Crucial fortnight for Smit
rugby365.com columnist Grant Ball believes Bok captain John Smit has only a fortnight to find his form and fight off his rival for the captaincy armband, Victor Matfield.
With Peter de Villiers’s ultimatum that John Smit will only play at hooker, the Bok captain has to hit form before May 2.
Smit has just two matches before the Springbok captain is announced in early May. De Villiers has said he won’t be considered at prop, listing Gurthro Steenkamp, Tendai Mtawarira (looseheads), Jannie du Plessis and CJ Van der Linde (tightheads) as better options. He said Smit will only be considered if he plays hooker. That’s reliant on Sharks coach John Plumtree’s team announcement on Thursday, and although the pair met on Monday, Plumtree’s very seldom bowed to De Villiers’s requests.
If Smit doesn’t play hooker, then what? If he does play No.2 and doesn’t perform, then there’s no justification in selecting him as Bok captain on May 2.
The big problem for De Villiers is that the next in line, Victor Matfield, has also been well below average in recent weeks, and is producing his worst form since becoming a Bok in 2001. If De Villiers axes Smit and replaces him with Matfield, that would be a case of double standards, as Matfield also doesn’t warrant a starting spot in the Bok team on current form.
De Villiers also blamed some of the senior players’ performances on ‘personal problems’. Who ever the player is, that shouldn’t be a valid excuse. What happens when he has personal problems during the World Cup? The players aren’t merely robots and deserve a degree of compassion, but at the same time, they’re also very well-paid professionals, and their performances should reflect that.
Maybe the only personal problems affecting the senior players are that they’re fatigued, not good enough any more and/or they’re too old?
De Villiers mentioned that there is a ‘cut-off date’ when time is up for under-performing players, and that seems to be over the next two weeks with Smit. Plumtree will announce his Sharks side to face the Hurricanes on Thursday, and that will say a lot what he thinks of De Villiers’s request.
Bismarck du Plessis has been the best hooker in Super Rugby this year, and it will be a massive call if Plumtree decides to start with Smit. Much of the Sharks’ problems early in last year’s campaign stemmed from the Du Plessis/Smit feud (which even led to a fight on the training pitch overseas), and Du Plessis having to step aside won’t sit well with him. Understandably so – Du Plessis is delivering and Smit isn’t.
Another problem with making Matfield captain is that the Bulls’ axis will hold even more power within the Bok camp. That wouldn’t be such a big problem if the Bulls were on form and their game-plan wasn’t outdated, but that’s clearly not the case.
Matfield wielded too much power on last year’s Grand Slam tour, where it was his call to start Zane Kirchner at outside centre against Ireland, and not to hand Pat Lambie a first Test start at fullback, simply because he didn’t want Morne Steyn’s berth to be placed in jeopardy. If Matfield takes charge, expect many similar pro-Bulls decisions to the detriment of the Boks.
If Smit stays, expect Matfield to cut a dismissive figure.
Either way, it’s a big problem for the Boks with less than five months to go until the World Cup.
Grant Ball writes for RugbyXV
