By Gavin Rich
When Lood de Jager was leaving a press conference in Umhlanga this week he was asked if he wanted to wish Australia luck for their game against New Zealand in Auckland on Saturday. The Springbok lock looked the questioner up and down briefly and gave a little grin before answering with an emphatic “No!”
Not even the desperate need for the All Blacks to be tripped up at their fortress at Eden Park in Auckland is enough to turn the South Africans into Wallabies fans. And yet some much of what is realistic or not when they go into their Castle Lager Rugby Championship decider at Kings Park on Saturday evening depends on that earlier game.
WHAT IS NEEDED
If the All Blacks lose in Auckland, the Boks will just need to win. If the Kiwis win without a bonus point, then Siya Kolisi’s team will win their second Championship title, and their first one contested over a full round, if they themselves win with a bonus point. If the All Blacks win with a bonus point, then the Boks need to get a bonus too and also make a points differential that currently stands at 13 points.
That’s really the tricky one. Given the All Blacks’ long dominance at Eden Park over all opposition, and they have an unbeaten run there that stretches back to 1994, a big win for the All Blacks is not out of the question. And if that happens, let’s say they win by 30 and the Boks therefore need to win by 43, then the whole task becomes a little bit unrealistic.
Yes, the Boks have run up cricket scores against Argentina before. But that has usually been on the highveld, where the rarefied, thin air can suffocate the fight out of visiting teams. On the coast, and at a venue where the underfoot going isn’t quite as quick as say Emirates Airlines Park, it’s a lot less likely.
NOT IN DNA TO GO WIDE TO WIDE
If the Boks do face the scenario of having to win by 40 or 50, or even 30, it is going to be interesting to see how they approach the game. It isn’t in their DNA to go wide to wide from the outset of a game, and anyway that would be unwise. The Boks route to success is the one they applied so well in the first half in Buenos Aires – they need to dominate the forward exchanges and control the game from there. They need to be direct and they need to be accurate in executing the basics.
They showed last week they have the material to do that. Their mauling was formidable. Their carrying game was just generally outstanding. If they can manage to wrestle the scrum dominance that was expected in Buenos Aires but not forthcoming, that will be even better. But when we talk about the Bok dominance last week we are talking about the early parts of the game, as well as the last part, when first Damian de Allende and then Malcolm Marx went over for the tries that made it a good day out for the team.
What the Boks can’t afford on Saturday if they are chasing a big margin win, and Pieter-Steph du Toit touched on it during the week, is to lose focus at any point. The quest for a win like the one they might be seeking requires them to limit the point scoring of the opposition as much as it requires them to score points of their own.
If the All Blacks get a bonus point and win, this will not be a day where a say 38-28 win for the Boks will be good enough. It will need to be closer to 38-3.
One thing we know for sure though about this Bok team is that whatever the magnitude of the challenge, they will embrace it. And coach Jacques Nienaber will enjoy watching them do it, for the onfield pressure, as opposed to the ridiculous off-field pressure they faced before last week’s game where there were reports speculating, wrongly, on what was going to be run by other media organisations the next day.
MUCH HINGES ON FRANS
Given how much the team has changed in the last while, mainly because of injuries, no-one can complain that Nienaber isn’t spreading his net. He’s down to his fifth choice flyhalf on Saturday in the form of veteran Frans Steyn, and much will depend on how the former Sharks player comes through at his long time home ground.
He’s only played once for the Boks as a starting flyhalf, and the coach of the time Peter de Villiers never persisted with the experiment as he felt Steyn was too selfish as a pivot. Of course that was 2008, meaning 14 years ago, but thinking back to the stint Steyn had as the Sharks No 10 under Jake White, he doesn’t appear to be the kind of flyhalf tailored for bringing all the players around him into the game with slick play.
Regardless of what the team is chasing though, Steyn will have to have some slickness around his play in the Durban game. And it also goes without saying that the Boks will have to finish off their scoring opportunities.
It hasn’t felt as humid as it can be in Durban this week, in fact until Thursday it was pretty cold. But the conditions could play a role too. It is hard to hold onto the ball when it is rendered slippery by the sweat drenched jerseys.
Regardless of what is required on Saturday though, the whole day is set up as a thrilling decider to the most competitive southern hemisphere competition since Argentina was added to the participants in 2012 to transition it from being the Tri-Nations into the Championship.
It is a day when the eyes should be engaged and minds and hearts absorbed in the action not just from the late afternoon kick-off in Durban, but also the one in Auckland much earlier in the day. It’s the kind of day players live for an supporters live for.
Who is going to win the competition? Argentina coach Michael Cheika said on Thursday that he doesn’t tip, that just sets people up to be fools, and finding out who is going to win is really why we have a game. That is the right attitude this week, for it is impossible to say who will be the overall winner as there are too many variables that come into play. What it is reasonably comfortable to bet on is a Bok win. But by how much?
A VENUE WHERE KIWIS EXPECT THEIR TEAM TO WIN
The All Blacks have made some changes for this week’s game, some of them forced. The headline changes is in the midfield, where former NRL star Roger Tuivasa-Sheck will make his Bledisloe Cup debut. The centre made his international debut against Ireland in July but has not played in the Rugby Championship.
Injuries to David Havili (head) and Quinn Tupaea (knee) have opened the door for the 29-year-old, who has been playing for Auckland in New Zealand’s domestic competition.
On the negative side of the balance sheet, the All Blacks will be without regular captain Sam Cane because of injury, and also the form blindside flanker Scott Barrett. Sam Whitelock leads the team, with Ardie Savea back in the mix after going on parental leave and bringing his invaluable experience to the mix.
Wallabies coach Dave Rennie, himself a New Zealander, has made just two changes to the side that so nearly brought him success in Melbourne last Thursday, with Harry Wilson coming into the back row as a replacement for the injured Rob Leota, while injury also accounts for the return of Cadeyrn Neville at lock for Matt Philip.
The New Zealand supporters don’t hope their team wins when they play at their spiritual home, they expect it. This week they will just be wondering by how much they will win by as that is all important. Wallabies coach Rennie though sees that expectation as a great challenge for his team to embrace.
“The side parked the disappointment of the last test early in the week and we have plenty to play for in Auckland on Saturday night.
“New Zealand supporters have an expectation that the All Blacks win at Eden Park and we’re excited to get another crack at them at their spiritual home, “said Rennie.
What his predecessor in the Wallaby job, Cheika, was prepared to say when he was asked the question in Durban, is that in rugby anything can happen. If the unlikely happens, the Championship is for the Boks to lose. And Lood de Jager might just find he is a Wallaby supporter after all.
Teams for Kings Park
South Africa: Willie le Roux, Canan Moodie, Jesse Kriel, Damian de Allende, Makazole Mapimpi, Frans Steyn, Jaden Hendrikse, Jasper Wiese, Pieter-Steph du Toit, Siya Kolisi (captain), Lood de Jager, Eben Etzebeth, Frans Malherbe, Malcolm Marx, Steven Kitshoff. Replacements: Bongi Mbonambi, Ox Nche, Vincent Koch, Franco Mostert, Duane Vermeulen, Kwagga Smith, Faf de Klerk, Kurt-Lee Arendse.
Argentina: Juan Cruz Mallia, Emiliano Boffelli, Matias Moroni, Jeronimo de la Fuente, Juan Imhoff, Santia Carreras, Gonzalo Bertranou, Pablo Matera, Marcos Kremer, Tomas Lavanini, Alemanno Matias, Bello Eduardo, Julian Montoya (captain), Manuel Tetaz Chaparro. Replacements: Agustin Creevy, Marco Vivas, Joel Sclavi, Guido Petti, Pedro Rubiolo, Tomas Cubelli, Benjamin Urdapilleta, Bautista Delguy.