You have to hail Jake’s achievement

Amidst the elation in the pubs around Newlands following the win over the All Blacks, there were some who were still unhappy. Why, asked some punters, did the Springboks allow them to grab that bonus point? It could be critical.

Well, of course, it could well be. We know the Boks won the Tri-Nations last year because of bonus points they accrued for losing by less than seven in their two away games, and if all the matches are again won by home teams this year, we could well see the title decided that way again.

But for goodness sake, we were talking here about a win over the All Blacks. Not something that happens every day, and not something that has happened at Newlands since 1976 (although I am one of those who count the 1986 win over the Cavaliers as a mighty achievement).

It is a measure of how far the Springboks have travelled under Jake White that suddenly the team’s long-suffering fans are starting to get picky. We saw it after the previous week’s game at Loftus. After the big win at Ellis Park, many people expected a repeat. When it did not happen, and the Boks scraped home, their acted as if the side had under-achieved.

Never mind the fact that they had had to fight back from a halftime deficit against one of the top teams in world rugby, a nation that has won the World Cup twice and appeared in the last two finals.

The mood can shift very quickly in professional sport. For instance, some of my fellow South African journalists told me on Saturday night they had been disappointed with the play of the Bok loose-forwards against the All Blacks.

This confounded me because I thought the South African back-row was outstanding and had played more than just a bit part in laying the platform for victory. It pleased me then to read some New Zealand scribes writing that the All Black loose-forwards had been “blanketed” by their Bok opponents.

That is the way I saw it too, and had this not been so, the All Blacks, with all that firepower at the back, would surely have won the match comfortably.

The man who impressed me the most was also none other than Joe van Niekerk. A player many believed was lucky to retain his place in the extended squad after a poor Super 12, Van Niekerk is to my mind one of several players who has thoroughly vindicated coach Jake White’s selections.

He was not all over the All Blacks as an attacking player as he was at Ellis Park last year, but then it was never going to be a match which would allow him to dazzle with ball in hand. What Van Niekerk did so outstandingly was tackle the life out of his opponents, and I can recall at least one try-saving cover tackle which may have saved the match for the Boks.

In the end that was how close it was. The All Blacks on a couple of occasions had opportunities to score which were destroyed by excellent last gasp cover tackles when one more pass would surely have clinched the seven pointer which would have enabled New zealand to win.

Indeed, it was a weekend where we were reminded of just how narrow the line is between success and failure in international sport. Had one of those movements resulted in a try, the Boks would have lost. Had one of Steve Harmison’s leg-side balls in the closing stages of the epic Ashes test at Egbaston been edged to the boundary, he and Michael Vaughan would not be the heroes they are in England today.

But then that is what sport is all about, and the winners deserve all the kudos that come their way. White has found the right inside centre, he has come close to arriving at the right loose trio by retaining faith with what he knows, and his captain John Smit has in the past three matches silenced his critics with some monumental performances in the front row.

After all the brickbats that were sent his way when the squad was selected at the end of May, now is the time for his critics to acknowledge that regardless of what happens for the remainder of the Tri-Nations season, White got it right.

You just have to remind yourselves of where many of his current Boks were during the under-achieving Super 12 season to realise that this is so. The nation that was so poor at Super 12 suddenly has depth all over the place. Somebody has to be doing something right. And that somebody has to be White.