STRIKING IT RICH: Exciting Bok team and Sharks are evolving too

MAMA MIA, HERE WE GO AGAIN

The words of that Abba song were repeated over and over at Dunedin’s old Carisbrook Stadium, known to everyone as the House of Pain, when the Springboks lost 28-0 there to the All Blacks in July 1999.

At the time that was the biggest ever South African defeat at the hands of New Zealand, and although the team captained by Gary Teichmann was weakened by injury, the Boks also conspired against themselves. Which they’d made a habit of before Nick Mallett took over as coach in the latter part of 1997, but mostly hadn’t done under his watch.

The Kiwis seemed to love Abba almost as much as the Aussies did in those days, and it was long before the needle for most stadium DJs started to get stuck on Neil Diamond’s ‘Sweet Caroline’. So Abba, and particularly Mamma Mia, because let’s face it ‘Knowing Me, Knowing You’ just wouldn’t fit at a sports event, was what we got over and over that afternoon in Dunedin.

To the point that when the Boks started to get back to their old habit, the words started to go through my head. To get there I had travelled from the Outer Hebrides, the islands off the coast of western Scotland, where my wife’s parents lived. The starting point was a three-and-a-half hour ferry trip from Stornoway on Lewis across The Minch to Ullapool, then an hour and a bit bus ride to Inverness.

From there I flew from Inverness to Gatwick, bus trip across London to Heathrow, from there on Qantas to Sydney via Bangkok. From Sydney it was a flight over the Tasman to Christchuch, and then to end the journey, what felt like a few days after departure, a flight on a small jet-prop in turbulent weather on to Dunedin.

So the travel fatigue and jet-lag might have been worse than usual, which explained why I actually got tearful watching Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore in ‘The Wedding Singer’ somewhere over the Tasman, and might also explain why, after the Boks played like they’d just made the same long journey I had, my match report in the newspapers the next day started with the words ‘Mama Mia, here we ago again, the Boks are up to their old tricks again…”

I felt like that this past Saturday watching from afar as the Boks slid to defeat in Auckland. Certainly for much of the game it felt like a rewind to a previous era, not to the 1990s but back to a few years ago, when the Boks so often let themselves down as much as the opposition beat them.

The post-match reaction felt like a time-warp too - there was celebration in some quarters of a narrow defeat, which shouldn’t ever happen now as the Boks should no longer be the chasers but the leaders.

CIRCUMSTANCES ARE DIFFERENT NOW

While Dunedin in 1999 represented the end of a patch of South African dominance that started with the end of year tour, Nick’s first in charge, in 1997, the circumstances are different now. And also very different to when the Boks lost to the Kiwis at Mt Smart in 2023.

As SuperSport commentator Matt Pearce pointed out on the New Zealand rugby magazine programme, Breakdown, it did feel when the Boks went behind 14-0 after almost the same number of minutes that the game was going to be a one-sided affair like that one was.

However, times have changed, and while I don’t disagree that it was in the first quarter that the All Blacks effectively won the match, the Boks have broadened their game to the extent that chasing down an All Black lead in New Zealand is possible. And they very nearly did it.

As I wrote in the Talking Point column on Tuesday, there is merit in the theory that the switch to an attacking mentality might be playing a role in the negation of a key previous strength, meaning the lineouts, but sometimes you do need to take a step backwards before you can go forward. And evolution of the Bok game is necessary if they are to have the adaptability that keeps them ahead of the chasing pack.

NOT TRUE THAT A BIG LEAD MAKES KIWIS UNCATCHABLE

There was a specific reason that the words “in New Zealand” were used when discussing the potential for a Bok comeback against an early All Black lead.

It is hard to remember it happening in New Zealand before, although the Boks did turn around a deficit in Wellington in clinching their drought breaking win in 2018, but Mallett’s 1998 team must be tops when it comes to achieving come from behind wins against the All Blacks.

It happened in Durban, the day that the All Blacks ran out to a 23-5 lead and still held that advantage with just a quarter of an hour left on the clock. It looked like a comfortable win for the Kiwis but Mallett was ahead of his time in the sense that he may have been the man that invented the Bomb Squad.

It wasn’t eight reserves who came on in those days, rather half that number, but Mallett knew how to get impact from the bench and the likes of Bob Skinstad, Ollie le Roux and Franco Smith did that magnificently in that year’s Tri-Nations.

The Boks fought back in that game to win 24-23 and no South African who was at Kings Park that day will forget the exhilarating feeling of seeing the Boks snatch a win from the jaws of defeat.

It must have been how Aussie fans felt after Ellis Park a few weeks ago.

WILLEMSE AT CENTRE MAKES THIS A BIG SHIFT

If there is something that really confuses me about the Bok team for Saturday’s game in Wellington it is that Rassie chose to announce it on a Monday.

That’s an early team announcement even by Rassie’s standards, and yet if I was choosing a team that had Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu in it as a flyhalf replacement for Handre Pollard, Damian Willemse for Damian de Allende and Canan Moodie for Jesse Kriel I’d want to keep it under wraps for as long as possible.

Surely there was a lot to be gained for the Boks by keeping the All Blacks operating in the relative fog they would have been preparing in had Rassie not chosen to make his intentions so crystal clear.

For there is a big shift signalled by the exciting selection for the Sky Stadium game, and in particular that of Willemse at inside centre.

The Stormers player is not the typical Bok inside centre who takes the ball up, but a player who fits the mould of the old New Zealand second five-eight like Aaron Mauger or Dan Carter - meaning a player who can operate as a third first receiver.

With Willemse in the team it isn’t just fullback Aphelele Fassi who will be dovetailing with the flyhalf Feinberg-Mngomezulu as first receiver and it does add massively to the Bok attacking options.

Given the unpredictability of Feinberg-Mngomezulu and Willemse, and the fact they will be standing next to each other, the All Blacks could have their hands full defending the Bok attacks if the visitors get momentum through their forwards.

NECESSITY TO “BED IN” AS A COMBO BLUNTS OPTIMISM

There is no limit to the excitement South Africans should feel about the latest selection if you take the long view and assess it on potential. Make no mistake, if the Boks get the bit between their teeth and the passes stick, this team could prove a resounding success.

But you won’t get me actually predicting that it will happen because I feel a bit about it like I do about the English soccer team I support, Liverpool, now that they’ve recruited a string of star players.

Alexander Isak, Florian Wirtz and Hugo Ekitike are star players who should improve the team, but although they top top the Premier League after three games even before Isak plays his first game, the number of newcomers has undeniably necessitated a “bedding in” period that has limited the team’s effectiveness thus far.

That may be the case in Wellington for the Boks. As it turns out, the three backline players in the key positions nearest the pack are all Stormers players - Cobus Reinach, Feinberg-Mngomezulu and Willemse. So there will come a time down the road where they will all know each other well and be familiar with each other.

But that’s not the case just yet, and while Reinach has yet to play for the Cape franchise, I can’t remember an occasion where Sacha wore the Stormers 10 and Willemse the 12. They both have experience of wearing those jerseys, but not as a combination.

This though is just another way of hedging my bets, for the reality is that the combination is very exciting. And if it doesn’t hit the target in this game, it would be foolish to bet against it happening in the future if it was persisted with.

Which is the challenge for Rassie - how much patience will he have if the need to build for the future sees his team continue to sustain the almost inevitable hits that come with that policy? Hopefully he does, and we all do too, because there is a dazzling mix of different threats in this latest Bok selection that is almost unprecedented.

IT WOULD BE GREAT TO SEE FARRELL DO A BROWN

I knew this already from speaking to players who have been teammates of his at Saracens, but it was still refreshing to discover how different Owen Farrell is to the persona that is sometimes portrayed of him by media people - not least those from his own country.

I have to decide whether the feature will be used now, as Farrell starts his second career at Saracens, or held back to be used in the buildup to the Investec Champions Cup game between Saracens and the Sharks that will be played in Durban in December, but what I will say about the man many South Africans love to hate is that if he has any character flaw it is that he may be shy. If that is a character flaw?

Farrell gave me some of his time in Umhlanga last week, where I was staying in the same hotel as the Saracens squad, and he was a refreshing interview. Although he might have been a bit confused about part of my line of questioning.

With part of it revolving around whether, seeing he wants to become a coach later in life, he would be interested in doing a sabbatical as a player/coach with the Sharks.

Someone called Tony Brown did that with the Sharks back in 2006 and we all know where he is now. And the Sharks players of that time will vouch for what the All Black flyhalf taught them about work ethic and professionalism.

Farrell is a quality player who appears to give as much for whichever club jersey he wears as he has done for England or the British and Irish Lions, and he has a key quality that probably inspired the hatred some South Africans have had for him (well okay there was also that tackle on Andre Esterhuizen) - namely he hates losing.

I think Farrell would do for the Sharks what Brown did for them 19 years ago, and in turn the Sharks could do for Farrell what they may have done for Brown’s own growth.

STAND BY FOR THE ALL BLACK SHARKS

No, I am not thinking of Kiwis when writing that sub-headline, although there have been a clutch of All Blacks who have played for the Sharks/Natal over the years. Apart from Brown, think Murray Mexted.

Rather, I was thinking in that heading of how close the Sharks are to fielding a team that doesn’t feature a single white player. Before a late change was made and Nick Hatton was called in to start, John Plumtree had chosen a team for the match against the Airlink Pumas that featured just two white players - Emile van Heerden and Francois Venter.

DHL Stormers coach John Dobson likes to talk about his team representing the different cultures of the Western Cape region, and up to now he has done that really well, but the Sharks are arguably now taking the lead when it comes to that aspect of South Africa’s rugby evolution.

Which is a good thing for a few decades ago there was a fear that the changing demographic of Durban might leave the Sharks battling for support if they didn’t change with the times.

CURRIE CUP SHOULD HAVE ELIGIBILITY RULES

There was some rightful indignation when the Sharks, Western Province/Stormers and Bulls coaches brought back their United Rugby Championship players last week to turn a potentially exciting final round of the Carling Currie Cup into a URC warmup, with most of the games being won comfortably by the bigger teams.

It was understandable why it was done. It is costly to arrange a separate warmup game, and the URC teams do now treat the Currie Cup as what it is, which is a development competition. But it did still undermine what had been an exciting competition and it was easy to feel sorry for teams who had become used to playing fellow domestic cats over the six weeks of the Currie Cup but then, in the deciding round, found themselves suddenly running into a caracal.

Here’s the solution and it is a simple one - bring in eligibility rules for the different rounds of the Currie Cup. Stipulate that players who participate in the final round of the regular season, and in the semifinals and finals for that matter, have to have played a minimum number of league games in the competition. Four would be a good number.