There is only Butch

You could sense the scribes getting ready to accuse Springbok coach Peter de Villiers of contradicting himself when he spoke about his attitude to overseas based players.

Indeed, De Villiers must have sensed it too, for in the middle of his sermon on why he wasn’t going to stick with some of the overseas based players who played against Wales in the first international match of the new Springbok season, he diverted his tack.

“I know you are now going to be saying that if that is my attitude why am I bringing back Jean de Villiers, but that is a separate issue,” said De Villiers.

And as he explained it, he was quite right, it was a separate issue. The Springbok inside centre contacted De Villiers before he linked up with Munster and admitted that he had made a mistake by signing with the Irish club. He gave De Villiers an undertaking that he would be back in South Africa by 1 June 2010.

Not that the Bok coach should really have needed to point it out, for De Villiers has signed with Western Province. It was announced earlier this week, so only a fool would now refer to Jean de Villiers as an overseas based player. He is now officially a WP player again.

The Bok coach will be pilloried by some for what he said about the overseas based players being off the pace in the match against Wales in Cardiff. And you should question the wisdom of saying that the French based Joe van Niekerk and Frans Steyn were dropped because they have fallen behind their Super 14 based peers since they have been France.

That is basically like saying that the French league is inferior to the Super 14, and I can’t imagine a better way for De Villiers to motivate the French for this week’s game than saying something like that. If France win on Saturday where will it leave the De Villiers theory?

However, De Villiers does deserve credit for at least giving the likes of Van Niekerk and Steyn a chance to show what they can do in the green and gold, and while I don’t agree with his take on Steyn, if you listen to his intent regarding overseas players it all makes perfect sense.

What De Villiers said at the Monday press conference was a reiteration of what he has always said – he will only choose overseas based players if there is little option. In other words, if there are not players of sufficient quality back in South Africa who can do the job for him.

Come on, Joe van Niekerk is a fine player, but you can hardly argue that there aren’t several good No8s in South Africa perfectly capable of doing the job he does for the Boks when selected. In fact, if you look at the loose-forward talent available to the Boks, it is possible to wonder if maybe there is a special tree that grows in this country from which you can pick loose-forwards like they are fruit.

What is not plentiful at the moment is quality South African based tightheads. Yes, there are some promising young players, but are they yet international class? Arguably not, and this makes the decision to play BJ Botha even though he is still officially an overseas based player perfectly understandable.

It certainly makes a lot more sense than playing skipper John Smit there, as the Boks did with only limited and questionable success for most of 2009.

This leaves flyhalf – and Butch James, the man that De Villiers did not want when he made his first Springbok squad selection back in 2008 but who he now regards as a player who can do wonders for those around him.

Again, I am going to come up for De Villiers on this one. James would have been my initial Bok choice at flyhalf for last year’s series against the British and Irish Lions had he not been injured at the time. He is more reliable than Ruan Pienaar, who in the absence of Fourie du Preez is set to specialise at scrumhalf this year anyway.

The only question mark I had over James post the 2007 World Cup was his ability to get through to 2011, but here we are in 2010 and he hasn’t looked at all bad playing for Bath in the English premiership.

Of course, given what De Villiers has already said about overseas based players being off the pace, recommending James just on the basis of his overseas form would not be advised. But clearly the Boks do have a flyhalf vacuum behind Morne Steyn, and James has experience that just cannot be ignored.

Not only should he be given the chance that the contract dispute denied him in Cardiff, he should become a permanent part of the Bok squad again. There just aren’t any South African based international quality flyhalves that can do the job he is capable of doing.