An uncertain greatness
Saturday saw the Springboks dominant. If one is to be honest, a flawless performance it was not, and it hinged mostly on simply overpowering a weak English opposition.
But that said, a weak opposition still needs to be beaten, and the Springboks beat them well in a performance which is truly heartening for the season ahead.
The backline is generally settled and sharp on quick opportunities, and the pack looks like it could well be the dominant force of world rugby in 2007.
I for one have been proven undoubtedly and blindingly wrong by Bryan Habana. After a few dodgy performances early on this year, I thought he had been completely shown up and I wrote him off.
Habana has made a joke of that.
His skill levels have shot through the roof, he is supremely focussed and he is probably the top winger in the world at the moment. I was, undoubtedly, and unmitigatedly, wrong.
The Springbok machine with the lethal Habana, the resurgent Ashwin Willemse and the sheer brilliance of Jean de Villiers trashed an English side that has no place in Test rugby. The English were, quite simply, blown away.
As the Jake White era has rumbled on, we have seen the Springboks gradually turn to a more forward-oriented and conservative pattern of play.
Last year was a shocker, but this year White finds himself with a flurry of fit and in-form and powerful players upfront.
John Smit has gone from lackadaisical to solid and certain, and the return of Schalk Burger, who looks as though he may be better than he has ever been, has worked wonders for the side.
This could be a great side come September.
But at this stage, the impending greatness still seems as though it may be a bit uncertain.
It has often been said that you need a big pack to win in Northern Hemisphere conditions.
I would say that size is meaningless in those conditions, in fact, size is meaningless in rugby.
Size is not the same as power, and although the two properties are closely related, power is derived from both speed and size, and not size alone.
The Northern Hemisphere will often see rugby played in the wet and in slow conditions underfoot.
Often it will take a big player too long to gain any kind of speed to transfer size into any power of impact. South Africa has been taking big packs to the Northern Hemisphere for the last ten years. More often than not those sides have been hampered by a weariness that decays speed, or they have merely not possessed the speed or accuracy to make their size count.
That is why some of the top Northern Hemisphere performers of the past have been players like Olivier Magne, Serge Betsen and Neil Back. Even a player like Lawrence Dallaglio, whilst possessing brute force, is not what one would term a player of immense bulk.
If South Africa bases its game on so-called ‘traditional’ strengths, they could still win the World Cup, but that kind of greatness is always uncertain.
If you are matched upfront, you need the sharpness and creativity to breach the defence in other ways.
But there is no doubt that this kind of fluidity of pattern is the very thing Jake White would be looking to garner as we build up to the World Cup.
If that ingredient is added, if there is no mere reliance on bulk, then we may just see what has been for so long so very elusive – a consistently world-dominating Springbok outfit.
That greatness, while maybe still requiring the sort of luck needed to win a final, would be by no means uncertain.
By Chris Waldburger
