Selling our birthright for a mess of pottage?

Paul Dobson takes a critical look at the list of Springbok excuses that keeps piling up and asks why we are still putting up with this mess that calls itself a Springbok team management!

If England thought Saturday's defeat to Argentina was the nadir, they hadn't reckoned on Sunday's papers. Look away now if your name is Andy Robinson…

I'm sick and tired. I don't know about you but I'm sick and tired of excuses – and other things. And the World Cup and our annual end-of-year embarrassment. I'm sick and tired of it.

I listen to the excuses, some of them pre-match excuses as if there is the premonition of disaster.

The Irish have more caps than we have – as if it could possibly be the fault of Ireland that we have an inexperienced team. In recent times we have created Springboks by the dozen and here we are with an inexperienced squad.

It is also not Ireland's fault that we pick a fly-half on the wing, a wing at centre, a centre on the wing, a lock at flank and a flank at eighthman.

It's not Ireland's fault. We did that. On our own we did it, which means it is no excuse.

Or do we do things in the full and certain knowledge that they will not work?

The selections are all our fault.
* We chose Lawrence Sephaka who cannot get a game for the Lions.
* We chose Enrico Januarie who has had problems of weight and form.
* We chose Johan Ackermann, the oldest Springbok in 85 years. Presumably he is being groomed for the World Cup, when he will be the oldest Springbok of all time.
* We chose CJ van der Linde who could not run a week or so ago.
* We chose gentle Albert van den Berg and left him to sink into anonymity as a starting Springboks.
* We chose Juan Smith who has not played since August.

It's also not Ireland's fault that we play into a strong wind and spend our time kicking the ball into the wind. We attack in their 22 and kick and try to fish the ball back 80 metres down the field.

We hear complaints that the Springboks are not rested enough.

The team walloped by Ireland – and the score flattered South Africa – must be the most rested international squad in the world. Rest has not worked. If we carry on resting, it will work even less – and it won't be the fault of Ireland or anybody else.

It won't be the fault of Super 14 coaches or provincial coaches either. They are blamed for playing people out of position, which is an irony, and now blamed because they do not play this non-tackling defensive pattern the Springboks employed.

The Pumas (Argentina) came from all over the place, from five different countries, and in four days got a plan together which beat England at Twickenham.

I'm sick and tired of hearing about the World Cup.

It seems to be the excuse of every damned mediocre performance. We are preparing for the World Cup.

If there were some detectable plan it may possibly be some kind of excuse for devaluing Test matches, but there is no detectable plan – none at all.

Then to run out onto the oldest Test arena in the rugby world wearing something like the garb their great predecessors wore and produce a performance like that with the excuse that we are preparing for something else.

It smacks of disrespect – for the game, for the opponents of the day and for the great performances of previous generations of real Springboks over the past 100 years.

It also smacks of poor planning. It's fine to say that this whole "process" was planned and that some group of rugby bureacrats approved of it. But what is it? What is the planning? What effect is the planning having? Surely if planning is to be taken seriously, it is done a bit earlier than this.

Paul Roos and his men were not paid. They did not have designer anything, but on their hearts they wore a springbok. It was not a pretthappens if we go on with performances like this in the interests of a World Cup next year and the World Cup next year turns out as catastrophic as the 2003 World Cup? What a price we will have paid – not just on the field but in the hearts of our rugby people.

It is rare now to find amongst schoolboys serious about rugby a Springbok who is their rugby hero. Rare.

Are we selling our birthright for a mess of pottage?

Do you agree with Paul? E-Mail us your view!