. The excuse is used that they are tired, but these same players did not look tired in the Super 14.

And come on, isn’t that old fatigue excuse overused? It was definitely a mistake to run some of the Boks straight into the international season from the Super 14, but it hasn’t been as if there has been no opportunity for a break.

In the month before the Tri-Nations started, the Boks only played against lowly Italy. If the Bok approach to judging when a player is fatigued or not is really as scientific as it should be, and it was found that players were fatigued, then they should have been rested then.

When the Boks run out to face the All Blacks in Soweto this week they would have not played for a month. So it can’t just come down to them being tired. They face the same schedule as their opponents do, and the All Blacks went on an even longer tour last November than the Boks did at the corresponding stage of their rugby year.

The Tri-Nations season is over for the Boks, they don’t have a chance of winning it. But over the remaining three weeks of the southern hemisphere season the Boks need to do what their All Black counterparts have done so emphatically this year by giving the impression that their national jersey is a step-up for them from their Super 14 franchise jersey, and not the other way around.

This really isn’t a year when home victories over New Zealand and Australia should be something that is hoped for. It should be an expectation. It’s time for those entrusted with the task of keeping the flag of the Springbok brand flying to take on the same commitment to excellence that we see at the top local Super 14 franchises.