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Two teams in very different places
They’re playing to avoid the wooden spoon in the Vodacom Tri-Nations, but the reality is that the protagonists in Saturday’s match in Bloemfontein are in starkly different places in terms of their development.
While the Springboks are an established team dominated by players and combinations that have been playing international rugby for several seasons and with a liberal smattering of World Cup winners, the Wallabies can console themselves that of all the teams in the competition, they are the ones who are most growing their depth at present.
If you add up the players who are missing from the Wallaby line-up who will challenge strongly for places for next year’s World Cup team, the list goes almost into double figures. And while the Boks have lamented the absence this year of Fourie du Preez, some of the Australian players who are still missing are as influential to Saturday’s visitors to Vodacom Park.
Digby Ioane for instance was the star Australian outside back in the recent Super 14. If you want to hear members of the Wallaby management get excited about a player’s potential, listen to them talk about Ioane.
Then there is Stirling Mortlock, who is out for the season and has linked up with the Melbourne Rebels for next year. There were rumours that he was retiring from international rugby, but the Wallabies deny this. They say he could be back next year, and how the Wallabies could do with his strength and experience.
Then there is the big No 8 Wycliff Palu. The Wallaby pack looks short of a ball carrier at the moment -- Palu certainly fits that description, and he weighs in at a strong 120 kilograms. Ask some of the South African Super 14 sides how he has punished them over the years.
Lock James Horwill was the most influential Wallaby lock on the circuit when he was fit. He will be back next year. So too apparently will be Daniel Vickerman, who has announced an intention to come back to challenge for a World Cup place. Both those players can lift the incumbents, Nathan Sharpe and Mark Chisholm.
Then in the front-row there are a whole host of players who could add beef to the current configuration. Of the current Wallaby front-row, only Benn Robinson is likely to retain his place in the starting team when Tatafu Polota-Nau and Benn Alexander return next year.
Another front-row forward back next year is Sekope Kefu, and while he was not part of the initial Wallaby selection this year, Al Baxter is another player with international experience who is out recuperating from injury at the moment.
And then you can throw in two further names of injured players who starred for the Reds this year, Peter Hynes and Rod Davies. Both of them would challenge strongly for places in a Wallaby squad when fit.
BOK FRONTLINERS
By contrast the Springboks have most of their frontliners back in action now (Bismarck du Plessis is available but not being selected), and if you consider that Peter de Villiers appeared unsure towards the end of last year whether Heinrich Brussow would lift any of the current back row of Schalk Burger, Juan Smith and Pierre Spies, then Du Preez really is the only absolute starting certainty who is still absent from the team.
Ironically, he is one player whose absence has turned out to be a happy accident in that it has accelerated the selection of Francois Hougaard, who adds significantly to the Bok depth in an area that was potentially problematic for next year.
But depth should not be the problem to the Boks that it is to Australia just because the wealth of raw material is so much greater here than it is Down Under. There are probably players playing Koshuis rugby in Stellenbosch who could make it in Australia if presented with the right coaching and guidance.
Depth is an issue to Wallaby coach Robbie Deans simply because when a big player is ruled out of his team it does have a dramatic damaging impact. In that regard it may be understandable that while he is clearly feeling the pressure after three successive defeats in this year’s Tri-Nations, and also appears to be battling to come to terms with a culture that conspires against itself, as it did at Loftus last week, he has also been seen to afford himself the odd wry smile.
If you look at the lack of experience in the Wallaby unit, it is remarkable that they came as close as they did last week to upsetting the Springboks at altitude, and that they won so comprehensively in the last two matches these teams played on Australian soil.
For instance, reserve prop James Slipper, of whom the Aussies have high hopes and liken to former All Black Carl Hayman, was playing club rugby on the Gold Coast when the Reds were in Durban to play the Sharks in April. New No 8 Ben McCalman also made his Super 14 debut only in this most recent season, and he is just one of several players relatively new to this level of rugby who are starting to make their mark.
With the list of players due to return, it is clear that several players in the Wallabies jerseys are playing for their careers on Saturday. In comparison, most of the experienced Springboks seem to be royal game, with the current inexperienced coaching staff long ago realising that they would never get anywhere unless they banked on the core of the players who won in 2007 lasting through to World Cup 2011.
If that means the Wallabies, who also want desperately to end their 47-year Highveld drought, have more to play for and more hunger going into this last match which is about nothing more than pride for the Boks, the South Africans could just find themselves walking into an ambush similar to the one suffered at this venue by the 1982 team at the hands of the South American Jaguars.
Teams
South Africa: Frans Steyn, JP Pietersen, Jaque Fourie, Jean de Villiers, Bryan Habana, Morne Steyn, Francois Hougaard, Pierre Spies, Juan Smith, Schalk Burger, Victor Matfield, Danie Rossouw, Jannie du Plessis, John Smit (captain), Gurthro Steenkamp. Reserves: Chiliboy Ralepelle, CJ van der Linde, Flip van der Merwe, Ryan Kankowski, Ricky Januarie, Juan de Jongh, Gio Aplon.
Australia: Kurtley Beale, James O’Connor, Adam Ashley-Cooper, Matt Giteau, Drew Mitchell, Quade Cooper, Will Genia, Ben McCalman, David Pocock, Rocky Elsom (captain), Nathan Sharpe, Mark Chisholm, Salesi Ma’afu, Stephen Moore, Benn Robinson. Reserves: Saia Fainga’a, James Slipper, Dean Mumm, Richard Brown, Luke Burgess, Berrick Barnes, Anthony Fainga’a.
Referee: Wayne Barnes
Kick-off: 5pm
Prediction: Hmmm, the head says the Boks still have the advantages, but I have a funny feeling about this one.
