Arrogant Boks

Burger’s selection showed scant respect for Lions
The Test match against the British & Irish Lions at Loftus Versfeld yesterday was supposed to confirm that South African rugby is undergoing something of a golden age. But there were few players worth their salt.

Simnikiwe Xabanisa, Sunday Times

In the end, one couldn’t shake the feeling that local rugby is engaging in a spot of navel-gazing when they should be maximising the fact that they possibly have the greatest Springbok team of all time on their hands.

But the fact is that the Boks won 28-25 to avenge their defeat of 12 years ago against the Lions and go 2-0 up in the three-Test series.

But as Morne Steyn displayed the kind of coolness no second Test cap should — he nailed a 53m penalty to secure the victory — one couldn’t help but wonder about the arrogance displayed by South Africa this week.

The first act of disregard for a well- coached, well-organised Lions squad was selecting open-side flanker Schalk Burger as soon as he recovered from his calf injury, instead of Heinrich Brussow.

As selections go, it was a sentimental one aimed at giving the great man his 50th Test cap in a Lions Test.

This flew in the face of the fact that the Lions would have planned to play against Burger for at least two years and had not quite worked out Brussow in two outings against them.

Compounding the error was the fact that the Burger that turned up was, a little like Michael Jackson by the time he died this week, not quite the man he used to be after not playing rugby in six weeks.

Burger’s first act in yesterday’s Test was to get sin-binned for what appeared to be an attempted eye- gouge on Luke Fitzgerald in the second minute, an indiscretion that gave the visitors a 10-point head-start. He also had a spat with Mike Phillips.

With the game 50 minutes old, the original tackling machine had made only three tackles.

Burger capped off a woeful performance by straying offside for the penalty that took the Lions to 22-18 late in the match.

Brussow, by contrast, secured three steals; helped keep Jaque Fourie stay infield when scoring the third try that took the Boks ahead; and put in a thumping tackle on the dangerous Shane Williams in his own half.

All this in the 18 minutes in which he came on for fellow replacement Danie Rossouw.

That Brussow was on the field was one of two lucky breaks the Boks had. The second was when the Lions’ props were withdrawn due to injury early in the second half, which gave the Boks the respite of uncontested scrums.

Judging by how the Lions started from where they left off in the first Test, and the way the Springboks showed scant improvement other than lively substitutions, it would seem the Bok coaches underestimated the visitors’ ability to improve at altitude. This led to a situation where the Lions had 71% possession by the 23rd minute.

The sight of John Smit imploring his troops to calm down, as he had with three minutes left in Durban, at the half-hour mark, told a story of its own.

The coaches will try and vindicate themselves by pointing to the fact that not only did they win the game, but they secured the series.

The fact that the Boks played as badly as they did, and still won, against a team that played as well as the Lions did, should tell them something.

The only Boks who were worth their salt on the day were scrumhalf Fourie du Preez and wingers Bryan Habana and JP Pietersen, with Fourie, Brussow and Steyn doing their bit from the bench.

Sure the World Cup, the Super 14, the IRB Sevens and now the Lions trophies are in SA, but it’s no reason for our rugby to rest on its laurels.